At last, there’s an excellent, FREE, convenient, total solution for syncing music (including WMA audio files & WMA tags) playlists, videos, & podcasts from my PC to my Android phone-- and for remote-controlling my PC’s music & video playback from my Android phone. It’s a total solution, like iTunes-desktop-to-iPhone, but better IMHO. It’s the only solution that meets all of my needs. It’s what I’ve been hoping for, so I thought I’d explain in case it helps others. (No, I don’t work for MediaMonkey.) It requires installing Media Monkey for Android (MMA) on your phone and Media Monkey for Windows (MMW) on your PC. Optionally, if you want to remotely control MMW (music & video playback & volume) on your PC from your phone via WiFi, you can also install the free app, Media Monkey Remote. And as a side note, MMA can also stream media from your PC or other UPnP/DLNA servers (though it’s limited in the free version).
MediaMonkey for Android (MMA) is a very nice player app, especially if it is used in conjunction with the free MediaMonkey for Windows (MMW) described below. MMA has a nice, intuitive user interface. And if it’s synced from MMW, an MMA-readable-only database is created that enables volume-leveling, and can even properly display WMA tag information (which solves the frustrating “Unknown Artist” problem that Android has with WMA files). The free version of MMA has a 5-band graphic equalizer, that even works for WMA files (which is a rarity) and it can do USB-sync, gapless playback, and play albums in track # order (based on tag data) or optionally, in alphabetical or shuffled order. The Pro version ($3.59) adds WiFi synchronization, unlimited UPnP streaming, lyrics, and folder-based browsing.
MediaMonkey for Windows (MMW) is an excellent, free, Swiss-army knife media player/organizer/re-namer/tagger/metadata-fixer/transcoder. It’s like Windows Media Player (WMP), and has a VERY similar user-interface to WMP, but it includes built-in tag-fixing, file-renaming/re-organizing based on tag information, and it includes transcoding. And thanks to the many (mostly free) add-ons, MMW can do things like importing music playlists from WMP or other devices (including doing so using fuzzy logic to resolve file-path mismatches between devices or music storage drives). MMW can sync your media files, playlists, volume-leveling data, and metadata tags (like ID3, and even WMA tags) to your Android device and to MMA’s database. The sync options are very powerful. You can sync everything or create a profile that syncs only specified albums/folders and playlists. You can maintain the PC’s folder hierarchy on your phone, or change it on-the-fly and even rename the files as you sync based on tag information, etc. You can sync one-way in either direction, or bi-directionally. You can sync additively-only, or you can allow full synchronization, including deleting files (optionally with or without deletion warnings). You can sync album art and even specify artwork sizes beyond which shouldn't be synchronized. You can set up sync to be automatic, or user-invoked. You can sync over USB (with the free version of MMA) or over WiFi (with the Pro version of MMA). The Gold version of MMW ($24.95) even lets you optionally transcode on-the-fly as you sync to your phone-- for example, in case you maintain a high-fidelity lossless music library on your PC (for connection to your home stereo) but want to put a smaller, lower-fidelity music collection on your phone because your phone has less storage space and lower-fidelity hardware. I’ve posted detailed syncing instructions separately.
MediaMonkey Remote is a free Android app that lets you remotely control the media-selection and volume of MMW on your PC, via WiFi, if your PC is connected to the same router. That’s nice if you use your PC as a music & video source (perhaps connected to a TV & stereo). For example you can have a party and control your MMW-connected home stereo with your Android phone from the back yard or you can watch a movie on your MMW-connected TV and control playback from your couch. There are other remote-control Android apps that can control MMW but I haven’t tried them because this free one does practically everything I want, including viewing & selecting your PC’s entire media library, viewing and rearranging the current playlist, changing the volume, doing play/pause, next/back, and skip-forward/back-a few-seconds. Works perfectly with no lag. Donate to this developer! He deserves it... and you'll get some nice bonus features.
