The best way to synchronize th J3?

[Viggar]

Hi there,

does anyone know a program or a way to synchronize the J3?
Because now every time I edit a MP3-File (adding a Album-Art, renaming or the like) I have to manually delete the old file from my J3 before copying the edited onto it.
Whe doing this with 300 files, it becomes a big pain in the ass.

What I am looking for, is a programm that compares the files on my PC with the ones on my J3 and automatically copies the edited ones to my J3.

I hope I expressed myself understandable^^

Thank You for taking the time to answer!

[CrowdAds]

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by Viggar

Because now every time I edit a MP3-File (adding a Album-Art, renaming or the like) I have to manually delete the old file from my J3 before copying the edited onto it.

What are you currently using to perform this task? Why do you need to first delete the existing file(s) on the J3 before replacing them with updated versions? Why doesn't just copying the new files from PC to the J3 automatically replace the old with the new?

What I am looking for, is a program that compares the files on my PC with the ones on my J3 and automatically copies the edited ones to my J3.

Quite frankly, my own feeling is that nothing should be "automatic". I want complete control over what gets done, as I don't really trust a program to make decisions for me automatically when something a bit non-standard occurs.

What I want is a program that gives me all the information I need to make decisions and evaluate the differences (based on criteria I specify), and then perform the complete or partial set of actions I specify it can do for me, based on what it presents. The program should present the differences in as user-friendly a manner as possible by showing, comparing things based on settings or criteria, and then I indicate which way I want it to resolve the differences (automatically copying from one side to the other in order to "sync" both sides, copying "orphans" from one side to the other, deleting "orphans" from one side or the other, manually copying just what I tell it to copy, etc.).

In my opinion, there is no better program for this than than "Beyond Compare". It's not free, but it's perfect for this task... not to mention many other folder/file comparisons based on external file name/date/size/CRC, etc., as well as internal file content comparisons. It can even handle ignoring time-zone file date differences (on NTFS files, where this information is present), 2-second differences (on FAT32 vs. NTFS files), include/exclude filename filters, etc.

It's what I use to "sync" my J3 with my PC, i.e. I use it to identify what I've done on my PC that's different from how my J3 looks, and then I use it to copy/replace/delete from PC to J3.

[Urne]

My own preferred way of syncing the J3 with my music library on the laptop is through SyncToy. The reason I started using SyncToy was because I found that simply replacing the mp3 files when updating tags etc. didn't update the library on the J3 itself.

SyncToy lets me either "Echo" or "Synchronize" two folders where I use "Echo" since it SyncToy then only will update the J3 and not my own music library. I feel it's the safest way to proceed since I then know that SyncToy won't ever mess with my own local library and will always make sure that there is a clone of it on the J3.

There is a wide range of options in SyncToy that makes it possible to create various exceptions. I for example have chosen to exclude syncing hidden files and tell SyncToy to only copy *.mp3 files and *.jpg files so flac files etc. won't sync.

SyncToy is free and created by Microsoft and I would definitely recommend it myself.

[SpeedBoy3]

In my case, my library is larger than my J3, so I can't just sync my entire music folder. A poster on here recommended the perfect solution.

Using Media Monkey, I created a 'smart' playlist called "J3" for any song with a one '*' rating. I then just sync that playlist with my J3. It copies over album art .jpgs and everything, and if I change the name of a song -> a changed file name, it deletes the old version and copies over the new when I sync. If I remove the rating from a song, it removes it from my J3 on the next sync.

The only downside is that syncing takes forever to compare the file lists, but this is supposed to be fixed in Media Monkey 4.

Cheers!

[JimInPT]

Originally Posted by DSperber

In my opinion, there is no better program for this than than "Beyond Compare". It's not free, but it's perfect for this task... not to mention many other folder/file comparisons based on external file name/date/size/CRC, etc., as well as internal file content comparisons. It can even handle ignoring time-zone file date differences (on NTFS files, where this information is present), 2-second differences (on FAT32 vs. NTFS files), include/exclude filename filters, etc.

I second this opinion and highly recommend Beyond Compare - it will do the most sophisticated file comparisons anybody could want. I've only scratched the surface of what it can do and it's met every one of my needs.

I use BC to keep the contents of two Kindles synchronized as well as keeping my music server sync'd with the desktop PC I use for ripping my CDs. This is made easier by BC's ability to name and store specific comparison setups - the parameters for the Kindles are different from the ones I use for music so I just call up whichever stored comparison I need at the moment.

It also works with virtual drives, network drives and I believe even VPNs although I haven't tested that.

Great program.

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by JimInPT

This is made easier by BC's ability to name and store specific comparison setups - the parameters for the Kindles are different from the ones I use for music so I just call up whichever stored comparison I need at the moment.

I've been using the product for just over 9 years. I love it.

Very convenient to do the all-powerful "mirror to left/right" or "update to left/right" once I've looked at the presented comparison and decided one of these automated sync functions is what I want the program to do. Otherwise, it's just manual COPY/MOVE/DELETE to one side or the other, for one or more folders/files at a time, leaving me in complete control.