syncing and access questions - android

[Varick]

t it.
Because it's patented and that would be illegal theft of IP?

Dude, MediaMonkey does what you want.  You can keep tilting at windmills and being confrontational for no reason and to no ultimate effect (it's not going to happen no matter how much you argue it), or you can do what works. 

Using me as an example, this is functionality that I would greatly enjoy, and I did enjoy it when I used MediaMonkey. But, after using MusicBee, I realized that the desktop experience was much more important to me, and MusicBee offers a vastly superior desktop experience when compared to everything else out there.  So it's a trade off.  If that type of sync is your primary need and you're willing to sacrifice a lot of desktop experience to get it, then you have your solution elsewhere. If you enjoy the MB desktop experience and are willing to sacrifice the sync experience to get it, then you have your solution here.  Not trying to be severe, just adding a dose of reality.

Every once in a while I check to see if anyone has come up with a workaround, and find out they haven't, so I go back to being quietly frustrated in sync but massively happy on the desktop.  We all have to accept these things and move on eventually.

Well frankz, you do make a powerful argument to remember the serenity prayer.  You are correct.  I now listen almost exclusively from MB on my desk top, but I still travel much too often and am in my work van at least 3 hours a day and I have literally hundreds of gigs of music to go through (all my ratings and playlists were lost over a year ago when my computer crashed, so I'm still rebuilding those and the most time I have for that is while driving) which will probably take a few years, never mind the fact that I add at least 50 gigs a music a year to my library.

I will continue to search, continue to be frustrated, and continue to deal with it.  I have no other choice.  I just get annoyed when I see that we can wirelessly charge a battery, put a Tesla on Mars, but we still can't put metal in a microwave.

This is on my agenda to do someday, but I've found that while I'm taking the classes I don't really have time to USE the knowledge...

Well, I will be praying that you find the time my friend.  It was one of the things I was going to pay someone to do for me (and the rest of humanity), but I didn't win the $1.6 Billion lottery.  Apparently... neither did you.

V

[Varick]

So frankz, a question (seriously).  Does media monkey do that (what I want) for your iTunes?  I just want to clarify.  Thanks

V

[frankz]

So frankz, a question (seriously).  Does media monkey do that (what I want) for your iTunes?  I just want to clarify.  Thanks

V

I'm not sure what you're asking.  I haven't used iTunes in many years.

I have an iPod Touch and an Android phone.  MediaMonkey has a driver for i-devices and it has an Android App.  If I was to use MediaMonkey on the desktop and the app on my phone, all of my play data would stay synchronized between both of my devices and my library. 

The down side is that I'd have to use MediaMonkey all the time and not MusicBee.  That's not a compromise I'm willing to make.

[Varick]

I'm not sure what you're asking.  I haven't used iTunes in many years.

I have an iPod Touch and an Android phone.  MediaMonkey has a driver for i-devices and it has an Android App.  If I was to use MediaMonkey on the desktop and the app on my phone, all of my play data would stay synchronized between both of my devices and my library. 

The down side is that I'd have to use MediaMonkey all the time and not MusicBee.  That's not a compromise I'm willing to make.

Ah, OK, so media Monkey is another library like iTunes Library and Music Bee is?  It is BOTH a mobile app AND a desk top library?  I was thinking it was JUST a mobile app.  Thx.

V

[Babydoll32]

Ah, OK, so media Monkey is another library like iTunes Library and Music Bee is?  It is BOTH a mobile app AND a desk top library?  I was thinking it was JUST a mobile app.  Thx.

V

Hi, Varick.
Yes. MediaMonkey does what you searching for, with a few pros and cons.

Pros:

* Nearly perfect 2-way-syncing via WiFi (also for unrooted devices), USB and directly SD. It syncs ratings, playcount/playdate, lyrics and edited/created playlists.

* Support for Android & iDevices and some exotics.

* A little bit easier to configure than Musicbee, and a lot easier than Foobar.

* Much more functionality than iTunes.

* Good support by developer and community (similar Musicbee), with a lot script extensions.

* MediaMonkey Android supports Android Auto and some nice things like Chromecast, multiple artist and multiple genre listing.

Cons:

* For full functionality, you have to pay for MediaMonkey Gold AND ALSO MediaMonkey Android Pro. But prices are fair.

* You're completely bounded to MediaMonkey on Windows and Android, to run it correctly. That means syncing, playing, nearly  everything has been done by MediaMonkey. If you use another player play/skipcounts won't increase/decrease. If you copy music to your Phone by another way, it won't work.

* In my opinion Musicbee and Foobar sounds a little bit better than MediaMonkey, because of used engine. Shouldn't be problematic unless you're not audiophil.

* Normalizing above 89-90dB distorted some of my songs. As long as you not normalize above those values, it shouldn't matter.

* AAC encoder is only available by paying an extra codec package. But it's not worth the money, cause it's no good encoder and sounds crap. Use built-in LAME for MP3, if you go lossy.

* MediaMonkey Windows design and usability comes a little old school, but with other skins, I can live with it.

* Not such a great customization level as Musicbee or Foobar.

* MediaMonkey is still a little bit rudimentary (e.g. no smartplaylists), but does what a player should. More features are also planned.

I used MediaMonkey first in 2003/4, but old one was buggy, killed a lot of my tags and so I was pissed and started using Musicbee, when it came out. While I was using my phone for music playback only since nearly one year, I went back to MediaMonkey for syncing. Mobile usability and syncing my playcount (because for autorate songs and make playlists based on listening history) is more important for me, than desktop playing. I also play sometimes music on partys (did it with both Musicbee and now again MediaMonkey) and experience is nearly similar. So, If you want the best desktop-only player/manager, with good usability, I suggest Musicbee. If you want a good all-in-one sync/playback solution, pay some bucks and go with MediaMonkey 4 Gold and MediaMonkey Android Pro. iTunes, I would never suggest, only for really novice Apple-fans.