Roon currently allows for you to focus on file types, such as DSD, FLAC, ALAC, etc…
I am using different audio playback software, among which are Pure Music and JRiver Music Center.
Pure Music creates unique bookmark files that are associated with file types that iTunes cannot play back. iTunes lists this files in the library and the playback is handled by PM.
Roon lists both these bookmark files as well as the original FLAC or DSD files. The problem is that I cannot tell the difference between an album listing that leads to the FLAC or DSD files from the album listing that leads to the PMBMF files. As a result, I often select the wrong one and I get no audio.
Here is an example of what the path to this file might be
Music Folder/artist/album_name/Pure Music BookMark.pmbmf/pmbmf/track_name.flac.m4a
The original file would be in
Music Folder/artist/album_name
What I want to be able to do is focus on all FLAC but not focus on any filespec that includes “pmbmf” in the path. I can do this in JRiver.
In addition to this, I purchase my hirez audio from different vendors, such as HDTracks.com, NativeDSD.com, Acoustic Sounds Super Hirez.
I put that which I purchase into folders with the Vendor’s name. In JRiver, I have created playlists based upon file paths that specify these folder names.
[quote=“Jerald_Josephs, post:3, topic:6367”]
This tells me that the filters depend completely on filename extensions and not file name types.
[/quote]I believe that’s a false conclusion, I’ll leave a flag for @Mike@Danny to confirm or otherwise.
What I don’t understand is why Roon doesn’t just ignore those PM created files. Again let’s see what the Roon devs come back with
@Carl, I can understand why you may think that I am wrong, but the filespec.flac.m4a is not an audio file. It is a data file that helps Pure Music locate and play back the original FLAC audio file. If you try to play this file back using ITunes, you’ll hear silence and there is no advance on the timeline from 0:00.
It is not literally an M4A file nor is it a FLAC file.
Hi Jerald,
I suspect that those file conform to the M4A spec even though there’s not audio in them.
However I don’t use iTunes or Pure Music so it is only speculation.
Would you mind emailing [PM sent] a couple of examples so I can have a closer looking at them.
I might be able to spot some characteristic that Roon could use so it ignores them, if I do I’ll let the Roon Devs know.
Regards and Happy New Year
Carl
PS where do the .pmbmf files fit into this, I though they where the helper files.
As do I. However, I have each as their own Storage Location. This allows me to use the Focus function to Focus on a specific vendor, aka storage location. This is found under Focus, Inspector, Storage Locations
@Carl, thank you for the assist. I will respond to your PM and provide some examples.
Pure Music inserts itself into the “audio path” of iTunes. Or perhaps better said, it uses iTunes as the music librarian, and is capable of playing back audio files which are not compatible with iTunes.
When you launch PM, it launches iTunes.
PM appears as a separate window. You have both an iTunes window and a PM window.
From PM, you can import audio files that iTunes cannot play back. PM creates a folder called “Pure Music Bookmark.pmbmf” in each folder from which you are importing files.
This folder contains a sub-folder called “pmbmf” and this folder, in turn, contains the individual track PMBMF files, by name, with the extension of .flac.m4a. It is this file which is listed in iTunes. If you try to play this track back using only iTunes, you hear nothing. If you then start the PM application and then play this track, you get audio.
Therefore, I agree with you that the PMBMF files, as I described to you, are helper files, but they don’t have an extension of type .pmbmf