I have a huge music library and I want to analyze the whole thing.
I have been starting analysis before I go to bed every night. The scenario is that I wake up in the morning and some portion is
completed, but I need to stop the analysis because even with an eight core AMD running at 4.3 Ghz, the system is very
sluggish while analysis is progressing. So I turn it off to do my usual work. Okay, so evening comes again. Typically I have added
some new alblums to the music database, so I need to synchronize again (is this correct?).. So that I can analyze the new music data.
TRhen I run analysis of the new music, this may take 30 minutes to an hour. Now I want to get back to the enormously large task
of analyzing yet to be analyzed material. My problem is that now I don't know exactly where in the library to begin analysis again, so
I have to scroll through the list to find where there are no colors, bpm, or or ratings data being added. Then I have to grab another huge chunk to throw at the analyzer tonight while I sleep. This is difficult because It takes forever to scroll by sorting by the date
added field until I get to this point in the massive database. It is slow because beatunes scrolls so slowly taking minutes at times to refresh where I am. This is a slow and tedious process. It occurs to me that this whole process could be made easier if You could simple tell beatunes to continue analyzing data that had not been previously analyzed. beatunes would keep track of what portions of the database it had yet to complete analysis on. Perhaps it would be a simple task to program this feature. Maybe if beatunes could
tell if it had previously analyzed a particular entry it could look to see if it could find un-analyzed entries. Or it could be a tsask based
tthing where You set up an analisysis task and when you exit and come back it could prompt you to see if you wanted to coninue
the unfinished task.. etc.. Anyway I may just be doing this the wrong way. Can You think of something that would make my job
easier?
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions that you may have regarding this issue.
beatunes is great, I really like it. I have yet to dig around in the code to see if there is a way I could work out how to do some
programming myself. I don't have much experience with java, but it looks like it's been quite an effort on Your part. Great Stuff!
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
Okay Here is another image...
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1 Posted by thomson.gb on 05 Aug, 2014 06:20 AM
I am adding another image showing the task quque (31071)...
Again, Thanks!
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
Support Staff 2 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 05 Aug, 2014 09:46 AM
Hey Grace,
thanks for your message. First of all, please update to (the just released) beaTunes 4.0.3. Some things in the UI and also in the analysis will definitely get faster. Before you run the installer, stop beaTunes.
Regarding responsiveness. May I ask when your computer was manufactured and how much RAM you have? Also, the hard drive your music is on, is it the internal hard drive or some other storage system?
During analysis, beaTunes has the capability to work on multiple files at once. Just how many files beaTunes works on in parallel can be set in the Preferences via the Analysis tab. There is a setting called Parallel Tasks. If your system is very sluggish during analysis and the current value is greater than 1, please consider reducing the value, so that beaTunes uses fewer system resources (especially disc I/O).
Regarding only analyzing songs that have not been analyzed:
Pretty much all analysis tasks have a little box called Replace existing values. Whenever that box is not checked, beaTunes first looks whether a value has already been computed. If it has been already computed, it will not compute it again, basically skipping the computation.
So in essence, you can simply click on
Analyze Allfrom theToolsmenu, make sure you are not replacing any existing values in the options and things should be fine.Also, to reduce the analysis load, I would strictly only analyze things I'm really interested in. E.g., if you're never going to use Album ReplayGain, don't compute it! It requires reading through the audio of a whole album and is therefore not a cheap and quick task.
Regarding synchronization and analysis of new songs:
Until beaTunes has not analyzed all songs once, I'd recommend not to bother with synchronizing and analyzing new songs.
Hope this helps,
-hendrik
3 Posted by thomson.gb on 05 Aug, 2014 11:37 AM
hendrik wrote:
Support Staff 4 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 05 Aug, 2014 11:48 AM
Hey Grace,
not sure, if you wrote anything in your mail, but if you did, it didn't arrive here.
Please write any answers above that line (where it says, write above this line).
Thanks,
-hendrik
PS: To check what you sent, please use the web interface. Link is below.
5 Posted by thomson.gb on 07 Aug, 2014 05:28 AM
hendrik wrote:
>
> // Please reply above this line
>
1) I will upgrade.
) the internal hard drive or some other storage system?
I built this box last year. It has 5tb internal HD space. The music
library is currently on a hybrid 1Tb seagate using a combination of
semiconductor and magnetic. I am considering moving it to a 2Tb
conventional drive that is also internal. I currentl run 8Gb of
ddr3-1600mhz UDIMM ram
The processor is AMD FX-8350 running at 4.33 Ghz.
