MediaMonkey 4

[Lowlander]

Alpha means it isn't feature complete and might have bugs, beta means it's feature complete and might have bugs, RC means it shouldn't have bugs and might get released as is when no bugs are discovered. In any situation developers attempt to not have bugs in the software, but the more people test the more bugs are found especially as many more user environments can be tested for.

[rovingcowboy]

Alpha means it isn't feature complete and might have bugs, beta means it's feature complete and might have bugs, RC means it shouldn't have bugs and might get released as is when no bugs are discovered. In any situation developers attempt to not have bugs in the software, but the more people test the more bugs are found especially as many more user environments can be tested for.

yep i know that i was thinking they wanted to get it as perfect in the systems they have and use before they turn it loose on us cause as you well know there are always tons of errors found after a release with as many different systems as monkey is used on.

and the more perfect it works from the gate the better the bugs are found and fixed after the gate opens.

i thought RC meant Rovingcowboy.

[Mizery_Made]

The Devs have been testing the builds internally for MM4, likely since the start of development. We'll still see an Alpha before Beta giving it's such a big release and introduces a feature would has the potential to be riddled with bugs in the early stages (that being video). Like you say, we know it's coming at some point, we just don't know exactly when. Yes, Jiri said he wouldn't like what they were doing at the time to take more than a month, but he didn't say "MM4 will be released for testing in a month." Doesn't mean we won't see it in December though, just means we shouldn't expect it. Also RC can be short for Release Candidate (which like Lowlander states, is a build that if everything is running smoothly and there's no bugs, will be released as the final product).

[rovingcowboy]

i thought RC meant Rovingcowboy.

thats my ego showing a little there Mizery_Made

[Dreadlau]

mm4 public alpha is now downloadable here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 56#p278637

[rovingcowboy]

sorry dreadlau this is NOT a public Alpha testing version, repeat THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC ALPHA version.

that being said you can and should know that

the version being released there is a SCRIPT AUTHOR'S PRE ALPHA SCRIPT TESTING ONLY VERSION.

[xmas elf]

I would like to know whats the difference..
I want to see what kind of features this new MM4 has; so does this mean that all functionality aren't there yet?
Tried it out and it looks like the main focus is on network sharing & video support, I'm curious if this can stream music from home to work.. been wanting that feature for a long time.. I

[Lowlander]

It means that they're not yet looking for bugs, you can try it out, but it's just meant for feedback from addon developers. An alpha tends to be feature incomplete anyway.

[Peke]

Bug Feedback is always welcome no matter of state, but feedbacks from Script Developers have higher priority and Normal Users are asked for patience.

@xmas elf
Try and report.

[mediumspiny]

Hi,

I have been holding on for MM4 in the expectation that it will have a PlayTo feature like Windows Media Player 12, except that it would work with Win XP. Having downloaded and tried the alpha version I cannot see this feature anywhere. I can use my WD HD TV Live to access my MM music DB (once I set up media sharing) which is a start, but I wanted to control the HD TV Live from the PC rather than vice versa.

Does anyone know if I am missing something or if this functionality is not going to be included?

[Peke]

For now WD HD TV Live should be able to control MediaMonkey. Will notify Dev. that worked on Media Sharing to evaluate/revise that option.

[mediumspiny]

For now WD HD TV Live should be able to control MediaMonkey. Will notify Dev. that worked on Media Sharing to evaluate/revise that option.

Thank you for the reply. In fact having used this all day yesterday I really like the functionality that has been implemented. My main interest is to play my whole library randomly. Previously I have made large playlists and stored them on the USB HD attached to the HD TV Live (off topic I know, but maybe useful to some other users of the HD TV Live). These playlists could only be a maximum of about 2000 songs as the HD TV Live will not load larger playlists. I have some 12,000 songs in my library and wanted to select randomly from all those. With the new functionality, I connect quickly (few seconds) to the MM uPnP server and select "All Music" which rapidly (10 seconds) loads my MM library.

So far so good, and very pleasing. A few problems though.

1) Only roughly half the library appears. I selected all the types of file that I use in Tools -> Options -> Library -> Media sharing -> Auto Conversion -> Set Formats, but this probably only applies to the files types that can be auto-converted as removing all file types did not change how many titles appeared in "All Music". The order that the files appear in is alphabetical, but not the same as in the MM library. It is not based on the Title tag or the file name, so I cannot figure out why some titles do not appear

2) Playlists. Besides "All Music", there are 9 other nodes including "Music Playlists". I expected to see the same playlists here that I see under the Playlists node in MM but I find a set of playlists that have been auto-imported from albums. Not sure why as I can't find these playlists anywhere in MM (although they are in the album folders on the hard drive).

3) When a new track starts, the music starts playing then a few seconds later the track details on the screen change to those of the current track. Sometimes they then change back to the old track for a second or two before reverting to the correct details. This may be a bug with the HD TV Live (a notoriously buggy piece of equipment), but I thought I would mention it in case it rings any bells with the MM developers.

In general, I like this functionality, but, as I said previously, I would prefer to use MM to stream music to the HD TV Live because of the many limitations of the HD TV Live. I love the library functions in MM and the auto DJ so I want to continue to use those.

Keep up the good work.

[Dreadlau]

The Christmas build has arrived! http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... =3&t=54426

[Peter Panino]

Is there a better internet tag database feature in version 4? The actual MM version connects only to freedb which is somewhat limited. Recently I discovered a program which seems to me as the best ripping program as far as internet database tagging is concerned: dBpoweramp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com) which can get the tags from 4 !! different internet tag providers! Now I rip my audio CD collection to MM with dBpoweramp and I get the best tagging results I ever had! (I mostly collect classical music). I have to say that before using dBpoweramp I lost a lot of time correcting the tag errors when ripping my CD collection with other programs! But I would like to re-tag some of my thousands of tracks which are already in MM, so I would like a better auto-tagging feature of existing tracks in MM!

[nohitter151]

The actual MM version connects only to freedb which is somewhat limited.

That's not right, even MM3 can also tag from Amazon by default and with addons also tag from other databases like discogs and musicbrainz.