I have not found any other total solution (and certainly no free solution) like MediaMonkey offers. Almost no solution works nicely with WMA files. I don’t like Google PlayMusic’s interface, its inability to easily make playlists on your PC, and I don’t like that they transcode your music, thereby degrading the sound quality. DoubleTwist, et al, offer music-file sync (if you can get them to work) but they're far more limited in their capabilities, and don't offer complete end-to-end management, playback, & sync.
MediaMonkey for Android (MMA) is a very nice player app, especially if it is used in conjunction with the free MediaMonkey for Windows (MMW) described below. MMA has a nice, intuitive user interface. And if it’s synced from MMW, an MMA-readable-only database is created that enables volume-leveling, and can even properly display WMA tag information (which solves the frustrating “Unknown Artist” problem that Android has with WMA files). The free version of MMA has a 5-band graphic equalizer, that even works for WMA files (which is a rarity) and it can do USB-sync, gapless playback, and play albums in track # order (based on tag data) or optionally, in alphabetical or shuffled order. The Pro version ($3.59) adds WiFi synchronization, unlimited UPnP streaming, lyrics, and folder-based browsing.
MediaMonkey for Windows (MMW) is an excellent, free, Swiss-army knife media player/organizer/re-namer/tagger/metadata-fixer/transcoder. It’s like Windows Media Player (WMP), and has a VERY similar user-interface to WMP, but it includes built-in tag-fixing, file-renaming/re-organizing based on tag information, and it includes transcoding. And thanks to the many (mostly free) add-ons, MMW can do things like importing music playlists from WMP or other devices (including doing so using fuzzy logic to resolve file-path mismatches between devices or music storage drives). MMW can sync your media files, playlists, volume-leveling data, and metadata tags (like ID3, and even WMA tags) to your Android device and to MMA’s database. The sync options are very powerful. You can sync everything or create a profile that syncs only specified albums/folders and playlists. You can maintain the PC’s folder hierarchy on your phone, or change it on-the-fly and even rename the files as you sync based on tag information, etc. You can sync one-way in either direction, or bi-directionally. You can sync additively-only, or you can allow full synchronization, including deleting files (optionally with or without deletion warnings). You can sync album art and even specify artwork sizes beyond which shouldn't be synchronized. You can set up sync to be automatic, or user-invoked. You can sync over USB (with the free version of MMA) or over WiFi (with the Pro version of MMA). The Gold version of MMW ($24.95) even lets you optionally transcode on-the-fly as you sync to your phone-- for example, in case you maintain a high-fidelity lossless music library on your PC (for connection to your home stereo) but want to put a smaller, lower-fidelity music collection on your phone because your phone has less storage space and lower-fidelity hardware. I’ve posted detailed syncing instructions separately.
MediaMonkey Remote is a free Android app that lets you remotely control the media-selection and volume of MMW on your PC, via WiFi, if your PC is connected to the same router. That’s nice if you use your PC as a music & video source (perhaps connected to a TV & stereo). For example you can have a party and control your MMW-connected home stereo with your Android phone from the back yard or you can watch a movie on your MMW-connected TV and control playback from your couch. There are other remote-control Android apps that can control MMW but I haven’t tried them because this free one does practically everything I want, including viewing & selecting your PC’s entire media library, viewing and rearranging the current playlist, changing the volume, doing play/pause, next/back, and skip-forward/back-a few-seconds. Works perfectly with no lag. Donate to this developer! He deserves it... and you'll get some nice bonus features.
I have not found any other total solution (and certainly no free solution) like MediaMonkey offers. Almost no solution works nicely with WMA files. I don’t like Google PlayMusic’s interface, its inability to easily make playlists on your PC, and I don’t like that they transcode your music, thereby degrading the sound quality. DoubleTwist, et al, offer music-file sync (if you can get them to work) but they're far more limited in their capabilities, and don't offer complete end-to-end management, playback, & sync.
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