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Topic: Cloud storage headaches (Read 6619 times) previous topic - next topic
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Cloud storage headaches

My library is 30K plus tracks, all ripped from my CDs. I have lossless rips backed up and AAC files for general listening. I'd just like to get my AAC tracks into the cloud for portable listening. I've been experimenting with Amazon and Google and each has issues that are causing me headaches. Amazon isn't picking up my disc number tags (1/2, 2/2 3/4 etc.)  for multi-disc sets and is mashing everything together as disc 1 which would take ages for me to fix with a library so big. Meanwhile Google transcodes my AAC to mp3 and dumps my album art in the process. Any suggestions?  At least with Google the albums are playable in proper running order though not as pretty look at.  Everything is flawless in iTunes, but my collection is way too big unless Apple follows Google's lead and ups their limit to 50,000 or thereabouts.  I'm open to alternative solutions as well.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #1 –
do you really need to use the cloud? how about a portable device or smart phone that accepts microSDXC cards? 64GB cards are dirt cheap and 128GB card prices are falling as we speak.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Frumious B on
My library is 30K plus tracks, all ripped from my CDs. I have lossless rips backed up and AAC files for general listening. I'd just like to get my AAC tracks into the cloud for portable listening. I've been experimenting with Amazon and Google and each has issues that are causing me headaches. Amazon isn't picking up my disc number tags (1/2, 2/2 3/4 etc.)  for multi-disc sets and is mashing everything together as disc 1 which would take ages for me to fix with a library so big. Meanwhile Google transcodes my AAC to mp3 and dumps my album art in the process. Any suggestions?  At least with Google the albums are playable in proper running order though not as pretty look at.  Everything is flawless in iTunes, but my collection is way too big unless Apple follows Google's lead and ups their limit to 50,000 or thereabouts.  I'm open to alternative solutions as well.


I'm really not familiar with these services but do they have an option to store the music files as simple data files?  It seems like the services you have investigated are excessively intrusive for your needs.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #3 –
Quote from: marc2003 on
do you really need to use the cloud? how about a portable device or smart phone that accepts microSDXC cards? 64GB cards are dirt cheap and 128GB card prices are falling as we speak.


I have an iPod Classic upgraded to 250GB, but I'm forever running out of space on my 64gb iPhone and I'm trying to simplify. It's gonna be a while before I can upgrade to the 128gb iPhone and switching to Android would be a bigger PITA than I'm running into now. The elegant solution I have in my head is to just upload everything to a service that I can access via some sort of music player app. Unfortunately, the reality I'm encountering is less elegant.  I'm also considering streaming via Plex or Subsonic, but that means my laptop always has to be up and running at home.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Frumious B on
My library is 30K plus tracks, all ripped from my CDs. I have lossless rips backed up and AAC files for general listening. I'd just like to get my AAC tracks into the cloud for portable listening. I've been experimenting with Amazon and Google and each has issues that are causing me headaches. Amazon isn't picking up my disc number tags (1/2, 2/2 3/4 etc.)  for multi-disc sets and is mashing everything together as disc 1 which would take ages for me to fix with a library so big. Meanwhile Google transcodes my AAC to mp3 and dumps my album art in the process. Any suggestions?  At least with Google the albums are playable in proper running order though not as pretty look at.  Everything is flawless in iTunes, but my collection is way too big unless Apple follows Google's lead and ups their limit to 50,000 or thereabouts.  I'm open to alternative solutions as well.


I'm really not familiar with these services but do they have an option to store the music files as simple data files?  It seems like the services you have investigated are excessively intrusive for your needs.


The issues there would be cost and the ability to play the music files. If I just want a pure backup I do that myself to external drives. Amazon is $24.99 yearly for up to 250,000 tracks. Google is free for up to 50,000 tracks. 

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #4 –
I'm investigating into this too. My experience so far:

Xbox Music supports aac. I've uploaded folders (%album artist%\%date% - %album%) containing songs as mp4, with "folder.jpg" to my onedrive.
Xbox music finds it, plays it, uses the right tags, and use the folder.jpg as album art. The only limit here is your space limit on OneDrive. If you got a office365 subscription you'll have unlimited space.
Its not like google music "50 000 songs" which does not "steal" the Google Drive space. It will play free (without subscription) in browser, but apps won't play them unless you have subscription.

