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Topic: What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)? (Read 17997 times) previous topic - next topic
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What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

So I'm looking for a media manager (Itunes, J River, Winamp, etc.) that is the best for managing nearly a terabyte of music.  And I do a lot of grooming (ID3 tags, changing folder names etc.) so it has to update its library easily.

That rules out Itunes, since there's no "update" function to easily and quickly update its library from my source drives.  Quite shocking actually.  But I do like the cover flow graphics.

I'm looking for advice, as I hesitate to try them all and import such a massive collection-- your advice would save me probably several days of work!

Comments?

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #1 –
Quod Libet, but I guess that's not much use if you're looking for something on Windows or OS X..?

foobar2000 is probably your best bet on Windows.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #2 –
MediaMonkey perhaps?  It handles my library of 10,000 tracks just fine, and from what I've read it is one of the best for large libraries. I think you need to buy it in order to get file monitoring, but it's not very expensive.

www.mediamonkey.com

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #3 –
tgoose-
Yep for XP.  Foobar2k can't seem to handle recursive folder searches?
zipr-
Mediamonkey might be best.  It does have auto-syncing.  The interface is a little crude (compared to Itunes) but might work!

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: starmanj on
tgoose-
Yep for XP.  Foobar2k can't seem to handle recursive folder searches?
zipr-
Mediamonkey might be best.  It does have auto-syncing.  The interface is a little crude (compared to Itunes) but might work!

My vote is for MediaMonkey Gold it is fast (uses sqlite) and has everything to handle large library including auto monitoring directories.
The bad is that you have to buy licence for Gold version
The good is that its cheap

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #5 –
I use Mediamonkey 3 for my library (~950 gig mixed flac/mp3 mostly). While it is not perfect, it is very good and for many things that are not part of the program, can be scripted via vbscripts.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #6 –
14554 tracks and no problems with iTunes (most apple lossless and mp3.) I had problems with media monkey before (sometimes it crashed windows xp.)

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #7 –
Foobar is handling my collection of 67000 files without ANY problem whatsoever.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #8 –
Anything but iTunes if you have the option. I say this as an iTunes user. It is pathetically slow with large libraries.

MediaMonkey 3 has been great managing the same number of FLAC files (30k+) so I would recommend it.
EAC secure | FLAC  --best -V -b 4096 | LAME 3.97 -V0 -q0 -b32

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #9 –
Unfortunately for Mac users, iTunes is the only option for large collections.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #11 –
Based on the following usage: Vista 32, 50,000 FLAC files (mostly 16/441 from dbPowerAmp but also HiRes) which I convert to MP3 for portable use stored on two 3 TB NAS devices (shadowed) on a wired network.
Without doubt, the best library management tool for me has been Helium (http://www.helium-music-manager.com/).  It is a steal at $39.  I run on SQLServer Express, but works with other databases as well.  Support is fantastic and well-resourced.  I do not use it as a ripper/burner/player.  I do use it to manage database tagging (large portion of tracks are foreign and accented) and to manage playlists.  Superb.
For playback I use AlbumPlayer (http://www.albumplayer.com/ $42), which is simple with a great touchscreen and mouse interface and ASIO support.  I also use JRiver MediaCenter (http://www.jrmediacenter.com/ $40).  I like it but it is a Swiss Army knife of parts that do not integrate as well as, say, Helium.  It is not, IMO, as good a library manager as Helium or as simple and friendly a player as AlbumPlayer.
I have purchased and used MediaMonkey, Songbird (great concept), Foobar 2000 and MP3Tag.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #12 –
I use MediaMonkey 3.0.1.1127 and it handle large collection of songs smoothly, and it also support winamp plugin so you can add many new format like TAK (lossless compression) easily and best of all it can search for tag and cover album automatically. Vote for MediaMonkey

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #13 –
I use a bit of Itunes but mainly the new MediaMonkey.  It's very nice and handles just about any type audio file.  Lots of features also.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #14 –
Have you tried musikCube??
It handles a lot of the popular formats and with my ~80GB library(FLAC+MP3) uses less than 8MB RAM when in use and around 2MB when in use and minimized. Works great on XP and Vista!

