I think InTheBath hit the issue on the nose. It isn't really whether my method, Mr. Sinatra's method, the Phil's method, etc. is right or wrong. You should have some flexibility.
I actually came from a similar spot as InTheBath in having the Netgear player, using my computer directly with variations of WMP, Winamp, ITunes, MediaMonkey, etc, my Portable MP3 Player, etc. I spent a long time during my initial days getting the tags to work with my combination of software. That included using the TPE2 (Band) tag to essentially organize albums with multiple artists (across tracks or in specific tracks) amongst other things. Moving to SBS actually didn't hurt things much besides the inability to separate ARTIST from AA/BAND when browsing. Admittedly, this problem occurred on much of the other mentioned software and the ability to add a plugin similar to CustomBrowse in MediaMonkey is why I've ended up there for my on-computer listening and management. As a previous message pointed out, the importance of compilations depends on the user, and I tend to be one that is indifferent to them. I have about 50 albums I would truly call compilations (soundtracks, tributes, etc), but I have about 200 that SBS, ITunes, etc. want to add Compilation tags to, but they are not really compilations. I also have about 2000 tracks through my wife that are random tracks by random artists (Napster, Itunes, etc) that I've grouped into one large Compilation Album for organization purposes. As I mentioned, the solution that worked for me was just to use those that are really compilation albums with AA = Various Artists (be it TPE2 or TXXX). Now I ended up going with Custom Browse because I didn't like that SBS tries to include a lot of these other "compilations" those that don't have the AA = Various Artists into a Various Artists listing anyway confusing the issue, which I think some here are alluding to. I know there are ways to tag around it, be it periods, renaming the compilation category, specific compilation tags, etc, but I'd rather not deal with retagging my music, just to make SBS work marginally better in its native configuration. A lot of these problems would probably go away if you could change from Album Artist and Artist browsing on the fly. Interestingly, despite the flaws that have been brought about, I see SBS as an improvement over most previous software that I have used. Using CustomScan and CustomBrowse has giving me most of the functions I like and I can virtually change how I browse pretty much on the fly. Out of principle, I can see Mr. Sinatra's reluctance in using such a solution, but at least it is a solution. As it is, CustomBrowse provided further features beyond what we are talking about here (organized browsing of my Jazz and Classical, browsing by letter, etc), so as an aside, I hope that doesn't quit being supported. -- emalvick ------------------------------------------------------------------------ emalvick's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=35382 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=88072 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/ripping
