Hi, I’m trying Plex media server for listening on my PC and for streaming to a chromecast device my music.
I have this problem: Plex searches over my hard disk in order to build its database, but I often have multiple versions of the same album (flac and mp3, tipically).
How can I tell Plex to play only the highest quality files?
If I browse Plex library, I can see that .flac, and .mp3 files are listed all together in the same album (which is wrong).
How can I solve this problem?
Plex doesn’t support several qualities for music, like it does for movies.
Why should it, the processor power to transcode music is pretty low, so there is no point in storing lower quality files. PMS can always generate mp3 on the fly when a device doesn’t understand FLAC.
So there is no solution except you erasing the lower quality files (or hide them from Plex).
So there is no solution except you erasing the lower quality files (or hide them from Plex).
Can I create a filter to tell Plex non to search for mp3 files?
You can try to use a .plexignore file.
But you have to delete and recreate your music library, because a .plexignore file only affects new content.
I see these discussions all over the forums on every topic imaginable: “Experts” tell novice users that their approach is senseless for one or the other reason. In the end they give no solution to the original answer and leave the user who asked in the first place with no answer to his problem, but a bad feeling.
**Why not accept that there are user cases where the seemingly senseless function/approach is needed and search for a solution? **
For this topic for instance, I need to have FLACs and MP3s in the same directory and I want Plex to just select the best format applicable for the current player. I need this to be able to import my files into iTunes. Yes, there might be no need to use iTunes or a better solution or whatever. That doesn’t matter to me! I just want Plex to gain some intelligence. Shouldn’t be too challenging to implement. And I bet @roberto.zanasi also has good reasons for his setup to require the mentioned filter feature.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
The functionality you wish for doesn’t exist in Plex at the moment.
I only explained the options which the user has currently within Plex.
