John,
I would LOVE the ISO file creation feature. I actually
have one of these at work and if I could burn my MP3 discs and Video backup discs to ISO and then transport the image files in to work on an external drive (and burn them in a big batch from there) I'd be a very happy camper!!! (Of course, that's just me and I'm only 1 customer.) I also sometimes find myself burning a few copies of discs for one reason or another (but never all at one time), and the ability to create and store ISO files through MC directly would be wonderful. Of course, all of this would
still require a verify feature.
Alex -
I do use a system similar to what you described. I do need the directory structure because of the way my MP3 CD Player works. I use /[Artist]/[Album]/[Track #] - [Track Name]. That way, I can navigate on disc using the folders. If I use them all as part of the filename in the root of the disc, my MP3 Player's screen isn't wide enough to display the full filename and I have to constantly wait for it to scroll over to see what the song title is (which can be quite dangerous when you realize you're in the wrong lane on the highway).
Soooo.... I end up using this method:
1. Open MC and create a playlist of the files I want to include on disc.
2. Select all and
Rename Tracks from Properties to move them to my local "BurnTemp" folder.
3. Open Nero, drag from the BurnTemp. Burn. Verify. Eject.
4. Re-open MC. Select all those files again.
Rename Tracks from Properties again to put them back to where they belong.
I've not used MP3Gain to fix the gain on the tracks, but (assuming that MC doesn't fix these deficiencies) I will from now on. Actually, I won't. Since I need to recreate a directory structure, and the Rename Files from Properties tool only supports
moving files not
copying them (another thing that would be very handy), using the MP3Gain tool would alter the original files which I don't want. So, I just have to deal with the randomly changing volume when I play the discs on random...
Either way. This isn't a huge deal when you only want to burn 1-2 MP3 discs. However, I use the same method (with a different directory structure) to burn off lots of my Images and Video files to free up space on my RAID drive. For example, when a season of the Sopranos ends (or CSI or Deadwood), I take the whole season and burn it off onto 2-3 DVD-Rs. I also regularly burn off sets of 4-6 Movies onto DVD-R after I've watched them. Once a year I archive off my images to back them up. When you're using the above method to copy multiple GBs of data around (and trying to burn 20-30 discs in a sitting), it really becomes a pain (and you constantly forget to move things back to where they go).