Lost Features

[niqo]

Suggest listing down those features we've enjoyed in QCD and are missing in QMP. (In general I really do like QMP, it's as always the best player imho. But, however, some losses/changes make me really upset)

Skin

Album name not shown on the main display (where the song title and Artist name are)
No in-skin display for visualizations
Small mode is too wide, a stick mode is required
General look a bit boring, something blueish would colour it up
Performance

Switching between skin modes takes a while, unlike QCD
CD rippingis now unclear. One should sownload some additional stuff (not included in the QMP installation distributive), whereafter one meets a lot of new settings which seem excess. QCD provided everything needed. Then, after setting encoder quality to high or very high the process becomes very slow, almost realtime encoding. BTW Does this setting really affect the qualit of the encoding?
MusicID is a cool feature. However sometimes it mistakenly renames my songs with no prompting, which were absolutely correctly tagged.
Not all plugins work under QMP, for instance, Xcopy and Meterz Visualizations pack.
After all, can someone explain, what do quinnware Replaygain and Shibatch EQ plugins do? Would really appreciate it.

What do others think?

[danman]

Skin-most of your criticisms are simply personal preference, but:
1. I find that I don't really look at the display that much, and I don't mind the album title missing.
4. I assume your complaints about the color will be resolved when new skins are written specifically for the new build.

Performance:
1. Skin mode switching is instantaneous for me (I have a fairly fast computer though, 1.8GHz Pentium M with 1 gig of RAM).
2. I don't ever use QMP for ripping--I recommend Exact Audio Copy (www.exactaudiocopy.de) or CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/)
3. MusicID does change some information . . . this is a MusicID issue and not a QMP issue though. Fool around with the MusicID settings and see if you can make things work better. If it's any consolation, my understanding is that MusicID replaces the "Media Library information" for a file, which is just QMP's database; it doesn't actually alter the ID3 tag within the file (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
4. I don't use xcopy, but Meterz Pack works absolutley fine for me.

Realplaygain is a method for modifying (most usually normalizing) the volume of your MP3's with metadata rather than actually altering the file (again this is just my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong). Only players that can read the metadata can utilize Realplaygain modifications.

Shibatch EQ is a high quality equalizer--it greatly increases the audio quality for your EQ settings.

[mirock]

Skin changing is instant for me as well, I have a AMD 900 and things are pretty quick...actually hadn't thought to try older skins but i did for sake of testing...works fine here...

as far as Titles and such..I sort of miss the "file name inteprator" ...I've tried this plugin and can't seem to make it work but oh well...

Over all I am happy with the new and the changes that have been made. Great Job...

[gzero3k]

MusicID is a cool feature. However sometimes it mistakenly renames my songs with no prompting, which were absolutely correctly tagged.
Yeah, I find that kinda annoying too. If it's like danman said, an option to organize the media library based on the id3 tags instead would be neato. :cool:

[jawpr]

[QUOTE=niqo]Suggest listing down those features we've enjoyed in QCD and are missing in QMP. (In general I really do like QMP, it's as always the best player imho. But, however, some losses/changes make me really upset)

Skin
[list=1]
No in-skin display for visualizations
Small mode is too wide, a stick mode is required
General look a bit boring, something blueish would colour it up


Why don't you just use another of QCD's many skins that do have the visuals in the player and do have a stick mode?

[Toe]

Realplaygain is a method for modifying (most usually normalizing) the volume of your MP3's with metadata rather than actually altering the file (again this is just my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong). Only players that can read the metadata can utilize Realplaygain modifications.
Essentially, yes. You scan your tracks, and RG calculates the adjustment needed to bring the perceived volume to a certain level. There's two values figgured: one a 'track' adjustment, so that essentially all your songs would be at the same perceived volume, and one an 'album' mode, that perserves volume differences relative to other tracks in the same album. (These two modes are also called 'radio' and 'audiophile' respectively) The calculated values are stored within tags and applied at playback time, rather than changing the audio data on the disk itself. You can switch between track mode and album mode, or no ReplayGain at all on a whim, just by changing the config setting.

[Protocol]

Could someone please explain 'radio' and 'audiophile' mode a little more?

[hedge]

Realplaygain is a method for modifying (most usually normalizing) the volume of your MP3's with metadata rather than actually altering the file (again this is just my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong). Only players that can read the metadata can utilize Realplaygain modifications.

oooo blasphemy, how dare you contribute something as well thought out as replaygain with Real!!!!
hehe joking of course, but thats the funniest misnaming i've seen in a while ;)

[hedge]

Could someone please explain 'radio' and 'audiophile' mode a little more?
Err well I don't know how I'm gonna explain it better then Toe already did, but here goes.
Radio mode is known as Track gain, and the scanner scans each track seperately, giving each track its own 'Track Gain' value. This value is just the average gain of that one track.
Audiophile mode is known as Album gain, and scanner will scan all files in a particular album before setting anything. It uses the overall average of all the track gain values from the album to make an album gain value, which will make sure the original gain differences in songs on that album will be conserved, so Louder songs on an album will still be louder then the quieter songs on the album (because mixing often does this deliberately, to make a song stand out more for instance).
Hmmm that album gain bit might be a bit confusing, but hey I'm not that good at explaining things alright ;)

[Protocol]

