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[andrewq]

I enjoy using MediaCenter but am frustrated by its weakest aspect: YADB. YADB rarely finds any of my CDs (I'm mainly into British folk music and Early classical music). If I switch to another ripper that uses FreeDB then most of the CDs are listed. Surely it should be possible to allow us to optionally query FreeDB instead of putting up with YADB's lack of breadth? Yes, I know I could help to build YADB but there are only so many hours in a day and the work has already been done at FreeDB.

MediaCenter remains my favourite organiser/player but I've given up on using it to rip my CDs (which is a shame given that the software is a perfectly capable ripper were it not for YADB's flaws).

[JimH]

Have you submitted any of your CD's to YADB?  It might help build the database.

This won't change anytime soon.

[andrewq]

Yes, I've submitted quite a few CDs to the YADB database in the past. I'm afraid I've practically given up using MediaCenter for ripping as so few of my collection are already in there. There isn't any point in YADB for me if I have to type everything in by hand when FreeDB already has many of the listings. I can't see what purpose is served by building another proprietary database.

[JimH]

Are you using a recent version of MC 11.1?

[LonWar]

if you install Cdex, you can query FreeDB and CDDB. (Gracenote)
Select the option to save to CDini in Cdex, then use look up info from cd.ini (Not sure on exact wordage.)

You now have access to all 3 music DB's, and you can still rip with mc.

[benn600]

I have a somewhat spread out library and find that about 5% of what I have is not available.  Most of the unavailable CDs are compilations or other strange CDs that are not very common.  I try to submit as much as I can, for sure.  I REALLY wish that it was a little better quality, too.  I find that often times there are mistakes--about 1 in 10 CDs has a mistake, sometimes with terrible effects, and I always read through every song and quickly verify.  I also wish people would make sure to input the correct year and follow a set pattern.  For example, I think that all Volumes, Discs, etc., should be in ().  I also think everything should be initial capitalized for simplicity.  I remove extra information on classical music because it is annoying, as well.  I'm pretty much done now, so it doesn't matter, but just something to mention.  I am at around CD 490 with about 20 more to go, and I'm DONE!  I've ripped and scanned every CD as best as I know how.

As I like to describe to my friends who think I'm crazy for using FLAC (I'm 18), this library will basically follow me for the rest of my life and storage will only get cheaper, so might as well do it right.  Using flac also forced me to spend close to $1000 on CDs (all used!!!) to replace crappy itunes or low quality mp3's.

[andrewq]

Are you using a recent version of MC 11.1?

Yes: 11.1.188

[andrewq]

if you install Cdex, you can query FreeDB and CDDB. (Gracenote)
Select the option to save to CDini in Cdex, then use look up info from cd.ini (Not sure on exact wordage.)

You now have access to all 3 music DB's, and you can still rip with mc.

Interesting. I already have CDex but can't see how MC can use it to supply track information within MC itself as it rips. The only options with MC seems to be to use YADB or not look up information from any source. Any clues as to how you have achieved this?

[Alex B]

Export the info from CDex to cdplayer.ini (CDDB > Submit to cdplayer.ini)

In MC right-click the CD device icon in the Drives & Devices part of the tree and do "Update from CDplayer.ini "

CDex can access only freedb, not Gracenote, but I have posted info about a nice little program that can do the same with Gracenete database here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29346.0

[hit_ny]

I REALLY wish that it was a little better quality, too.  I find that often times there are mistakes--about 1 in 10 CDs has a mistake, sometimes with terrible effects, and I always read through every song and quickly verify.  I also wish people would make sure to input the correct year and follow a set pattern.

This is a problem with all user-generated databases. You will find little less probs with CDDB but if it does not have what you want then it's not helpful.

To date i have entered everything by hand usually getting the info of the artists website or discogs.com (has a submission review process so slightly better than those that don't). Discogs, is more club music oriented so very useful for me, especially when the labels that released the music have long since vanished.

It's tedious when you begin but if you are going to check every entry anyway, the result is the same.

[Alex B]

The "Player" program I explained in the linked thread is a very nice companion for MC. You could consider it as "an external Gracenote plug-in"

In case the files are already ripped and contain incomplete or erroneous information for some reason I would recommend trying Mp3tag for getting the info from freedb. It can calculate the CD ID from ripped tracks and download the info if available (naturally this does not guarantee that freedb has any better info).

Mp3tag is a free tag editor that works nicely with all common file formats and also with MC's proprietary tags (to make this work configure MP3 tag to use the "ID3v.2.3 ISO-8859-1" option with MP3 files).

After the file tags are corrected you can easily update MC's database:
select the files > right-click > Library Tools > Update Library (from tags)

[dcwebman]

In MC right-click the CD device icon in the Drives & Devices part of the tree and do "Update from CDplayer.ini "

Ahhh, this is the answer. I wondered when sometimes I first try MC to find the info from YADB and it doesn't, I then get the cdplayer.ini info from another source. Loading up MC again it still tried to use its own same info of the cdplayer.ini info. Here's the trick.