Topics

1

MusicBee Wishlist / Portable device preferred playlist format

« on: August 11, 2009, 08:58:54 PM »

This is perhaps two requests in one.  I am using a Windows Mobile phone with the built in Windows Media Player 10 Mobile.  WMP Mobile does not support .m3u or .pls files.  I tried syncing a playlist with the Windows Mobile phone (mounted as a USB mass storage device) and it synced correctly (both the files and creating a .m3u playlist on the device).

So I guess I'm requesting that you add support for at least creating .asx playlists, and secondly the ability to designate a preferred playlist format for a device so that when synchronizing a playlist with that particular device, the playlist is created and saved in the correct format.

Thanks!

2

MusicBee Wishlist / Audio track extraction from video files, and archive file format support

« on: April 02, 2009, 08:57:06 PM »

Ok, so this request is driven by love of TEDtalks (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks) and perhaps a feature of Winamp that is not there by design.  I like to listen to TEDtalks on my commute.  TED used to have audio only versions of their talks, but now they only have video versions (in mp4).  They do still have an audio podcast feed but it is only updated every 3 months or so.  So, in Winamp I am able to use the podcast plugin to download the video podcasts and play them back just fine.  However, the good part (for me at least) is that if using the default Winamp mpeg decoder (which includes mp4 files) which is audio only - I hear only the audio portion and no video and this allows the winamp transcoder to see it as an audio file and transcode it to an mp3 when transfering the file to my phone for playback.  If I tell Winamp to use the DirectShow decoder for mp4 files, it plays back the video correctly in Winamp, but will not transcode to an mp3 because it now sees it as a video file.

So, my request for MusicBee, would be ideally that MusicBee to detect video container formats and extract out / demux the audio track inside the video container format.  In this case the mp4 format is used both for audio only and for video/audio content, but this might also include avi, matroska, ogm, etc.  I think it would be best if MusicBee could simply extract the track rather than transcoding the audio data and thus loosing quality and taking up more system resources.  I know that others have requested that MusicBee also become a video player.  I personally would like to see it stay an audio only player, and perhaps my above request stays in line with an audio only approach.  I assume this functionality is not supported by any of the bass libraries, so I will suggest something like mencoder / mplayer to do the dirty work in the background and any other demuxer helper tools (as a side note, would bass_enc be able to pass data to mencoder and thus be able to replace all other codecs, or does it not work quite like this?).

My second request for archive file (zip, 7z, rar, etc.) is partially because TED packages the downloadable mp4 files inside zip files and that would be one more step I would need to take to get things where I want them.  But I think archive support could also be helpful for other things as well.  Winamp has a third-party (by Dr. O) in_zip input plugin that I believe uses the unrar.dll and unacev2.dll libraries to help out.  Perhaps some of the 7-zip command line tools could help out with this.

I guess another request that goes along with this would be that MusicBee support video podcast feeds with the understanding that only the audio portions of the files will be played back / transfered to devices.

Thanks.

3

MusicBee Wishlist / Now playing option: Find in Library . . .

« on: March 23, 2009, 05:49:28 PM »

It might be nice to have an option when right clicking on an entry in the now playing list that would be "Find in Library . . ." that could have flyout options of track, artist, album, genre, etc.  I suppose this could also be an option under the "file" menu of the now playing list.  The way Winamp handles this (via a third party plugin) is by automatically filling in the query box with the respective tag of the file right clicked to find in the library.  I imagine for radio streams or podcasts, it might take you to the either the saved radio stream in the radio library or the particular podcast in the podcast library.  For last.fm streams, I guess a message could indicate it's not in the library, or it could open a browser tab in the content pane with the last.fm page for the track, artist, album, genre, etc. (whichever is selected).

While I'm talking about additional tabs, it might be nice to have a new tab button just to the right of the bookmark button at the top of the content pane.  I keep forgetting about using tabs and they could be quite useful so that I don't loose settings in such things as the Auto-DJ, etc.

4

MusicBee Wishlist / Path column and/or sort by path

« on: March 23, 2009, 05:27:08 PM »

It would be nice to sort by path or path with filename.  This is especially handy for tagging / editing files that might be correctly placed but without tag information or for sorting out duplicate tracks.  I guess this could be implemented as column, which would be the most consistent and logical or as an option under the tools menu in the content pane.

5

MusicBee Wishlist / Playlist undo \ back button

« on: March 20, 2009, 05:17:36 PM »

I often find myself accidentally queuing up a track, etc. I didn't intend to and sometimes losing my now playing list.  I know MB has a pretty extensive history list, but it would be nice leverage this to also allow an "undo" feature for the playlist that would restore the playlist's previous state (which the number of previous states remembered could be customized), or at least some sort of "back" button (maybe this button only shows up in the history list or maybe in now playing's "file" or "play" sub-menu).

6

MusicBee Wishlist / Send-to menu enhancements dealing w/ last.fm

« on: March 20, 2009, 04:53:25 PM »

It might be nice to be able to use tracks in one's local library to create last.fm stations or base an Auto-DJ list from.  This could be done with the send-to menu in the right-click context menu.

My thought is that you might have a "last.fm" branch that would give you the option to create a station based on the selected song's artist or genre.  The station could either be automatically created and sent to the now playing list or it could auto-populate the create new radio station box, bring up that dialogue and let the user confirm and finalize the station.  If it goes straight to the now playing list, you might give the user the option to save the station under the radio stations library heading.

