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[sherbs]

Is there a quick way of copying tag info from one file to another or must I copy and paste each tag from one file to the other?

Thanks

[KingSparta]

What Tag?

If You Select All Files And Right Click On That Field, And Use (In MC12 It Is Rename, In MC11 I Think It Is Edit) You Can Past That Info Into That Field And All Selected Files Will Be Tagged In That Field.

[sherbs]

Sorry, what I mean is, if I want to replace a file in the library with a better quality one, what's the best way to transfer the tag info from the old file to the new one - name, artist, album, lyrics etc.

At the moment I just get the two files together and copy/paste each tag field from the old file to the new one. I was wondering if there was a better way of doing this?

Thanks.

[KingSparta]

Well

I Do Have A Free Plug-in For MC12 you can submit data to the server, and then you can read that data back into the new file.

But No Way Directly In Media Center I Know Of.

[jgreen]

Sherbs--

King's being a bit coy here.  He's talking about his great plugin called "Data Master".  However, he also has an incredibly powerful plugin called "Replace Master", which can do pretty much anything on the planet EXCEPT find on one file and replace on another, corresponding one.  Currently his plugins all feed from Playing Now, but I'll wager Replace Master could be modified to specify 1 or 2 user-specified playlist locations to work with.  If 1 list it would replace onto itself, if 2 it would find on file #1 on the first list and replace on file #1 of the second list, #2 to #2, and so on.

Just dreaming out loud.  Of course, such a plugin would immediately cut WEEKS out of the task of restoring a lost library, something I've been working on for months.

[sherbs]

OK, thanks anyway.

[marko]

Sorry, what I mean is, if I want to replace a file in the library with a better quality one, what's the best way to transfer the tag info from the old file to the new one - name, artist, album, lyrics etc.

At the moment I just get the two files together and copy/paste each tag field from the old file to the new one. I was wondering if there was a better way of doing this?

Thanks.

Here you go, from MC's help file...

Re-rip existing music and keep tags and statistics
If you re-rip a track (perhaps you want better quality) and import it into Media Center, it is considered a new item, and therefore has no tags, statistical information, or playlist associations.

But if you already have that track in Media Center (with tags, statistics, and playlist associations), you can apply all that information to the new track. Follow these steps:

1.   Rip the track into a new folder.

2.   In Media Center, go to Playlists > Recently Ripped, and if the track is there, select it and press Shift + Delete, then select Remove From Library.

3.   If your new and old tracks are the same format, go to step 4. Otherwise, in Media Center, select the old track, right-click, select Library Tools > Find and Replace. In the left, check only Filename. In the Find What box, type in the old extension (e.g., .mp3), and in the Replace box type in the new file extension (e.g., .ape).

4.   Find the old track in Windows Explorer and press F2 then Ctrl-C to copy the name. Go to the new folder, select the new track, press F2 and Ctrl-V to paste. This gives the new track the same name as the old track.

5.   Still in Windows Explorer, delete the old track (send it to the Recycle Bin in case of error).

6.   Paste the new track into the old track’s folder.

7.   In Media Center, find the track, right-click on it and select Library Tools > Update Tags from Library. (This applies all the Media Center information to the new track).

8.   Right-click on the file again, select Library Tools > Update Library (from tags). (This sends the new file’s format information to Media Center).

9.   You may want to re-analyze the file for replay gain information (Select the file in Media Center, right-click, and select Library Tools > Analyze Audio).

[modelmaker]

Another way; backup the library, rip the new tracks into a new folder, (make sure they have the same filename and track names as the old ones), delete the new tracks from the library, then in Explorer simply copy them into the original folder, replacing the old tracks. Re-analyze and that should be it. After analyzing you can do an update tags from library.

[marko]

Another way; backup the library, rip the new tracks into a new folder, (make sure they have the same filename and track names as the old ones), delete the new tracks from the library, then in Explorer simply copy them into the original folder, replacing the old tracks. Re-analyze and that should be it. After analyzing you can do an update tags from library.

You've assumed that the new files are of the same file type as the old ones, and that the safety net of the windows recycle bin is not required, aside from that, both methods are the same.

-marko

[sherbs]

Had to go and have a lie down after reading Marko's help file extract

Seriously though, I've got a whole bunch of these 'better' files to import and didn't really think there would be a quick way of doing it. Worth a try though.

Cheers.

[marko]

it works a treat. If they're already tagged right, but the filenames are wrong, there's nothing to stop you using the rename from properties tool to get the filenames of the new files identical to the old ones, which makes switching the files really easy.

Depending upon whether or not the filenames already match, and if the file types are the same or not, if you read the set of instructions, you may find that in your case, many of them are redundant. It's a very logical approach, and I'm sure that after you've done one album, you'll be like, "ahhh, I see now, very clever indeed"

It's all about the angle you approach a problem from, and it's only possible with MC because it allows us to get that 'up-close and personal' with both the library database and the external file system. You won't be disappointed.

-marko.

