Track Redirection & Synchronization
Version 3.4.2
- MediaMonkey Add-on -

by Zvezdan Dimitrijević

This add-on works with MediaMonkey v3.0-4.x. If you like to store and play whole albums and if you have many albums with same songs (official studio, compilation, soundtrack, ...), especially if they are in some lossless format, then this add-on is right for you. Instead of having multiple large audio files with same song for every album, you could keep just one file for one album and on another albums you could have small .asx files (1-2 KB) as redirection files.

With this add-on you could create .asx files and use them instead of original audio files, you could play them and you could modify their metadata using Track Properties dialog box. Beside of the master audio file, the .asx file could also refers to its album cover bitmaps. There is also an option to update the playcount and the last played date of the master (referenced) file whenever you play some .asx file which refers to it. Many software and hardware players could reproduce audio files referenced by .asx files.

This add-on is mainly intended for "one song-many albums" situations, but it could be also used for any kind of redirections, for example if you want to store metadata for some file format which doesn't support tags. Version 1.2 has added an option to create redirections between two (or more) audio files instead of .asx files (e.g. master could be a .flac and redirected file a .mp3), for users who prefer to keep duplicates on disk. Version 2.0 has added an option to synchronize specified metadata between linked tracks and version 3.0 has added an option to copy tags from the one set of tracks to the another one even if they are not previously linked with redirections.

If you want to discus about this add-on, you could visit its related MediaMonkey forum thread.

You could also take a look on my other add-ons for MediaMonkey.

Donation

This add-on is donationware. I am its sole developer and I worked on it in my own free time. I am not employed by Ventis Media, the company behind MediaMonkey, nor have I been paid by them for my efforts. If you find my add-on useful and want to help its further development, it would be nice if you could send a small donation using PayPal. You could donate as much as you think that is appropriate, any amount would be really appreciated.

Euro (EUR) US Dollar (USD)

Compatibility

This add-on doesn't work with MediaMonkey v5! No add-on made for a previous version of the program will work with MM5, either by me or any other author, since MM5 has completely different programming interface than before. Which means that all MM4 add-ons have to be rewritten for MM5 from scratch.

If you really like my add-on and think that it is essential for your work with the program, you should stay with MM4. Or you could wait for me to port the add-on to MM5, but my interest for that depends only on donations.


What is new

v3.4.1 - 2015-06-22

v3.4 - 2012-10-08

v3.3.9 - 2012-06-28

v3.3.8 - 2011-06-26

v3.3.7 - 2011-06-10

v3.3.6 - 2011-06-03

v3.3.5 - 2011-04-03

v3.3.4 - 2011-01-17

v3.3.3 - 2011-01-15

v3.3.2 - 2010-03-21

v3.3.1 - 2009-10-03

v3.3 - 2009-09-14

v3.2 - 2009-08-26

v3.1.2 - 2009-08-23

v3.1.1 - 2009-08-23


v3.1 - 2009-08-17

v3.0.2 - 2009-08-15

v3.0.1 - 2009-08-08

v3.0 - 2009-08-07

v2.5.1 - 2009-07-26

v2.5 - 2009-07-25

v2.4 - 2009-07-22

v2.3 - 2009-07-20

v2.2 - 2009-07-11

v2.1.1 - 2009-07-03

v2.1 - 2009-07-02

v2.0 - 2009-06-27

v1.3.2 - 2009-06-20

v1.3.1 - 2009-06-19

v1.3 - 2009-06-13

v1.2.1 - 2009-05-30

v1.2 - 2009-05-26

v1.1 - 2009-05-12

v1.0.1 - 2009-05-09

v1.0 - 2009-05-05

Installation

Just double click on the TrackRedirection-xx.mmip file; if you are on Vista or Win7 and you got "Product installation error", make sure you have MM3 set to "Run as Administrator"; if you downloaded the installation package with IE7 and it changed its extension to a .zip, you should first change it back to a .mmip.

Usage

When you choose the Track Redirection from the context or the Tools menu, you have several options available:
TrackRedirection-3.0-4
When you choose the Options option from the context or Tools menu, you will get a new dialog box with following options:

Copy Metadata

With this add-on you could easily copy tags and/or play stats from the one sets of tracks to the another one (e.g. from flac files to mp3):
  1. choose Tools \ Track Redirection \ Create Redirections/Copy Metadata for Duplicates/Folders option;
  2. select Folders radio button;
  3. specify Master folder (with old files);
  4. specify Copy folder (with new files);
  5. select tracks which you want to synchronize (if you click on the left topmost check box you would select all contained tracks);
  6. click on the Synchronize button if you want to copy tags or Transfer ps. if you want to transfer play counts and play dates.
If you want to copy tags using this method, you should specify which of them you want to copy in Tools \ Track Redirection \ Options dialog box before you apply the suggested steps.

The requirements to copy metadata are that both sets of tracks (old and new) should be previously entered into the Library (e.g. using Add/Rescan Tracks to the Library option) and both sets of tracks should have exactly same file names, e.g. "03 - blah blah.flac" and "03 - blah blah.mp3".

You could synchronize more than one album at once as long as you have the same folder structure with the old and new files, e.g. for the old files:
c:\My Music\Lossless\Rock\Pink Floyd\The Dark Side of the Moon\xxx.flac
c:\My Music\Lossless\Rock\Pink Floyd\Wish You Were Here\xxx.flac

and the new files:
d:\My Music\Compressed\Rock\Pink Floyd\The Dark Side of the Moon\xxx.mp3
d:\My Music\Compressed\Rock\Pink Floyd\Wish You Were Here\xxx.mp3

you should specify:
Master folder: c:\My Music\Lossless\
Copy folder: d:\My Music\Compressed\

Advantages

List of tested software players that support .asx files:

ProgramUTF-8OGGMP4relative pathsshow embedded tags
BS.Player 2.40.997yesnonononone
CorePlayer for Symbian 1.2.5yesyesyesyessome
GOM Player 2.1.17.4710yesyesnononone
The KMPlayer 2.9.4.1434yesyesyesyessome
VLC 0.9.9yesyesyesnosome
Winamp 5.552noyesyesyesnone
Windows Media Player 11yesnonoyesmost

Limitations

Important

This add-on could be very dangerous! If you choose the "Delete audio files from the specified album" option in the Create .asx File(s) dialog box, all files with the same album and title names as selected file(s) will be removed! Well, the main purpose of this add-on is to replace some large audio files with much smaller redirectional files, so you should be aware of such behavior. However, it is highly recommended to turn off the mentioned option, at least until you get comfortable using this add-on. Also, playing stats of referenced files and ones which refers to them could be messed up if something goes wrong. Because of that it would be the best if you try this add-on with some small test database and backup copies of audio files.

Disclaimer

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the author be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Notice

This add-on is a false positive reported as a worm by F-Secure. The author of F-Secure promised me that will update its database and put the add-on on white-list, but still didn't. If you go to the www.virustotal.com/en/ site, you will see that it is safe tested by 54 popular anti-virus engines; the only one reporting a worm in it is F-Secure.