In as similar fashion, there could be an Auto-DJ entry on the send-to menu.  This would use the selected track as the seed track.  If there were branch options from the Auto-DJ menu, they might be 1) tracks only from the local library, 2) tracks also from last.fm, etc. . . .  I suppose you could also have this just auto populate the auto-dj content pane and the user could confirm the options and manually send the list to the now playing area.  I guess this would also mean adding the capability to Auto-DJ to use a specific track for seeding.

I've noticed that right click menu's are not available when selecting on artist, album, genre, etc. in the track finder part of the content pane.  It would be nice to add right clicking to the those items, not only to implement what I mentioned above to use e.g., an artist as the seed for last.fm or auto-dj, but also to allow the other right click menu options to be applied for all the subitems that fall under that particular artist / album / genre / etc. being right-clicked.

Just some thougths.  I am currently enjoying the newly bug-free implementation of last.fm both as last.fm stations and for Auto-dj.  Keep on keepin' on.

7

MusicBee Wishlist / Copy to device queue

« on: March 19, 2009, 07:42:44 PM »

The copy to device queue functions well currently, but it prevents use of MusicBee to do anything else, like find additional albums to send to the device or playback other music while songs are being copied to a device.

My thought is that you could integrate the queue into the screen shown when selecting the root of the device tree listed under the "devices" tab (see screenshot here http://i42.tinypic.com/qrzmt5.png), such that the queue would take up the lower half of the pane and the device infomation remain above.  When you send something to the device, the content pane would automatically bring up this device info / transfer queue view, but one could navigate away from this at any time to do other things.  If you wanted to get fancy, you could give a percentage indicator to the right of the devices name under the "devices" tab on the left so you could see the progress of the transfer.  In the device info / transfer queue screen, you could also give indicators in a column for each track to see it's status, e.g., waiting, converting 20% . . ., transferring 20% . . ., done, error, etc.  If you want to see a more visual example I can send some screenshots of how Winamp handles copying to a device.

Thanks!

8

MusicBee Wishlist / Hotkeys - Allow use of Winkey

« on: March 18, 2009, 06:42:39 PM »

Could you enable use of the Winkey as part of hotkeys, for example such that Winkey + Alt + Home = Play/Pause?  Thanks.

9

MusicBee Wishlist / On the fly transcoding and Various panel location ideas

« on: March 16, 2009, 03:48:11 PM »

One thing that Winamp really does well, and I imagine MusicBee could do quite easily, is on the fly transcoding.  For example, each portable device could have a sort of profile or settings memory with MusicBee that remembers what type of files that device can play back and possibly what maximum bitrate of files you might want on this device.  Then when sends files to this device from the library, and if these files are in unsupported format and/or too high of a bitrate, MusicBee would automatically transcode and transfer based on evaluating each file against the preset conditions.  This would be great is someone kept files in FLAC / lossless format on their desktop and did not want to maintain a second portable library to transfer to their portable device.

In regards to the panel locations - 1) History: I would like to see the History view show up as a selection under "Library" in the left panel, and when selected, show up in the content panel in the middle. 2) Player Control Panel - also add the option to locate this at "Top Pane" (between the menu items and the rest of the main content panes).  I do prefer the control panel at the bottom but other might prefer it at the top considering they might be coming from the likes of iTunes, etc.  I guess you could ultimately make the panes drag and drop but I imagine this could reduce stability, so I think the current method works well.

Thanks, getting better all the time.

10

MusicBee Wishlist / Visualizations, ActiveSync support, and more.

« on: March 10, 2009, 06:28:26 PM »

Great player, just found it yesterday and am quite impressed considering its short history.

A few wish-list items:
1. Implement the BASS_WA extension that allows winamp visualizations to be used.  I imagine this could be done as a frame in the player window, as a seperate window, as a desktop background, and/or in fullscreen.
2. Implement the BASS_ASIO extension to output high quality streams to allow bit perfect digital output.
3. Allow additional internet radio station directories, i.e., icecast, etc.  Also allow dragging and dropping links from external browsers onto the musicbee window to open and play a file / playlist / etc.
4. Portable Device support for Activesync connections.  I have a windows mobile professional 6.1 phone that can connect via active sync.  Winamp has a plugin for their relatively new PMP interface that can utilize this activesync connection (which is different from their MTP or plays-for-sure device plugin).  I can mount my phone as a usb storage device but that disables the activesync constant connection and syncing with Outlook, etc.
5. Ability to select root-level mapped network drives for library monitoring.  I can know I can work around this, but this is somewhat annoying.
6. Auto disable of crossfade if the next track is from the same album and the next track on that album
7. Option for auto-tagging defaults, in particular track / disc number padding.
8. Additional sources for track info, i.e., all-music, wikipedia, last-fm, ?gracenote? although I do appreciate using the musicip / musicbrainz source but it doesn't always have the correct info.
9. Mini-player ability to dock as a toolbar in the windows interface (sim to winamp).
10. since you are using XULrunner (horray!), rather than the IE Trident engine, perhaps you can integrate or allow the integration of, the ad-blocker plugin for Firefox.

These seem like a lot, but I have been a longtime Winamp user and tried many others including foobar, QMP, VLC and other mplayer/mencoder based players, WMP, iTunes, and more.

I often get the error window, but it is not often consistently reproduced, or is often fixed by restarting MusicBee.  Should I be submitting these error logs somewhere to help out?  Could there be a plugin that transmits error messages / etc. back somewhere across the internet to help with debugging?

Thanks for your quality work.  Looking forward to more.