[hit_ny]

Another way; backup the library, rip the new tracks into a new folder, (make sure they have the same filename and track names as the old ones), delete the new tracks from the library, then in Explorer simply copy them into the original folder, replacing the old tracks. Re-analyze and that should be it. After analyzing you can do an update tags from library.

What he said, except you can skip the audio analysis part. A better rip, assuming its from the same source as the older one, won't be much different. If its from a remastered source (like so many re-issues), then you could analyse as well.

After that, you need to update the tags of the new files from the library.

But there is a trick here, You should add the files to be replaced into Playing Now *FIRST*, then do the swap in win explorer , then select the files in Playing Now and do a Update tags from library.

The reason is if you do the update from library and also happen to be in tree view, then MC will re-read the files and if they have common tags, then *those* tags will *replace* the ones that are already in the library, and you will end up losing the original tags.

As a test once you have updated from library, do a locate inside MC and what you see should be idential to what's in the library.

[marko]

I was not aware of the tree thing, thanks for the tip. 99.99% of the time I'm in either panes or library browser views, both work fine for this job, and I always have the 'files to be replaced' listed and selected in MC. I then use explorer to do the swap, then go directly back to MC, right click the selection and do the two synchronisation updates.

Again, "the other way" assumes that the better quality files are of the same filetype as the poorer ones, and that the recycle bin saftey net is not a requirement. Personally, I always make sure the incoming filenames match the outgoing, then copy the new files over, replacing the existing files. I don't use a recycle bin here, when I hit delete, it deletes!! Some people prefer to err on the side of caution though, so....

It's better to step through the list from the helpfile. Depending on the finer details of what you're doing, namely filetypes and filenames, some of the steps there could obviously be redundant, but until a person is fully confident with the process, they should go through the full list.

If you remove a folder full of mp3s and replace it with a folder full of .ape or .flac files and you have not gone through the "find and replace" steps, MC will get a little upset and report that the files are missing because it will still be looking for mp3 files.

Also, as we're in transition period from 11.1 to 12, I think it's worth noting that if you move on to v12 after learning about this little tip, you should make sure that v12's auto import feature is not watching the files and folders you are working with, otherwise, you could find that it beats you to the punch and updates the library from the new files, or worse still, removes all info regarding the outgoing files from the library, which entirely defeats the object of the task in hand.
Don't say you weren't warned

-marko.

[hit_ny]

So long as you are in panes or library browser then all is good. I use Playing Now as a staging area when i'm doing the replace thing as i usually queue up files to be replaced and then do them all, many times the albums or tracks are in diff locations and PN serves to put them all in once place.

I realised the tag swapping happening when i ocassionaly did a Locate inside MC and then realised my older tags were replaced with the newer ones. This lead to some experimenting and came up with the above practice. What we are doing here is swapping things in the background and tricking MC into thinking nothing has changed.

I can't put my finger on it as yet, but a locate inside forces MC to check if the files are the same and if its indeed a replacement, the first thing thats different is the file size and possibly the file creation time compared to what MC thinks they are. So in my case when i replaced files, i had to create custom fields that were backups for the common tags, replace the files, then do a update library from tags(simulates the locate inside MC), and finally re-copy from the backup fields to the original tags.

[modelmaker]

The method I described, (learned from Alex some time ago),was intended for files of the same type and I should have mentioned that. And yes, Otto has to be off.

If one wants to be more cautious with this approach, instead of copy and replace, one could delete the original files to the recycle bin and then copy the new ones.

[lepa]

Still, it would be nice if MC would have copy info between files. Maybe like in foobar2000.
You'd select even amount of songs (both source and destination songs) and
then choose copy info from source to destination. Nice and easy.

[hit_ny]

An interesting suggestion, Copy *all* tags from source to dest.

How do you designate the destination tho ?

Lets say you have the old rip in Playing now it has 10 songs, the new rip is listed just below it. How would you copy from the first set of 10 to the subsequent 10 below.

[Alex B]

Foobar works exactly like described above. First you select 20 tracks in a playlist. Then you run the "copy info between files" function. It copies the tags from the first 10 files to the last 10 files. It is up to the user to make sure that the files are in the correct order in the playlist.

A bit different approach is used in Mp3tag. You can select any 10 files and copy all tags to the clipboard. Then you select another set of 10 files and apply the tags from clipboard. In my opinion this is more useful because you can browse to a different folder and apply the copied tags there.

A feature like this would be most welcomed. MC can already copy tags to the clipboard, only the paste part is missing.

[KingSparta]

MC can already copy tags to the clipboard, only the paste part is missing.

Not sure what your actually talking about other than a tag can be copied to the clip board, rename\edit a field, right click, paste to the new field.

of course thats only one field at a time.

[Alex B]

Not sure what your actually talking about other than a tag can be copied to the clip board, rename\edit a field, right click, paste to the new field.

of course thats only one field at a time.

- Use a details view that has a lot of columns, select a bunch of files, right-click > Edit > Copy

- Open Excel or some other spreadsheet program with a new empty table, right-click > Paste.

[KingSparta]

I see