If you want to go google music:
Since you have your collection lossless you could encode it to mp3 before uploading it.
Use foobar2000 for instance. Set it up to create folders based on file name (%album artist%\%date% - %album%), plus copy folder.jpg (or similar) from original destination. (This can be automated in converting preferences).
After encoding you can "batch attach pictures". Voila, pretty much an automated process.

Deezer also supports mp3, but it often drops tagged album art, and also tags sometimes. Seems like a poor choice. Probably made for fill in the gapps in Deezers already huge collection.

You could also investigate in setting up your own "server"/ streaming service. If you have a computer up and running 24/7, you could look into Plex, Subsonic, Serviio Pro or similar. Plex have a really good app for playing both movies and music, and it supports loads of codecs. It can stream lossless/ original file, or transcode on the fly (from the server). A friend of mine have loads of stuff on his server which I can stream. Great stuff

If you go for a less automated solution, like Subsonic og Ampache, you could consider "Tomahawk". Still in beta, but man this project looks promissing  It fetches music from all over the place.. It has plugins for Spotify, Ampache, Deezer, Google Music (both "music unlimited" and uploaded songs), Soundcloud, YouTube ++, and local files.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #5 –
Quote from: o-l-a-v on
I'm investigating into this too. My experience so far:

Xbox Music supports aac. I've uploaded folders (%album artist%\%date% - %album%) containing songs as mp4, with "folder.jpg" to my onedrive.
Xbox music finds it, plays it, uses the right tags, and use the folder.jpg as album art. The only limit here is your space limit on OneDrive. If you got a office365 subscription you'll have unlimited space.
Its not like google music "50 000 songs" which does not "steal" the Google Drive space. It will play free (without subscription) in browser, but apps won't play them unless you have subscription.

If you want to go google music:
Since you have your collection lossless you could encode it to mp3 before uploading it.
Use foobar2000 for instance. Set it up to create folders based on file name (%album artist%\%date% - %album%), plus copy folder.jpg (or similar) from original destination. (This can be automated in converting preferences).
After encoding you can "batch attach pictures". Voila, pretty much an automated process.

Deezer also supports mp3, but it often drops tagged album art, and also tags sometimes. Seems like a poor choice. Probably made for fill in the gapps in Deezers already huge collection.

You could also investigate in setting up your own "server"/ streaming service. If you have a computer up and running 24/7, you could look into Plex, Subsonic, Serviio Pro or similar. Plex have a really good app for playing both movies and music, and it supports loads of codecs. It can stream lossless/ original file, or transcode on the fly (from the server). A friend of mine have loads of stuff on his server which I can stream. Great stuff

If you go for a less automated solution, like Subsonic og Ampache, you could consider "Tomahawk". Still in beta, but man this project looks promissing  It fetches music from all over the place.. It has plugins for Spotify, Ampache, Deezer, Google Music (both "music unlimited" and uploaded songs), Soundcloud, YouTube ++, and local files.


I actually have considered re encoding everything to mp3. If I had it to do all over again I probably would have chosen mp3 instead of AAC for the sake of having universal compatibility but the obstacle there would be some tagging quirks where I've fixed something in iTunes after the fact and also the fact that my lossless archive has a fair number of duplicates (different CD masterings of certain titles) that I don't need replicated in my main listening library.  I'm looking at OneDrive too, but I'm not sure about playback options for IOS.  Another thing I'm wondering is if Amazon isn't recognizing disc numbers because most of mine are fractions. If there were a way to find and replace all the fractions with whole numbers (just 3 instead of 3/4) then Amazon MIGHT take that.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Frumious B on
I actually have considered re encoding everything to mp3. If I had it to do all over again I probably would have chosen mp3 instead of AAC for the sake of having universal compatibility but the obstacle there would be some tagging quirks where I've fixed something in iTunes after the fact and also the fact that my lossless archive has a fair number of duplicates (different CD masterings of certain titles) that I don't need replicated in my main listening library.  I'm looking at OneDrive too, but I'm not sure about playback options for IOS.  Another thing I'm wondering is if Amazon isn't recognizing disc numbers because most of mine are fractions. If there were a way to find and replace all the fractions with whole numbers (just 3 instead of 3/4) then Amazon MIGHT take that.