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #15 –
itunes itunes itunes itunes itunes

sorry other players have too many bugs in my opinion

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #16 –
SUPERB feedback, my thanks!

PNCD-- interesting concept of using two managers, one for simple playback, another for management.  In fact, I need a sophisticated system for my grooming and management, but my WIFE demands a very simple interface to play music.

SO she needs a simple player like Itunes with cover flow.  Anything that quickly presents a page full of album art, like she's selecting an album to play.  Itunes, though, is slow doesn't seem to like accessing music from my raid server.  I'll check out albumplayer-- any others that excel in simple front-end GUIs?  Also, does Foobar have a plugin to allow album art perusing?  The default is the lower left hand albumart window for a single song/album.

Thanks

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #17 –
Quote from: starmanj on
PNCD-- interesting concept of using two managers, one for simple playback, another for management.  In fact, I need a sophisticated system for my grooming and management, but my WIFE demands a very simple interface to play music.


IMO this is where iTunes/Front Row/AppleTV and WMP/MediaCenter/Xbox360 shine. MediaMonkey, foobar2k, etc are excellent and very powerful library managers, but don't offer the slick visuals nor the easy connectivity (library sharing/streaming), and that is IMO where the mainstream is moving towards.

In terms of speed, iTunes and WMP aren't too bad, but because they're very aggessive with caching images and double-buffering they are very memory hungry.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: starmanj on
PNCD-- interesting concept of using two managers, one for simple playback, another for management.  In fact, I need a sophisticated system for my grooming and management, but my WIFE demands a very simple interface to play music.

I have about 1TB of FLAC files and use use 3 main apps.

Ripping - EAC+REACT for ripping to FLAC with all basic tags, AlbumArt and ReplayGain in one shot
Tagging - Tag&Rename for all tag and filename maintenance.  Not free, but cheap and truly awesome.
Playback - Winamp for searching, browsing, playlists, portable sync, etc.

As far as I know, there's still not a single app that does a good job at all three tasks.

MedaiMonkey is quite powerful, especially if you get into the scripting, but it's definitely not going to have high WAF (wife acceptance factor).  Foobar, while excellent, probably won't either.  IMO, Winamp with the new Bento all-in-one skin is the best compromise between novice ease of use and power user flexibility.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: swurve on
Unfortunately for Mac users, iTunes is the only option for large collections.


Not the only option.  There's Play.  IIRC, it uses SQlite to keep track of the library.

I've tried it, although I don't currently use it.  ITunes has so many advantages -- for me not least the access, and interface, to the podcasts in the iTMS, which I love browsing -- that I stick with that.  I hear iTunes is slow with really large collections, and if I had a massive amount of music, a Will-Friedwald-sized collection maybe I'd be looking for something else.  As it is, since I've only got around 14GB in my iTunes library, iTunes is fine for me.

The interesting question has to be: is there a 64-bit version of iTunes written in Cocoa coming?  Interestingly there is apparently an alert text in the Windows version of iTunes that mentions 64-bit -- see here:

http://sprinkleofcocoa.blogspot.com/2007/1...ming-vista.html

EDITED for typos.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #20 –
Perhaps my definition of slow is different from others, but I use ITUNES as the playing interface for a system my wife uses at home and there are 53,000 mp3 files (lame VBR -V2) on a USB harddrive connected to a Dell Laptop (about 5 years old). The Dell feeds a benchmark DAC1 (from SPDIF) then into a preamp/amp.  I'm using this purely for playing ITUNES so it being a memory hog may not matter (I'm not trying to do anything else on the computer), but I can search for songs/artists, quickly locate artists by scrolling, etc. and really don't have any complaints about speed.

p.s. I use dbpoweramp, mp3tag, and foobar for ripping, tagging, etc., including foobar for playing on a system that I use strictly for myself....

