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[Jaguu]

Hi J River,

I have about 50 CD's that I ripped in wma7 format in old MJ7 days when you were still connected to CDDB. Those are very personal CD, not very widespread and I had to enter all the artist/album/name information by hand. So it took me quite a while to do that.

Now I am thinking of re-ripping them to ape format, but although the ripping is flawless, retrieving information is a crux. Because all the info is in the main database and in this database only. And MC does not know how to retrieve information from there.

So when I insert one of these CD's I always get the screen to submit infos to YADB and if I deny, I get those ugly Unknown artist/album tracks # .

Sure I submitted all those stuff to YADB and in a way it works. I allow to rip with Unknown artist/album track info. Once ripped I retrieve with "Lookup track info from YADB" and I get it. But if I reinsert the CD to rip again, then it again finds the Unknown artis/album/track info.

I created a view scheme to make the CD database visible (once named removable) and there is plenty of unorganized stuff there, plenty of "Unkonwn".
If you edited quite a lot of info in the main database, then all this stuff from the CD database is not any longer in sync with the main database and in my opinion pretty useless.

I think a synching between the main database and the CD database would be useful, so that information entered in the main database long time ago (and never submitted to YADB) could be retrieved, if you want to re-rip a CD to another format.

Also there are personal CD's (compilations, private stuff) that you simply do not want to submit to YADB. These things are not properly taken care of. If you decide to re-rip one of those CD's, you are simply lost. I feel as a user you should have a choice not to submit something to YADB and still being able to retrieve this information in a proper way.

Of course, nowadays I rip everything in ape format, but formats change as quick as the underlying medium that stores them. 5 years ago mp3 was the only format player, nowadays there are plenty and re-ripping could be a mayor issue for many that have old stuff stored.

So I would ask you to consider this a little bit more, or if not give some sound advice on how to do this with the least effort. Remember the information is in the main database (Default library), but nowhere else that it could be retrieved while re-ripping a CD.

[JimH]

What version are you using now?  Different versions handle this problem differently.  Check the FAQ for info on ripping.  Or try a search here on "cdinfo".

Did you explore the Library Tools that allow you to rename files or fill properties from the names?  

[Jaguu]

Hi Jim,

I am using 11.0.72 and I checked the FAQ and searched and checked cdinfo and cdinfo.ini. It was 3 years ago with MC7 that I ripped those CD's and the information is only available in the main database from which it cannot be retrieved when I insert a CD.

It is probably not one of the most common themes, that's why there is nothing about it neither in the FAQ nor in Help

[Alex B]

I have done the following:

I have old files named xxx - yyy - zzz.mp3

I rip new files to xxx - yyy - zzz.ape
(using the same naming scheme, but different folder. No tag information is needed. I also don't include these in my library.)

I use "Find And Replace" tool and change my original filenames from .mp3 to .ape. Then I replace the old files with the new ones (outside MC, using Windows explorer).

Then I do "Update Tags From Library" and the new files get all old tags. Next I do "Update Library From Tags". It updates the filetype and bitrate information in the library.

I have used this method for .mp3, .mpc, .ogg, .ape .wma and even .apl files. It has worked every time. Though the WMA files were v.9, but it should work also with v.7.

If you don't get any track information from the online database you could first rename your old files to something simple. E.g. to plain "Track#.wma" using "Rename Files From Properties". Afterwards you can rename the new files back to the original scheme.

You could try this. Make backups and test it first.

[Jaguu]

Thanks Alex B,

this seems to be a valuable working model, although it looks like a big work-around. I will try it out and let you know.

Still, I feel J River should offer some simpler mechanism to do it more directly, maybe some function "Rip & Replace or Re-Rip". Such a function would simply allow to enter an existing destination album and the following ripping process would simply replace the files and update the library.
In this case the ripping process would retrieve the information directly from the destination album instead of YADB.