I think you could do that with TagScanner. When I tried to write "01/10" in %track%, It automatically moved 10 to %total tracks%
Just load the mp4 files, ctrl+a, ctrl+s
(There are tags for: track, total tracks, disc and total discs. Why use "01/10" when you have the total tracks tag?)

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #7 –
If your collection is in flac/alac format, I believe google music will "match" those files to mp3s in its library automatically, saving you the trouble of converting them.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Frumious B on
My library is 30K plus tracks, all ripped from my CDs. I have lossless rips backed up and AAC files for general listening. I'd just like to get my AAC tracks into the cloud for portable listening. I've been experimenting with Amazon and Google and each has issues that are causing me headaches. Amazon isn't picking up my disc number tags (1/2, 2/2 3/4 etc.)  for multi-disc sets and is mashing everything together as disc 1 which would take ages for me to fix with a library so big. Meanwhile Google transcodes my AAC to mp3 and dumps my album art in the process. Any suggestions?  At least with Google the albums are playable in proper running order though not as pretty look at.  Everything is flawless in iTunes, but my collection is way too big unless Apple follows Google's lead and ups their limit to 50,000 or thereabouts.  I'm open to alternative solutions as well.


Have you considered using Style Jukebox? It's pretty neat and costs $24.99 per year.

http://www.get-jukebox.com/
lossyWAV -q H | FLAC -5 ~= 480kbps
QAAC 320kbps

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #9 –
Quote from: akin0780 on
Quote from: Frumious B on
My library is 30K plus tracks, all ripped from my CDs. I have lossless rips backed up and AAC files for general listening. I'd just like to get my AAC tracks into the cloud for portable listening. I've been experimenting with Amazon and Google and each has issues that are causing me headaches. Amazon isn't picking up my disc number tags (1/2, 2/2 3/4 etc.)  for multi-disc sets and is mashing everything together as disc 1 which would take ages for me to fix with a library so big. Meanwhile Google transcodes my AAC to mp3 and dumps my album art in the process. Any suggestions?  At least with Google the albums are playable in proper running order though not as pretty look at.  Everything is flawless in iTunes, but my collection is way too big unless Apple follows Google's lead and ups their limit to 50,000 or thereabouts.  I'm open to alternative solutions as well.


Have you considered using Style Jukebox? It's pretty neat and costs $24.99 per year.

http://www.get-jukebox.com/


It looks as though Style Jukebox has a 25,000 track limit.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #10 –
Quote from: saratoga on
If your collection is in flac/alac format, I believe google music will "match" those files to mp3s in its library automatically, saving you the trouble of converting them.


But you would still have to upload the whole file for google music to get the tags? 30 000 FLAC files. That would take a while.
I've read that they transcode lossless formats (all formats except MP3 really) to 320kbps (or lower if from lossy) MP3
Edit: https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1100462?hl=en

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #12 –
Quote from: saratoga on
Quote from: o-l-a-v on
But you would still have to upload the whole file for google music to get the tags?


I don't think so, at least assuming the file can be matched.


I would probably prefer to batch encode my own mp3s in order to keep my album art intact. Artwork only carries over on mp3 files with Google.  Honestly, under the conditions  under which I'm listening on my phone any sound quality hit by going from lossy to lossy is surely a minimal factor if it is a factor at all.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #14 –
I know it's kind of stating the obvious, but the thing that really worries me about large-format cloud storage is that you can only (kind of) trust the big guns (Google, Amazon...) when it comes to staying around for at least a decade or so.

And even in those cases, there are reservations, as recent history's proven, that even then-household names from the last decade in the online storage business, are prone to kick the bucket for good such as Streamload, Roxio BackOn Track and the like.

I'd even go as far as saying that any buy-out or name change is not an encouraging sign of how well any business's health is, as it happened in the past to Streamload, after it changed to Nirvanix; or Mediamax, latter renamed The Linkup, which by its turn, one certain day displayed on its home page a message telling its  20,000 users their had to wave goodbye to their beloved digital music collection for ever; plus a link to its former competitor, Box.net (which now is simply known as "Box").
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #15 –
Quote from: includemeout on
I know it's kind of stating the obvious, but the thing that really worries me about large-format cloud storage is that you can only (kind of) trust the big guns (Google, Amazon...) when it comes to staying around for at least a decade or so.


