I need a manager/player for my mp3s now that I'm ripping and encoding my hundreds of CDs. I store tracks on my HD in folders like this Genre/Album (album folders are titled "artist - album name" I edit tags so things match up. (ie stuff in the "soul" folder is actually tagged as soul.

My problem is that I want a Windows-based player that will display the collection grouped and sorted by genre - artist - album. So I want all my classical together and within that all my Beethoven together and all my Mozart together etc. I don't care about seeing tracks, at least not before I expand an album. The other important thing I want the software to do is start playing an album I click on without having to create a playlist. The closest thing I've found is the MEXP plugin for Winamp that has a tree view, but only shows artist and album, and doesn't group things by genre. I don't want beethoven mixed in with the beatles. The other close program is Musicmatch Jukebox (horrible bugware, IMO) but that displays album-artist-genre (if I recall) and doesn't allow nested sorts (ie sort by genre, within each genre by artist) - if you sort by genre then the artists within the genre are unsorted. Do the people who design this stuff actually use it??

I've downloaded a couple of others (one other program with jukebox in the name) and of course I have Media Player, but none of them do what I want and I'm tired of installing stuff and having to reinstall it while my registry gets clogged up with debris (and I don't want to have to back up the registry before every install).

Does anyone know of anything that will meet my needs. Free or commercial, I don't care.

Thanks

As a classical listener, I searched long time ago a nice organisation tool based on tags. foobar2000 and its AlbumList component gives me the most complete solution I've never seen. I can sort/add to playlist my entire library, according to :
- composer (easy)
- performer
- nation
- period
etc...

For exemple, I can send to playlist all sacred music of french composer from baroque period - and only these files.


AlbumList should be useful for your needing (correct me if I didn't understand exactly what you want) :
http://membres.lycos.fr/guruboolez/images/..._albumlist2.png

I don't quite understand what u want but i thiunk u want to sort both genre/artist/albbum together

since u don't care about commercial i will recommend Media Center
just go to its website and downloaad the BETA version 9.1

website: http://www.mediajukebox.com/mediacenter

Stable beta : ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/...iaCenter9_1.exe

latest beta : http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.c...;num=1065210619


30 days free trial, its enough for testing purpose
I didn't buy the program myself coz I'm using XMMS now

DJ2000 allows you to sort by genre,artist,etc using tag info.

I just checked it. You set it to sort by genre,pick the letter of the genre, B for blues for example.

It will then show the blues stuff on your system displayed by artist, album, and song title.

DJ2000 is the best money I have ever spent on software.

mexp plugin for winamp will do just fine if u apply the right settings.

Media Center 9.1 (still in beta) from J. River (http://www.jrmediacenter.com/) is by far the best Windows all-in-one app I've used. It has decent ripping (LAME) and encoding quality, great playback sound (better than Winamp), and is now generally bug-free (used to be a problem).

The interface cannot get better.... They went from their tree-format which is fully customizable (you can make a Genre/Artist/Album tree if you'd like), which is still in the program, to adding iTunes-like navigation also (with the frames for Genre/Artist/Album).

Try it out, and I'm assuming you'll be happy with it. They also offer great support on their message boards. I have yet to see a better all-in-one media app....

Disclaimer: I do not work for or represent J. River in any way. I am just a satisfied customer.

Also, Media Center is the only Windows app I have seen that fully supports WMA (even secure WMA9 files), QuickTime, and Real formats.

J River Media Center is what you need. Second all opinions about it. The thing is an organizing monster. If there is something, and I mean anything, in a tag you want to sort by, it will do it. You can now even create your fields if you want.

There are few other things that I like about it.

On the fly conversion (to cd) with gain & DSP settings applied. While MC uses 83db as its default, it does so from meta-tags, which I prefer. I can live with the lower threshold. It will also apply crossfading and other settings if you wish.

Playlists and Smartlist. Used in conjunction with each other, you'll have a hard time finding anything easier or faster. Smartlists are also self populating when new additions are made meeting the criteria.

I could on, but the best bet would be to try it out yourself.

Available here: ftp://ftp.jriver.com/pub/downloads/music/...Center91267.exe

I've installed many builds of MediaJukebox/MediaCenter (v. 7, 8 & 9), and if I was really enthusiastic about the features of this nice jukebox, I was always bored by the constant bugging behaviour (esp. crashes).
I've installed last beta you suggested : less than 5 minutes later, including installation time, the software crashed (I did a right click on a tag panel ). The last crash I saw with foobar2000 occured in april or may...

It's a great shame : this software is really a nice one...

Right click on tag panel? Could you elaborate a bit? MC has been as stable for me as foobar for at least 4 months. They are so close to release on this one, I find it odd that it would crash.

ps - What OS?

Can't be more precise ; I'm not familiar at all with MC. I just tried to see how MC is displaying tags information (bad way, I must say, for my use), and tried to edit them. By doing that, I right clicked on a windows showing tag informations, and then it crash. 98SE OS.
Some stabilities issues are reported in mediajukebox forum : this software doesn't seem to be a very stable one. But I'm happy for you

I had 98SE along time ago. It was a nightmare with anything I used. Even with all patches and updates. MC-MJ wasn't so stable when I used that OS. Once upgraded to XP life became very good.

Just in case...

If you are using the latest beta, click on the action window (lower left side) > File Properties > Tag Info or File Type Info. This will probably get you the results you want.

Example of File Type Info:

(Bold to show what is copied from clipboard)

MPEG-1 Layer 3
202 Kbit VBR (with Xing header)
44.1 Khz Joint stereo

Copyrighted: No
Original: Yes
Protected by CRC: Yes

ID3v1 Tag: (128 bytes)
Name: Soul Sacrifice
Artist: Santana
Album: The Best Of Santana
Year:
Comment: CRC : F5A7EE19
Track #: 16
Genre: undefined (255)

ID3v2 Tag: (502 bytes)
TENC (Encoded by): Exact Audio Copy (Secure mode)
TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Solo..): Santana
TRCK (Track number/Position ..): 16
TBPM (BPM (beats per minute)): 67
TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): The Best Of Santana
TIT2 (Title/songname/content..): Soul Sacrifice
COMM (Comments): CRC : F5A7EE19
COMM (Tool Name): Media Center
COMM (Tool Version): 9.1.267
COMM (Album Artist): Santana
COMM (Replay Gain): -14.32206
COMM (Peak Level): 1.00000
COMM (Intensity): 4

Anyway, sorry it didn't work out for you.

Are these fields personal one ? I often read that ID3v2 specs don't allow to create them.

I find a bug, and a way to reproduce it.
Show file information (tagging), and show them as pop-up window. When this window is enabled, click on the small icon "portable download" => crash.
Without this small window on screen, the click on this icon bring a clean and normal message error ("no device connected").

BTW, you're probably right : 98SE isn't the best world for stability

To be honest, I'm not sure. I've been looking at these types of tags (in MJ-MC) for so long I never bothered to check.

Most are additional comments that MC makes I'm sure. I believe it uses these for meta-data handling most times.

Maybe the Winamp2 Media Library does it, too.
Just create a new view (right-click on Local Media) and type a rule like "genre HAS rock" and aktivate "Artist/album view".
The result is a seperate Album- and Artist view for the files that match your rule.

Thanks for the tip about Media Center 9.1. It does exactly what I wanted, as far as I can tell so far.