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #21 –
Quote from: starmanj on
I need a sophisticated system for my grooming and management, but my WIFE demands a very simple interface to play music.


JRiver has an attractive Theatre View, but IMO AlbumPlayer is more compelling - friendlier.  It has a good combination of functionality and usability for someone who wants a great jukebox.

My jukebox (family player) is an HP TouchSmart running AlbumPlayer in ASIO mode into Empirical Off-Ramp Turbo 2 then to the stereo.  Family and guests have no problem navigating it intuitively.  The only issue is reminding them to select inputs on the EMM DCC2 SE!  Playing, and playing with, the music is easy and fun.

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #22 –
Quote from: Light-Fire on
14554 tracks and no problems with iTunes (most apple lossless and mp3.) I had problems with media monkey before (sometimes it crashed windows xp.)


That's right LF. Similar experience having iTunes Version: 7.6.1.9 and Total tracks in iTunes: 19190

I do mostly what the thread starter mentioned.

Quote from: PNCD on
Based on the following usage: Vista 32, 50,000 FLAC files (mostly 16/441 from dbPowerAmp but also HiRes) which I convert to MP3 for portable use stored on two 3 TB NAS devices (shadowed) on a wired network.
Without doubt, the best library management tool for me has been Helium (http://www.helium-music-manager.com/).  It is a steal at $39.  I run on SQLServer Express, but works with other databases as well.  Support is fantastic and well-resourced.  I do not use it as a ripper/burner/player.  I do use it to manage database tagging (large portion of tracks are foreign and accented) and to manage playlists.  Superb.
For playback I use AlbumPlayer (http://www.albumplayer.com/ $42), which is simple with a great touchscreen and mouse interface and ASIO support.  I also use JRiver MediaCenter (http://www.jrmediacenter.com/ $40).  I like it but it is a Swiss Army knife of parts that do not integrate as well as, say, Helium.  It is not, IMO, as good a library manager as Helium or as simple and friendly a player as AlbumPlayer.
I have purchased and used MediaMonkey, Songbird (great concept), Foobar 2000 and MP3Tag.


PNCD, those were some interesting programs you listed. Thanks. I looked at http://www.helium-music-manager.com/_produ...tunes_yahoo.pdf

I am looking for one and only feature primarily in music managers other than iTunes:

I was wondering if Helium could automatically move the files to folders and rename files according to the tags you specify. Explanation in action:

http://wmwiki.com/mcored/research/wmp/itun...ibrary-best.avi

To date I have seen no player/manager that does it as part of tagging.

Thanks,
McoreD

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: ~*McoreD*~ on
I am looking for one and only feature primarily in music managers other than iTunes:

I was wondering if Helium could automatically move the files to folders and rename files according to the tags you specify. Explanation in action:

http://wmwiki.com/mcored/research/wmp/itun...ibrary-best.avi

To date I have seen no player/manager that does it as part of tagging.

Thanks,
McoreD


well, automatically do it it won't, but if you set a shortkey, it's only that key + a press on the 'return' key away' in Foobar. so as long as you do the editing of tags in a separate playlist (not necessarily that is, but very handy for administrative purposes), just edit everything you want to, do ctrl-A, press hotkey, press enter, and presto.. you get used to it very quickly, trust me (i'm at a library of about 30k tracks these days, all tagged and filed away very neatly through foobar, which can also play everything back, and even allows you to find it again with just it+facets plugin installed)

What is the best Media Manager (for large libraries)?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: ~*McoreD*~ on
I was wondering if Helium could automatically move the files to folders and rename files according to the tags you specify. Explanation in action:

http://wmwiki.com/mcored/research/wmp/itun...ibrary-best.avi

To date I have seen no player/manager that does it as part of tagging.


When I rip CDs with J.River Media Center 12, it stores the resulting files based on file and folder names templates that can use any tags I want or fixed text.

I can also rename the currently selected files from properties using a menu command.

Bill