Its not a good idea to trust them at all.  You should keep the source files yourself, and if you somehow lose them, sync the files back to your device.  Cloud streaming is about ease of access, not really back up (although it can kind of do that too, but I wouldn't count on it since many services don't do lossless formats and may silently alter files/tagging/album art).

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #16 –
Quote from: Frumious B on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on


I'm really not familiar with these services but do they have an option to store the music files as simple data files?  It seems like the services you have investigated are excessively intrusive for your needs.


The issues there would be cost and the ability to play the music files. If I just want a pure backup I do that myself to external drives. Amazon is $24.99 yearly for up to 250,000 tracks. Google is free for up to 50,000 tracks.


I studied the situation a bit, and it appears that in music mode, these services offer you less for less. Basically, they reserve the right to mangle your music files but cost less, kinda.

In data mode they work straight forwardly, but as you point out, they cost more.  For example, if you do data, Amazon is about $60 a year for unlimited space. 

I think that the non-mangled data aspect of things is very attractive, and the extra cost still seems reasonable.

I don't know what you are trying to play music from, but Google and Amazon appear to provide support for a lot of platforms including the common ones.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #17 –
Quote from: o-l-a-v on
Quote from: Frumious B on
I actually have considered re encoding everything to mp3. If I had it to do all over again I probably would have chosen mp3 instead of AAC for the sake of having universal compatibility but the obstacle there would be some tagging quirks where I've fixed something in iTunes after the fact and also the fact that my lossless archive has a fair number of duplicates (different CD masterings of certain titles) that I don't need replicated in my main listening library.  I'm looking at OneDrive too, but I'm not sure about playback options for IOS.  Another thing I'm wondering is if Amazon isn't recognizing disc numbers because most of mine are fractions. If there were a way to find and replace all the fractions with whole numbers (just 3 instead of 3/4) then Amazon MIGHT take that.


I think you could do that with TagScanner. When I tried to write "01/10" in %track%, It automatically moved 10 to %total tracks%
Just load the mp4 files, ctrl+a, ctrl+s
(There are tags for: track, total tracks, disc and total discs. Why use "01/10" when you have the total tracks tag?)


I downloaded Tagscanner, looked at a few files and it seems to me that the tags are  100% flawless, including disc numbers. I'm wondering if it isn't just an Amazon thing and not a problem with my files at all. I've been ripping my CDs with dBpoweramp exclusively since about 2009 and all my tagging is done that way with just a few tweaks here and there so most of my tags are very detailed and complete. I might experiment with the tags and uploading of one album just to see if I can find a way to make the disc numbers take in any way that doesn't involve appending "disc 1" etc. to the name of each disc.  In the meantime just for basic listening purposes in the car, at work etc. Google is pretty decent.

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #18 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: Frumious B on
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on


I'm really not familiar with these services but do they have an option to store the music files as simple data files?  It seems like the services you have investigated are excessively intrusive for your needs.


The issues there would be cost and the ability to play the music files. If I just want a pure backup I do that myself to external drives. Amazon is $24.99 yearly for up to 250,000 tracks. Google is free for up to 50,000 tracks.


I studied the situation a bit, and it appears that in music mode, these services offer you less for less. Basically, they reserve the right to mangle your music files but cost less, kinda.

In data mode they work straight forwardly, but as you point out, they cost more.  For example, if you do data, Amazon is about $60 a year for unlimited space. 

I think that the non-mangled data aspect of things is very attractive, and the extra cost still seems reasonable.

I don't know what you are trying to play music from, but Google and Amazon appear to provide support for a lot of platforms including the common ones.


If I store as data and not as music then that limits my ability to play back the files remotely because the songs have to be in the "music locker" to be played back  on their apps.


Cloud storage headaches

Reply #19 –
So I've decided to go with Google Play. I really like the way they integrate your personal library with their streaming offerings so I ditched Spotify and moved my subscription over to them.  I officially can't ABX the transcoded from AAC mp3 files from the original AAC files so I'm not gonna concern myself with that.  In order to keep my artwork intact I'm making my own mp3s from my iTunes folder instead of leaving that to Google and sidestepping the potentially time consuming tagging inconsistencies, deleting duplicate titles with different masterings and so forth of going back to my lossless files.  I upload that folder with the mp3s and I'm done. For my listening purposes this should work.
 

Cloud storage headaches

Reply #20 –
I'm using google play. My main beef is that whenever I delete something locally it sticks around in the cloud.