During analysis, beaTunes has the capability to work on multiple files
at once. Just how many files beaTunes works on in parallel can be set in
the /Preferences/ via the /Analysis/ tab. There is a setting called
/Parallel Tasks/. If your system is very sluggish during analysis and
the current value is greater than 1, please consider reducing the value,
so that beaTunes uses fewer system resources (especially disc I/O).
Currently this is set to 3
So in essence, you can simply click on |Analyze All| from the |Tools|
menu, make sure you are not replacing any existing values in the options
and things should be fine.
I am trying something new. I created a library that contains all of the
songs that appear to not have been analyzed yet. I am synchronizing then
analyze this new
library. It seems to me that beatunes could simply remember if an item
has been analyzed and which ones have not so that any time there is
anything new to be analyzed
beaTunes could offer to do it, or maybe if desired the user could opt to
have it done automatically. Just a thought.
okay , I see the analyze new and so scratch all of the above... suffice
it to say I am trying a new aproach, I will let you know how it goes....
Incidently, I wondered how beaTunes to integrates its data into the
iTunes data files. Does it create new fields in the Metadata? And if it
does, how does it do this?
Is it added in the comment fields, or are new fields created. Is there
any danger that files / libraries updated in this way would become
incompatible wit other
applications?
Thats the gist of what I wrote before.... I will let you know how things
are going./.. It looks like a full analysis will take about a week and a
half to catch up, then
things will be a lot easier. As a side issue, because of the way that
beaTunes uses the CPU, and the current hot weather (It's hot here in the
shop too) I am noticing that
I need additional cooling and ventilation in my box here, so I ordered a
second fan for the CPU cooler. This is not a problem with beatTunes.
beaTunes just showed me
this shortcoming sooner. That's a good thing as it may get even hotter
this summer and it's a good thing I noticed this.
Anyway thanks again Hendrik for your reply. I am really enjoying working
with beaTunes, so if I can be of any help to You please let me know if I
can try anything
for you here.
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
Support Staff 6 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 07 Aug, 2014 05:42 AM
Hi,
please note that analyze new is tied to when a song was added to the library. And this kind of thing depends on sync having been successful. So the thing to do, is sync and beaTunes will then suggest analysis of new songs. However, this is the not same as analysis of "not yet analyzed song". As the next time you start beaTunes those files will not be "new" anymore.
I'm not sure what kind of library you are using (see http://help.beatunes.com/kb/troubleshooting/how-to-tell-an-itunes-b...), but if you use a folder-based, new values will not be communicated to iTunes right away. For that you need an iTunes-based library.
Hope this helps,
-hendrik
PS: I'm currently traveling and answers may not come as swift as usually for a week or so... Thanks for your understanding.
7 Posted by thomson.gb on 01 Sep, 2014 09:32 PM
> From: Grace B Thomson <[email blocked]>
> <Grace%20B%20Thomson%20%[email blocked]%3E>
>
Hello Hendrik,
First:
I want to move beaTunes and my iTunes Library to a new disk drive (1TB)
I wonder if you have any suggestions about how to make the move
as smoothly as possible. I suspect that this would be easier if I imbed
all of the beaTunes data first. Anyway, I am trying to work out a step
by step plan to make the migration as safe and non-eventful as possible.
Embedded data:
I am curious about how this works, are the beaTunes data items included
into the metadata as comments, or as new fields? Does this
embedding cause any problems with other software? How large is the data
that would be added to my library? Does this eliminate the
neesd for all of the .tmp files that I see from beaTunes?
File formats:
Does it matter what kind of files I have. I noticed that your scanner
does not seem to work for .aiff files. Other formats . ogg
and .mp4 etc may have different kinds of metadata. What file format
should I convert my .aiff files to so that beaTunes will work
with them? I have been coverting .flac files to .aiff using Audacity to
preserve the data and iTunes seems to like that flavor instead of
.flac. (beaTunes seems to have trouble analyzing .aiff).
Thanks again for Your help.
Regards.
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
>
hendrik wrote:
Support Staff 8 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 02 Sep, 2014 07:46 AM
.tmpfiles - if you see any, they are leftovers by the tagging library I use that, caused by a concurrent write conflict. If you are sure that you still have the corresponding audio file, feel free to delete those files.This depends on the beaTunes version you are using.
beaTunes 4 does well with flac, but currently (4.0.6) does not well with aiff on Windows (OS X is fine for analysis, but embedding data is not possible).
iTunes on the other hand does not support flac.
