This may be a feature request, a third party add-on or maybe I'm just missing it but I'd like to manage my software CDs/DVDs using Media Center as well. Instead of "ripping" maybe the feature could simply store a folder/file listing in the Media Center database...then I could really use ONLY 1 PROGRAM...MEDIA CENTER to truly manage all my media.
In fact, this idea could be extended...creating an online database (not unlike J River's or Gracenote) of files stored on a particular commercial product CD...it would probably need to be able to read into zip files, the Microsoft compressed file format used for installation CDs and other compression schemes.
Practical uses...
1) Search for a particular file on a user created CD, DVD, hard drive or removable media
2) Search for a particular driver, vxd file, dll file, exe, etc. from your existing library of CDs
3) Musicians would be able to easily find midi files, wav files, etc.
4) Coders would be able to easily find code snippets or programs they've written
5) I'd be able to keep track of ALL MEDIA for tax, inventory, insurance reasons, etc.
6) I'd be able to find a particular program on compilation CDs that ship with magazines etc.
7) I should be able to see a master list of all files, dates, etc.
I'm aware that there are some disk cataloging programs out there but I haven't found one (maybe I'm not looking hard enough) that can do what I'm asking but most don't read Gracenote or J River's equivalent database, or can't identify video files and none read against a database of executable, program CDs, etc.
Just a thought...may be more ambitious than I think, or it might be quite simple. I've proposed this as an open source project...and toy'd with the idea of the Gracenote model for software CDs, etc. but quite frankly, don't have the time, programming skills, etc. to realize this vision so I thought I'd share it with the J River team, open source programmers, etc. and see whether it's a valid idea or not.
Your thoughts?
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Topic: Managing Software CDs/DVDs (Read 663 times)