Thanks for the qick reply. I'm not sure any of those threads goes where he's trying to go.
Long ago all of my music was MP3. My Son used Nero and in the bottom of the screen he could create folders (rap,country, New music) and then drag and drop files into those folders to burn.
MC shows the resulting CD folder name in the burn details window (there's a column named CD Folder), but it is not designed to allow typing a path directly in this column. Actually, I don't see any reason why that should not be possible and in my opinion JRiver could add it to the burn features.
However, since the current system always creates a rule based folder structure you would need to create a rule that does what you want.
For instance, you could create a rule that starts with [Genre] if that matches what you want. (rap, country, new music...).
If your already tagged genre's are not suitable, you could create a new user field. It would not be more tedious than creating the folder structure in Nero's file window.
Personally, I would proceed as follows:
1. Create the new user field, e.g. "My son's CD folder"
2. Add a playlist group and under it a few static playlists, one for each "My son's CD folder" field value.
3. Add files to be burned to these playlists and tag them with the desired "My son's CD folder" value.
4. In the burning options, use a folder rule that includes the [My son's CD folder] string.
It would also be easier to make the final selections from the playlists than from the complete library if all selected files would not fit on a single disc after the format conversion. The bitrate/filesize/playtime table in one of my links helps in determining the resulting file size.
I would not delete the playlists. Over time they would contain an archive of songs that can be burned to new different compilation discs.
I have a few rewritable discs that use for listening MP3s in my car. Quite often I use my old "burn playlists" for creating new compilations of the previously chosen songs.
Am I correct in assuming that he would have to convert the files to a folder on the HD and then create the CD like he did before?
MC can convert the files on the fly. There is no need to convert them separately unless you want to reuse the converted files many times.
If you want to do the latter you could consider using the "hard disk folder as a virtual handheld" feature and create an archive of preconverted files by always syncing this handheld before burning the files. You could also consider installing Media Jukebox 12 on the same PC. You could use it for creating a separate small library of the preconverted files (Auto-Import would always keep be this library up-to-date) and for actual burning. I think this would work better than trying to burn files directly from the virtual handheld.