Err well I don't know how I'm gonna explain it better then Toe already did, but here goes.
Radio mode is known as Track gain, and the scanner scans each track seperately, giving each track its own 'Track Gain' value. This value is just the average gain of that one track.
Audiophile mode is known as Album gain, and scanner will scan all files in a particular album before setting anything. It uses the overall average of all the track gain values from the album to make an album gain value, which will make sure the original gain differences in songs on that album will be conserved, so Louder songs on an album will still be louder then the quieter songs on the album (because mixing often does this deliberately, to make a song stand out more for instance).
Hmmm that album gain bit might be a bit confusing, but hey I'm not that good at explaining things alright ;)
Well done... ;)

[Shadowraven]

Album name not shown on the main display (where the song title and Artist name are)
No in-skin display for visualizations
Small mode is too wide, a stick mode is required
General look a bit boring, something blueish would colour it up

What do others think?

Having the album name show up on the display would be good to keep as well. I always use it.

I would also like to see the vis window stay in the player. I never use the external window.

I understand that the other 2 issues will be addressed later by the Quinns, or by skinners when a new skinning document appears for QMP.

[biggman15]

One of My favorite Features is Either Missing or HAs moved.... I miss the Autotag Button in the tag editer.... Currently about 1/3 of My Music is still Untagged... From When I didn't have an Internet connection.... And a little at a time, I would fix an Album... Now It's gone... What happened????

[Paul]

One of My favorite Features is Either Missing or HAs moved.... I miss the Autotag Button in the tag editer.... Currently about 1/3 of My Music is still Untagged... From When I didn't have an Internet connection.... And a little at a time, I would fix an Album... Now It's gone... What happened????
The old Auto-Tag feature could be considered Gracenote MusicID 1.0. It is _far_ inferior to the current MusicID in the library which is why it was removed from the tag editor. I recommend identifying the file in the ML, then using the 'import metadata' button in the tag editor to 'auto-tag' your files.

If the current MusicID fails to recognize a file, then the previous AutoTag feature would have missed it for sure as well.

[biggman15]

The old Auto-Tag feature could be considered Gracenote MusicID 1.0. It is _far_ inferior to the current MusicID in the library which is why it was removed from the tag editor. I recommend identifying the file in the ML, then using the 'import metadata' button in the tag editor to 'auto-tag' your files.

If the current MusicID fails to recognize a file, then the previous AutoTag feature would have missed it for sure as well.

When your Music has no information at all... Like I mentioned No web at one time... I would later Fill in the information I needed then When I again had the internet the old Auto Tag feature Would Fill in the rest... It never messed up.... If that doesn't come back I will probably stick with 4.51....

Or at least add the New Music Id Thing to The Tag editor window... I would be happy with that.... I don't like going three differnet places to do 1 thing....

[Dude Spell]

When your Music has no information at all... Like I mentioned No web at one time... I would later Fill in the information I needed then When I again had the internet the old Auto Tag feature Would Fill in the rest... It never messed up.... If that doesn't come back I will probably stick with 4.51....

Or at least add the New Music Id Thing to The Tag editor window... I would be happy with that.... I don't like going three differnet places to do 1 thing....

I'm sad to know that AUTOTAG is gone. I never had this feature in any of the tag editors I used before, and it was the most amazing feature I found in QP, it was smart and easy.

I had only to write the title and artist of the file and had everything else with one click!

I'm sure the programmers know what they are doing, but I'm also sure a lot of people will miss it.

If that doesn't come back I will probably stick with 4.51 too. :disappoin

[Toe]

AutoTag is still there, it's just in a goofy place & has a goofy name now.

[Dude Spell]

AutoTag is still there, it's just in a goofy place & has a goofy name now.
Where?! :ponder:

[Toe]

As Paul said above, its now in the form of 'MusicID'. If the MusicID Status for your tracks says 'Identified' (like in the media library) then it's already got the AutoTag data loaded, it's just a matter of actually writing the data to the tags themselves. There's two ways to do this: 1) Select the tracks in the media library, right click, and select Write Information To File Tags or 2) Open the tag editor and select Import Info.

To me, 'Import Info' is a poor choice of words for that button.

"Import Info... from what?"

I think a button label like 'Import MusicID (AutoTag)' would be much more descriptive & intuitive, especially for people looking for their old AutoTag button.

[biggman15]

As Paul said above, its now in the form of 'MusicID'. If the MusicID Status for your tracks says 'Identified' (like in the media library) then it's already got the AutoTag data loaded, it's just a matter of actually writing the data to the tags themselves. There's two ways to do this: 1) Select the tracks in the media library, right click, and select Write Information To File Tags or 2) Open the tag editor and select Import Info.

To me, 'Import Info' is a poor choice of words for that button.

"Import Info... from what?"

I think a button label like 'Import MusicID (AutoTag)' would be much more descriptive & intuitive, especially for people looking for their old AutoTag button.

Meh... i won't use QMP as a Tag editor Anymore.... That MusicID stuff is Crap... Matter of fact... Now that the New build Seems to have broken the Media Library for a few us... I don't have to deal with it at all....

[madjo]

and isn't musicID scheduled to disappear after the final release?

[Toe]

and isn't musicID scheduled to disappear after the final release?

Hmmm.... I was thinking it was just the playlist stuff, but it seems you're right...