You might want to consider Apple Lossless, which works well in both iTunes and beaTunes and offers lossless quality.
Regarding your original question:
If you are using an iTunes-based library in beaTunes, beaTunes imports all paths etc. from the file
iTunes Library.xml. This means, that as long as you don't create a whole new library in iTunes, beaTunes will be able to maintain the connection between entries in its database and your files, even when you move them via the iTunes Advanced tab ("iTunes Media folder location").If you intend to manually move your files, you will break the iTunes association with your files and beaTunes won't be able to associate file ids with the actual files anymore. In that case you will have to completely rebuild the library and it depends on what you have embedded in your files how much data you can recover.
In any case, if you're not familiar with this article, please read it.
Hope this helps,
-hendrik
9 Posted by Christian Rinte... on 02 Sep, 2014 12:51 PM
hendrik,
"beaTunes 4 does well with flac, but currently (4.0.6) does not well with aiff on Windows (OS X is fine for analysis, but embedding data is not possible)."
does that mean that with beatunes 4.0.6 on OSX i can't embed non-itunes-data on aif-files? and what about embedding data in ALAC with v4.06 on OSX?
christian
Support Staff 10 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 02 Sep, 2014 12:56 PM
That's exactly what that means.
ALAC should be fine on both Windows and OS X.
11 Posted by Christian Rinte... on 02 Sep, 2014 01:11 PM
…well, that explains some of my issues i'm currently having. my entire >25k songs library has been analyzed with the checkbox "schreibe Nicht-iTunes-Felder in Audiodateien" active. two days ago, i noticed massive DB corruption that could not be repaired. i assumed that with all my songs analyzed with the data embedded, recreating the DB should be a breeze w/o losing anything.
which, of course, was not the case. in the recreated database, about 50% of the songs (ALAC mostly) had no color and no "tonart" (BPM was there). and i'm sure that all of those songs had been analyzed to embed these data.
(i'm now re-analyzing >10k songs, a lot of them 24/96, and i don't want this to happen again. how can i make sure the data is actually embedded?)
Support Staff 12 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 02 Sep, 2014 01:14 PM
This surprises me. ALAC should be fine.
13 Posted by Christian Rinte... on 02 Sep, 2014 01:48 PM
well… it DID surprise me too :-( (but maybe you should put a note in the prefs that AIF will not embed non-iTunes-data.
14 Posted by thomson.gb on 02 Sep, 2014 02:52 PM
Hello Hendrik, Grace Here...
On the .tmp files, I have 110 Gb of them in the user/My Music/ITunes
folder. They have names like iT 846.tmp, iT 847.tmp etc... All of them
are 130,205 KB in size.
I never saw these before I ran beaTunes. Are these okay to delete?
I have reviewed Apples instructions on moving my iTunes folder to a
new disk drive and I only have one question, They mention that "Keep
iTunes Media Folder
Organized" should be checked. As I understand it, this will rename all
of my music files to a format with disc number and track number + the
Name of the item
(or song). This concerns me because it means I will lose any other
information that is part of the file name, furthermore, a lot of items
don't have disc ot track numbers.
Is this really a safe thing to do? Is it really necessary to have this
checked for the migration to work. I have always been warned about the
mess that iTunes
will make of your library if you check this box. But if it is really
required in order for this process to work, I will go ahead with it
(Maybe those warning
were from someone who did not understand iTunes). So, if I do it this
way, is there any requirement to first imbed the beaTunes Data. This is
important
because if that is the case, I would need to change all of my .aiff
files to apple lossless prior to doing this. Fortunately, I only have
less than 1000 .aiff files,
so I could probably get that done over a period of only a few days
assuming I can get Audacity to save them this way. Maybe You might know
of a software
tool that would do this as a batch process (while preserving metadata)?
If you know of such a tool, please suggest it.
On another topic, I noticed that when I am playing music and looking at
"show matching songs" I need to find the song that I wish to find
matches for and select it.
with such a big library beaTunes can't find the song that matches the
one that is playing quickly enough if I search for it). Initially I
wondered why it was not showing any matches
until I discovered this. Would it be difficult to have it show matches
for the song that is playing without the need to go and look it up. Ie
automatically select the song
that is being played so that matches would automatically appear as songs
are being played?
