Possible Enhancement - (slight) support for multiple file format music libraries

[agentsmith]

Just found out that Anapod has plugin for FLAC

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php

[Robin Bowes]

stokessd said the following on 01/19/2006 04:39 AM:
> So I would like to be able to organize my music and deal with artists
> etc and be able to download the MP3 versions to our ipods, and only
> play FLAC versions to the squeezebox. So far, my mental solution is to
> keep two separate libraries and manage them independently.
>
> Ideally, I'd like to have the music I typically enjoy ripped to FLAC
> for the squeezebox, and more casual music only ripped to MP3 and be
> able to "see" the MP3 library as well. If there is a linking between
> libraries to be able to play MP3's that don't have a FLAC version, then
> the SB system needs to be smart enough to play the FLAC file if there
> are both a FLAC and an MP3.
>
> I suspect that all this "if then" stuff is beating a dead horse and I
> should always rip to FLAC and then re-rip from flac to MP3. The FLAC
> data is HUGE compared to the MP3 data, and I will always have duplicate
> libraries.

I was in exactly the same position.

The management overhead in just transcoding *some* tracs is too high.

I wrote flac2mp3 which takes a library of flac files and converts it to
a library of mp3 files - same structure, same tags.

http://projects.robinbowes.com/flac2mp3

R.

[GregD]

Hi Sheldon - I'm still using your tube DAC - although now mostly connected to the Squeezebox. Good to see you here.

I'm actually really interested in this as well. My wife and I both have iPODs and I've ripped my entire 800 CD's to MP3's and I'm planning on doing it again to FLAC and putting my CD's away in the closet rather than keeping them on shelves. The squeezebox is now going to be a key component in my digital audio portion of my stereo.

I do think this is an issue for many ipod carrying audiophiles. Or at least semi-audiophiles. I am willing to take a little hit in sound quality to have a huge library on the pod, but not for the home stereo. So how are you others handling both FLAC and MP3 versions of the same music?

I keep both sets of music (in my case Apple Lossless and AAC) in different directories, and all of them in iTunes. I use iTunes as a general tag editor & encoder. When I add new music I have to move some files to maintain the directory structure. I use smart playlists to make sure only the small files get onto the iPod.

I only tell the SlimServer about the Lossless files, and tell it NOT to talk to iTunes.

I found a workound to my MusicMagic problems - there are 'exclude' lists which can take wildcard filenames - so I can tell it to exclude the AAC directory. When I sync MM with iTunes I then only see the Lossless files - I can then use MM filters to give me unplayed playlists etc in SlimServer

iTunesUpdate keeps iTunes up to date and I have some scripts to keep playcount info in sync between the AAC and ALE files.

Only thing I don't have yet is the ability to crate MM playlists for the iPod - although I could do this with a 'translate playlist from ALE to AAC' script when I have time.

Phew!

[mkosma]

cool! according to the website, its AudioMorph transcode-on-the-fly feature supports FLAC and OGG and a few other oddities via a plugin available from them.

[Michaelwagner]

Just want to amplify on something said earlier: there is an enhancement request here:
http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=775
if it fits what you want to see done, vote for it. The most voted for enhancement requests get priority.
Or perhaps http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2805