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[Health Nut]

Hi!

I am new to Media center and all burning software for that matter.  I decided I want to use Media Center to play music CDs and music DVDs without the video... I'm not making a full HTPC, just a music player out of my PC.  I'm trying out the Beta 10 version.  Just downloaded it last night because it came highly recommended on various forums.

In any case, I ripped the tracks I like off my first three CD's and I'm confused why all the nice tagged info isn't transferred to the burned track.  The tagged info was clearly present on the burn playlist I made, yet when I go to play the files back from the hard drive, only the title is present, not all the other tag info... I'm confused!  Also, once I rank the playlist, shouldn't that also transfer over to the stored file on the HD?  I'm using APE compression, not that it should matter... Also, I'm confused on how to make playlists... I tried updating the library... I don;t want playlists of the entire CD I burn, nor do I want any playlists that keep looking to the CD-R drive for playback!  I want the playlists to use the files I burned to the HD... but those only have the song title in the tag info... where did it go?  Do I have to re-rip those 3 CD's to get the tag info, and if so, what am I doing wrong?

Furthermore, can I make DVD-R's for my car?  I have a killer DVD plyer and setup and would like the incresed storage space of DVD-R instead of CD-R... can I simply take advantage of the greater storage space of DVD-R for my music?  If I burn from my library made with media center, will it know to convert from APE to .wav?  Doesn't it have to do this to be palyable on CD-R and DVD-R?

Further, I do have  really cool Clarion Pro DVD player with motorized 7 inch screen... can it take advanage of tagged info?  

Thank-you!

Chris

[Doof]

I got confused just reading that and I'm wondering if there's some incorrectly used terminology to blame.. If you already know all this, and it's just me getting confused (It is a Monday after all!) then I apologize for boring you.

Ripping is when you copy a song from a CD to your hard drive.
Burning is when you copy a song from your hard drive to a CD.

Tags are data stored about a song that's stored on your hard drive.

There are 2 types of CD burning. Audio and Data.

A Data CD is pretty much identical to being stored on your hard drive, only its on a CD. Other than where the songs are stored, there's no fundamental difference between your hard drive and a data cd (except that a data cd is generally read only).

The same is not true for an audio cd, though.

On an Audio burn, you won't see any tag information because audio tracks don't store that type of information. Some of that information can be stored on an Audio CD by way of a CD-Text file, but it won't be as complete as the Tag data is on your hard drive. Generally you'll see the Artist, Album, and Track Name info, but that's it. And unless you explicity tell MC (or any CD burning app really) to write the CD-Text file, you won't see any of the Tag data at all.

Does any of that answer your questions?

[Health Nut]

As in my original post, I am trying to accomplish several things:

1) Ripping my CD collection to my PC in lossless (would have prefferred FLAC, but decided to use APE becasue that is what Media Center uses).

2) Ripping my DTS CD as well as DVD music to my PC.

3) Ripping my DD DVD-V music to my PC.

4) Making CD-R and particularly DVD-R samplers of my library ripped to the HD with Media center for use with my car DVD/CD player which is very high end as stated above... please see above.  I'm assuming I can use DVD-R for increased storage space over CD-R.  I have a Plextor DVD-R/W drive in the mail on the way to me...

I am not using my PC as a HTPC because I don't have the time/money to convert to HTPC and will stay with my DVD player/equipment for the time being.

What I don't understand are playlists and the instistance of media center to always want to keep the playlist of the CD just ripped from the CD-R drive and not the hard drive.  The playlist from the recently ripped CD has all the tag info... when I go to play the media center file that was ripped to the HD, there is no tag info except the song title.  Sure I use APE compression and secure mode, but should not all the tag info be included on the ripped verion on the HD?  As I said before, only the title of the song is present... I was hoping all the tag file info would be present on the ripped songs on the HD... am i doing something wrong?  

Let me put it this way... when I ripped 3 CDs (my first 3 CD's using media center beta 10, I noticed all the cool info (tag info?) that shows up on the main screen playlist... Artist, album, rating, genre, etc....  well I then hit the rip CD buttin in media center and it shows the same playlist with all the tag detail there: track number, Artist, album, rating, genre, etc...  Then I go and delete the songs I do not want to rip out of the rip playlist... I then proceed to rip them... When I go back to play the ripped version, they do not have all that detailed info anymore, they simply have only the name of the song, but not the artist, album, rating, or genre... am I doing something wrong??  Or am I supposed to lose this information after ripping? I'm confused...  Do I have to do something different and go back and re-rep those 3 CD's to somehow transferr all that info onto the ripped tracks?  They are in media center file format... so I would think they would still have all that info?  Why wouldn't it also rip the rating I gave it, i.e, preserve all the info in the rip playlist?

Also, I would appreciate how to best make custom playlists: playlists for different types of parties/music, etc...

[Health Nut]

I'm particularly concerned with finding things out adter I've already put in 100+ hours of work, so if you have any tips on ripping, I'd appreciate it... anything at all... so I don;t have to go back and do anythng over... don;t know anything about cover art, organizing, or anything...

[Health Nut]

Also, I have lots of CD-Rs already made from my music collection, but I was thinking I should just get out my original discs and re-rip them for best quality or should I just re-rip from the already made CD-R's?? Or would I want to re-rip for the tag info?  Confused on how to best solve my issues....