Okay, Thanks for all of your help. I can see that you are really
dedicated to this project - You answer questions on weekends and
Holidays! But what a great project......
Thanks again!
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
hendrik wrote:
Support Staff 15 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 02 Sep, 2014 03:31 PM
Grace,
That sounds really odd to me.. I can't say for certain where they are from.
If you follow those instructions you will definitely loose all information that is now contained in file names. So in my opinion, if you value your file names, it is not safe.
If you want to maintain the connection between iTunes identifiers and beaTunes database entries (this is how things are tied together), there is no other way to do it.
In my opinion, iTunes does a pretty awesome job in keeping things organized. But to a degree this is a matter of taste and a question of how well you have already tagged your library (because iTunes will organize your files based on your tags).
Alternatively to letting iTunes reorganize, you could also simply re-organize yourself and then create a new iTunes library. However, then beaTunes would loose all data that is not embedded in the files themselves, as the connection (iTunes ids) is gone.
You can convert audio files to Apple Lossless using iTunes: In the General tab of the preferences, click on
Import Settingsand change it toApple Lossless. Then sort in iTunes byKind, find your AIFF files, select them, right-click and selectCreate Apple Lossless Version.However, since this will create new files, beaTunes will probably not know things like key and BPM for them, even if it knew these things for the old files.
In
Controlsthere is an itemGo to Current Song, or simply ⌘-L. Does that do the trick for you?Cheers,
-hendrik
16 Posted by thomson.gb on 02 Sep, 2014 10:36 PM
Hello Hendrik,
I think I know when the .tmp files are produced and it does not seem to beaTunes.
The files contain XML data in a format starting with:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
And what follows is song data for a lot of files in my library like:
<key>Major Version</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Minor Version</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Date</key><date>2014-09-02T17:20:30Z</date>
<key>Application Version</key><string>11.3.1</string>
<key>Features</key><integer>5</integer>
<key>Show Content Ratings</key><true/>
<key>Music Folder</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/grace/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/</string>
<key>Library Persistent ID</key><string>AD040CEF5137BBA4</string>
<key>Tracks</key>
<dict>
<key>16318</key>
<dict>
<key>Track ID</key><integer>16318</integer>
<key>Name</key><string>'One Way Ticket</string>
<key>Artist</key><string>LeAnn Rimes</string>
<key>Album</key><string>HQ Music Video</string>
<key>Kind</key><string>MPEG audio file</string>
<key>Size</key><integer>5118120</integer>
<key>Total Time</key><integer>221387</integer>
<key>Date Modified</key><date>2014-07-31T22:17:31Z</date>
<key>Date Added</key><date>2012-02-19T05:23:13Z</date>
<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>183</integer>
<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
<key>Comments</key><string>www.dvdvideosoft.com</string>
<key>Play Count</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Play Date</key><integer>3489665042</integer><dict>
<key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2014-07-31T22:24:02Z</date>
<key>Album Rating</key><integer>60</integer>
<key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
<key>Artwork Count</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Persistent ID</key><string>706801D73BBA0E4C</string>
<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/grace/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Music/Unknown%20Artist/Unknown%20Album/'One%20Way%20Ticket%20(Because%20I%20Can)'%20-%20L.mp3</string>
<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>5</integer>
<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
</dict>
<key>16320</key>
I think iTunes is sending this data to their store for genius updates. Incidentally
I have noticed that genius updates are now automatic. In the past I always had
to initiate them with <Store> <Update Genius>.
Anyway, I have been deleting them and have not noticed any problems resulting from such deletions.
So it looks like beaTunes is probably innocent regarding these .tmp files. Unless
beaTunes is responsible for the update-Genius requests (this would explain the
new automatic behavior that I noticed.
I am about to start on my project to move my library. I have installed a new disk
and It will be dedicated to iTunes and other music related stuff.
Does it matter if beaTunes is running or not once I change my Media Folder Location?
Thanks again.
73
-Grace
NNNN
z
Support Staff 17 Posted by Hendrik Schreib... on 03 Sep, 2014 11:18 AM
Hey Grace,
Thanks for sharing the
tmpfile info. That's good to know!beaTunes has nothing to do with iTunes Genius. Unfortunately, Apple does not make any Genius or iCloud APIs available.
It does not really matter, as long as beaTunes is not doing anything.
I'd probably shut it down for the duration of the move.
Good luck with the move!
-hendrik