Devices > Apple iPad, iPhone, iPod, Airplay
Can't get itunescompilation tag to work - confused
mikebarnes:
I've used MC11 to load my library, which contains compilation albums, into my 60 Gb iPod (5th generation I think). I want to get the iPod to list the compilations under the "Compilations" menu, rather than listing artists individually under "Artists". That works fine with iTunes but I want to use MC instead.
I've read thread http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38171.0 which talks about the itunescompilation tag. That's what I'm trying to use.
In MC I created a tag "iTunesCompilation" and checked "Store in file tags (when possible)". I set this tag to 1 for all compilation album tracks. I deleted the tracks from the iPod and reloaded them using MC. I have MC set to convert them from WMA to MP3 when going to the iPod. After reloading the tracks onto the iPod using MC I checked the iTunesCompilation flag in the iPod section of MC and it was set for the compilation tracks and unset for other tracks. Perfect.
However when I eject the iPod, the itunescompilation flag seems to have had no effect. The iPod's Compilations menu is empty and artists are listed individually under the Artists menu.
And when I reattach the iPod to MC and examine the tracks concerned, expecting the iTunesCompilation flag to be set like it was before I ejected, I find that it's now unset.
What am I doing wrong?
mikebarnes:
[Following up my own posting]
So, ten days later, no replies...
I've been doing some more work on this. I discovered in the list of changes to MC12 "12.0.116 (11/17/06) ... 5. NEW: Added support for compilations on iPods". So me using MC11 could obviously be part of the problem. I upgraded to MC12 and tried everything again.
To sum up the results:
* The iTunesCompilation tag has no effect on the iPod
* The MixAlbum tag causes an album to appear under "Compilations" on the iPod (good), but still leaves the individual artists under "Artists" on the iPod (wrong)
* The MixAlbum tag doesn't do anything at all if I use a conversion cache
So, unless I've missed something, there are two problems with MixAlbum: it only does half the job in the iPod, and it doesn't work if caching is enabled.
Can anyone confirm these problems and/or suggest a work-around? Otherwise, I'll just have to stick with iTunes, which I'd really rather not do.
JimH:
Did you try MC13? It has a lot of changes for iPods.
Apple keeps moving the peas around.
Frobozz:
The compilation feature does work when syncing an iPod. It is working on my iPod and I use MC12 to sync.
I suspect that maybe your directory structure and file organization isn't right for MC. MC is a bit picky about directory structure in determining which albums are proper "Multiple Artists" albums. There is a FAQ or Wiki page or help page that describes the rules that MC uses to determine what is a "Multiple Artists" album, but I'm unable to locate it right now. Anyone know the page? Maybe it was a forum post?
Anyways, MC needs each multiple artist CD to be in its own directory. So you need a directory structure something like:
D:\My Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall (Disc 1)
D:\My Music\Pink Floyd\The Wall (Disc 2)
D:\My Music\(Multiple Artists)\Party Time Fifties
Once everything is in one directory MC should identify "Multiple Artists" albums as such and group each multiple artists CD together. Check the "Album Artist (auto)" tag in MC and see if each multiple artists CD is properly identified as a "(Multiple Artists)" album. Once that is working you should be able to sync your iPod and MC will properly organize the iPod so that the iPods compilation feature works.
mikebarnes:
--- Quote from: Frobozz on December 02, 2008, 10:43:16 pm ---The compilation feature does work when syncing an iPod. It is working on my iPod and I use MC12 to sync.
I suspect that maybe your directory structure and file organization isn't right for MC. [...]
--- End quote ---
Thanks, that's just what I need to know - that it's worth persisting. Just to make things absolutely clear, do the individual artists from collections show up in the "Artists" menu on your iPod? They do here (with MC12, but not with iTunes) and getting rid of them is what I'm focussing on at the moment.
My directory structure looks similar to yours:
M:\Jukebox Music\Popular\Pink Floyd\The Wall (both CDs in one directory, track numbers 1-26)
M:\Jukebox Music\Popular\Various Artists\Eighties Legends
Also I look at MC's "Mix Album" tag and it is 1 for my compilations and blank otherwise, so it seems that MC is happy with my directory structure.
The "Album Artist (auto)" column for compilations contains "Various Artists" because that's my preferred name and I put it that in the "Album Artist" tag.
I've just emptied my iPod and reloaded everything, and all the compilation artists are still showing up in the "Artists" main menu item. What I want to see is the (345) album artists not the (966) track artists.
I guess the model of iPod might make a difference. Mine's a 60GB "iPod Video" (5th generation, I think).
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