[mythtv-users] itunes -> mythmusic syncing

[Matt]

On 11/21/05, Shanon Mulley <shanonmulleyster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Since I started using mythtv (and mythmusic), one of my biggest gripes
> has been the clunky interface for creating playlists in mythmusic. Not
> quite as elegant as the playlist editor included in itunes (which I
> used before getting mythtv). I thought "wouldn't be cool if there was
> some way of syncing the two? So I could manage my music on my windows
> machine using itunes, then syncing it with mythmusic, so all the
> songs, files and playlists were transferred automatically to
> mythmusic?".
>
> Eventually I decided to write such a script, and now I have decided to
> share it with others (I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wanted to
> sync mythmusic with itunes).
>
> A few notes/assumptions/bugs:
> 1) This script assumes that all your music files (well, mp3's) are all
> under one directory on your windows machine. You can have your music
> organised in subdirectories within this, so long as they are all under
> the one directory. This script in its current form wont work if some
> of your music is in "d:\music\", and some is in "c:\music\"
> 2) I've only really tested this with mp3's. I think I specifically
> target mp3's, and leave other files behind.
> 3) If a file or directory has some special characters in it, it wont
> copy across. Special characters such as []() &' have been accounted
> for, but some special characters wont - most notably pronunciations in
> characters (like ā and ă). The output will tell you which files
> failed. I just rename the files/directories.
> 4) I don't believe there are any special dependencies for this. Using
> Fedora Core 4, perl and the xml parser were already installed. (Just
> make sure they are installed).
> 5) While this script will copy across the playlists and music files
> from itunes, it is not recommended you use this to copy across your
> whole music collection. It will copy across each music file
> separately, and this is very slow. For the first run, copy across your
> music manually, and then run the scripts. After you add new music to
> itunes, run the script again to update the few tracks you added.
>
> Rough instructions:
> I'm writing these instructions from memory - they might be a bit shaky.
> 1) Share the directories where you keep your music and itunes database
> on your windows machine. They can be read only if you like. On my
> machine, I shared "C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My
> Music" as "mymusic", and "d:\My Documents\mp3" as "mp3". (This is
> assuming your itunes database and your music are stored in different
> locations)
> 2) mount the windows shares on your linux machine. If you don't know
> what your doing, you'll probably have to edit your fstab file
> (/etc/fstab on Fedora). I added the two following lines to my fstab
> file:
> ---fstab start---
> //free-snr/mp3  /mnt/mp3  smbfs username=username,password=password 0 0
> //free-snr/mymusic  /mnt/mymusic  smbfs username=username,password=password 0 0
> ---fstab end---
> 3) On your myth machine, create a new database in the mysql database.
> I called mine "itunes". I used the following lines to create the
> tables/fields/keys necessary:
> ---mysql statements start---
> create table Track (ID int, Name varchar(100), Artist varchar(100),
> Location varchar(255), mythfilename text, mythintid int);
> create table Playlist (ID int, Name varchar(100), PlaylistItems text);
> alter table Track add primary key (ID);
> alter table Playlist add primary key (ID);
> ---mysql statements end---
> 4) Give the mythtv sql user read/write access to the itunes database
> (I forget the commands for that).
> 5) copy the three files (two scripts, one configuration file) onto
> your linux machine, and make them executable ("chmod 755 filename.pl"
> I think).
> 6) edit the itunes.conf file with your configuration info. I have
> included instructions within the file to assist with this.
> 7) That's it! (I think)
>
> Running the scripts
> 1) Run step1.pl (./step1.pl) (This populates the mysql itunes
> database, and copies across the music files)
> 2) open up mythtv, run the "scan for new" function within mythmusic.
> 3) run step2.pl (./step2.pl) (This deletes all existing itunes
> playlists [denoted with a (i)], and re-creates them all. NOTE - It
> will not delete playlists you have created in mythmusic - it will only
> delete those which have (i) in the playlist name).
>
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>
>
>

You could also try the mfd/mfe in SVN.  I believe it supports iTunes
functionality, although I haven't played with it personally.