[JimH]

Why are you not playing the ripped files by using MC?

You can associate MC with APE files if you haven't done this by going to settings/file associations.

If you're playing the files from a different program, the tags may not be read there.

If you are using MC 10, please get build 32.  It fixed a bug in ripping.

[JimH]

I'm particularly concerned with finding things out adter I've already put in 100+ hours of work, so if you have any tips on ripping, I'd appreciate it... anything at all... so I don;t have to go back and do anythng over... don;t know anything about cover art, organizing, or anything...

If you don't want to waste time, I would suggest doing a few and learning what you need to know before doing many.

[Doof]

Are the columns for that data being displayed when you play the ripped tracks, and the columns are empty? Or are the columns for that data just not being displayed at all?

[Health Nut]

Hi,

The colums are just empty...

As I said before, I only have MC beta 10, but apprently the new version is released today that fixes many ripping issues, so that was probably the problem...  so should I re-rip those CD's because they do not have tag information??  Or is there a way to transfer the tag by putting the original CD in the drive??

Since I am unfamiliar with MC  and ripping software, tagging, etc.. I do not know what is normal, bugs, or what is possible....   also, so I don't have to re-type, would you mind looking over everythng I wrote and let me know what you think regarding my goals and objectives....  Also, what is the difference between version 9 and 10??  I'm running XP if that matters...

Thanks,

Chris

I want to repeat that I am only using MC 10 for all functions... so I assume that I was suffering from a bug that has been fixed.  Should I delete and re-install the new MC 10 v32?

[Jaguu]

Hi Chris,

did you buy MC10 beta? I don't think it is a good idea to start building up a large media library by using beta software.  Although the product is quite stable, it undegoes many changes and bugs following. So far, it was more kind of streamlining and product refinement, but we do not know what J River plan's to introduce by the end of the development cycle.

You are going to make a big investment in time by ripping all your media, you definitely need a stable and reliable version for this, so I suggest go back to the stable 9.1.316 version! Once you feel comfortable in using MC9.1, you can more easily follow the development cycle.

[Health Nut]

Hi,

From what I've learned, media center is apparently the best kind fo sftware of its type, although I still believe I will need additional software to accomplish my goals mentioned above.  I just downloaded version 10 beta lst night.  I was going to use the evaluation period before purchasing, however I plan on purchasing it in either case... just trying to learn as I go but I have limited time being a resident.  I do not have the luxury of time and I can't make any mistakes.  Perhaps I download version 9 as you suggest...  

Again, could someone please answer many of the questions I have listed above?  Also, should I re-rip those 3 CD's because they were missing al the tag info?  Or can I add the tag info somehow by simply putting the original CD in the CD-R driver and transferring the tag info to the ripped tracks??


Aslo, say for instance I use stable version 9 to rip... is it a big deal to upgrade to 10 later??  Will it install right over the old version and preserve everything?  Iwould assume so, but hey, there is a lot of man hours going into my PC for ripping!

[Sam]

I've never had much luck in answering questions from new MC users, but one of these days, it's gotta hit...


Ripping with ver 9 or 9.1 and upgrading to 10 shouldn't be a problem.  Keep in mind that if you rip to APE, you'll need to stick with MC, which it sounds like you're doing anyway.

Of the four objectives... You know you can do #1 - lossless ripping.  For #2 and #3, see JLee's thread on Ripping from Music DVD.

For recording DVDs for your car, check if it can play mp3s.  If so, then you can use MC to convert your APE files to mp3 (or just rip directly to mp3).  Then use your DVD software to copy the mp3 music files from your hard drive to your DVD without converting to WAV.

Regarding the missing tags, I'm not sure what the MC bug was, so...  hopefully that's it.  If not, that's a head-scratcher.  Are you viewing the ripped files in MC's Media Library, or are you using another program?

[Health Nut]

It was the bug in earlier version of 10.

I am now using 9.1.  I don't understand why FLAC will not be suported. Maybe I should have compressed with Microsoft lossless? I dunno...

In any case, I assume when I burn a CD-R or a DVD-R from J Rivers MC, it convers the APE file back to WAV for redbook audio.

I'm not interested in MP3 quality, ever.  So I'm hoping to simply burn DVD-R... Don;t see why 44.1 CD music would be a problem on DVD-R.  Don;t think I would have to resample to 48 just because it is on a DVD-R blank...  

[JimH]

Ripping with ver 9 or 9.1 and upgrading to 10 shouldn't be a problem.  Keep in mind that if you rip to APE, you'll need to stick with MC,

Other players support APE.  Winamp, for example.

[JohnT]

In any case, I assume when I burn a CD-R or a DVD-R from J Rivers MC, it convers the APE file back to WAV for redbook audio.

You'll have no problem burning a redbook audio CD-R, but there's no such thing as a redbook audio DVD-R. All DVD's are "data" type with a ISO or UDF file system on them. MC can burn a DVD with MP3 or any other output format that MC supports, but you need a player that can play it. MC uses the ISO-9660 standard so check what your player supports.

There is a new DVD-Audio format but I'm not sure how many players are compatible. MC can't create DVD-Audio disks at this time.

As for the tags question, the simplest answer is to re-rip the CD's. Rip one CD and verify that you're getting the information you need.