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[sian]

Hi, just downloaded the Trial version Media Center 12.0.473.  I want to analyze nearly 160gb worth of music which I have stored on a portable Iomega hard drive. 

When I try to, I get this message ; "only audio files on a local drive that can be played in the native playback engline can be analyzed."  Does this mean I have to move all my music onto my laptop hard drive in order to analyze it??  I can't do that as my laptop only has 27 gigs of memory in total (about 1gb left!!). 

I heard that if i use media centre to analyze my music files, the bpm info etc. will stay on that file forever and it will also make the music much faster to run through Librarian.  Will the full purchased version allow me to analyze my music without having to transfer it onto my laptop???  Thanks

[JimH]

What kind of file?  MP3?  Most types can be played natively by MC, but Apple DRM'ed files have to be played by loading the Quicktime engine (for example).

Did you try to play them?

[sian]

Hi,

in the 160 gb on my external hard drive there's a mix of mp3, aac, flac. ogg etc.  I can play these through real player etc and can play with MC without importing them back onto my laptop hard drive but that's not the issue.  I want to analyze them for bpm, energy levels etc without importing the music onto my laptop as i simply can't, not enough memory on my laptop.

[Yaobing]

Hi,

in the 160 gb on my external hard drive there's a mix of mp3, aac, flac. ogg etc.  I can play these through real player etc and can play with MC without importing them back onto my laptop hard drive but that's not the issue.  I want to analyze them for bpm, energy levels etc without importing the music onto my laptop as i simply can't, not enough memory on my laptop.

The word "importing" initially confused me 
Can you plug your external drive into your laptop? If yes, then it is a local drive. In MC's terminology, "importing" means making MC aware of the media files. It does not mean you have to copy your music to your internal hard drive.

mp3, flac, ogg can play in MC natively. aac can play natively if you have DirectShow filters for them. The easiest thing to do for DirectShow filters is to install CCCP.

[sian]

Thanks sorry about the confusion there.  Yes I connect the external hard drive into my laptop via USB. I have absolutely no problem playing the files using MC, my ONLY motivation for downloading the trial version of MC was to do a BPM,energy level analysis of the 160 gigs of music files on my external hard drive.  I can already play all my files using MC or other programs but i don't care about that.  I just want to analyze them as I was told once MC does an analysis of a music file, all that info (bpm, energy changes etc.) is then stored forever on the mp3/flac/whatever.    How do I do this without moving 160gb of music onto my laptop (not an optio)?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that MC means it cannot analyze stuff on a external hard drive when it tells me ""only audio files on a local drive that can be played in the native playback engline can be analyzed." 

Can you help with this?  Sorry if my question was unclear


Have no idea what "DirectShow filters" or  "CCCP" is by the way but perhaps you were offering them as solutions to the problem you thought I had as I had explained myself badly??   

Thanks Yaobing

[Yaobing]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that MC means it cannot analyze stuff on a external hard drive when it tells me ""only audio files on a local drive that can be played in the native playback engline can be analyzed." 

No, it does not mean you can not analyze files on external drive. As I said in my previous post, external USB drives are local drives. MC can not analyze files that you can not play in its native playback engine. An example of not playing natively is a file being played in MC using Microsoft's Windows Media Player Engine, or using Apple's Quicktime engine.

MC plays many audio formats in native playback engine. Some formats, such as aac,  however requires DirectShow filters in order to be played natively.

Read this wiki article about DirectShow and CCCP.

[gappie]

I just want to analyze them as I was told once MC does an analysis of a music file, all that info (bpm, energy changes etc.) is then stored forever on the mp3/flac/whatever.    How do I do this without moving 160gb of music onto my laptop (not an optio)?

right click on the files in mc, choose: library tools>analyse audio. first take one then a bunch. mc can also analyse them automaticly when they are imported (i think) or when ripped from cd.

 
gab

[sian]

Thanks a million, really appreciate the help from all of you for an eejit like myself.  One last question ((I hope).  My music in folders and sub-folders (e.g.  2pac folder, containing "Greatest Hits" folder and "Me Against the World" folder etc.)  Is there any way of analyzing all the contents of loads of folders at the same time???  Thanks so much.

[gappie]

Thanks a million, really appreciate the help from all of you for an eejit like myself.  One last question ((I hope).  My music in folders and sub-folders (e.g.  2pac folder, containing "Greatest Hits" folder and "Me Against the World" folder etc.)  Is there any way of analyzing all the contents of loads of folders at the same time???  Thanks so much.

sure. select them all in mc and choose analyse audio. when 'skipped analysed files' is enabled you dont have to be to pickie about if a file was analysed before.

[sian]

HI gappie

The problem is I don't know how to select all the folders in MC.  What I've tried so far is going to the menu in the left hand column, selecting Drives and Devices and selecting  my Iomega portable hard drive from the list.  On my Iomega is a folder called MUSIC, which contains a sub-folder called My Music, which contains folders of many different artists and in each artist folder there are a few album folders which themselves contain the MP3s/wma etc.  The problem is, I can't seem to select all the artist folders in the My Music folder (this would allow me to let the programme analyze all my music without my having to select individual albums one after the other.)  What am I missing here???   Explain it to me like I'm a two year old!!!  ha ha.  Thanks a mill.

[Yaobing]

1. Import your music into MC's database (as I explained before, this does not copy your files to internal drives).
2. Open Audio tree in MC, and choose Disk Location. Navigate to the folder you want to analyze. All music tracks imported from this disk location should appear in the pane on the right-hand side.
3. Select all files in the pane.
4. Click menu Tools -> Advanced Tools -> Analyze Audio... (or Tools -> Library Tools -> Analyze Audio..., or right-click, Library Tools -> Analyze Audio ...).

[sian]

thanks gappie.  will try that now. must have missed where you said importing doesn't save stuff to the internal memory.  silly me.  thanks!!  and happy summer i think it's finally started here in ireland!!

[gappie]

thanks gappie.  will try that now. must have missed where you said importing doesn't save stuff to the internal memory.  silly me.  thanks!!  and happy summer i think it's finally started here in ireland!!

summer in ireland...  enjoy it

you are welcume.. ill pass them on.

 
gab

i understand the confusion.. but his cat prefers pizza, mine cigaretes. both not healthy.

[rjm]

If you prefer, you do not need to import the files first.

Simply navigate to the root folder via MC Drives & Devices, then at the bottom left of the main screen, select recursive view. Wait a minute for MC to display all the files, then select them all (ctl A) and right click Library Tools\Analyze Audio.