Devices > Apple iPad, iPhone, iPod, Airplay
Can't get itunescompilation tag to work - confused
Frobozz:
I wonder if the process of converting from WMA is what is causing the problem? MC likely has a different code path when converting during a sync than for a normal sync.
At this point I'd give MC13 a try just to see if the new version fixes that. There have been changes in MC13 in how it syncs and how it handles transcoding during a sync. I don't know the details but I have seen lots of mentions of those sorts of changes in the change logs.
I'd also do a sanity check and create a compilation album in MP3 format and try syncing that album to the iPod. That will avoid the WMA to MP3 transcoding step. I do know that MP3 compilation albums do work with MC12 and an iPod Classic (80GB) because it is working for me. All my music is in MP3 format. I'm not doing any transcoding during a sync.
mikebarnes:
I've been working long and hard on this problem and have lots of information to report. Before that, though, thanks to everyone who's contributed to this thread. I'd have given up long ago if it wasn't for you guys.
OK, confession time. I've discovered that part of the original problem (mixed album artists showing up in the iPod's Artists menu) was actually down to a setting in the iPod itself. Explanation: one of the things I did when attempting to resolve the problem was to reinitialise the iPod using iTunes. That reset all my iPod settings to the factory default. So I checked/changed the Compilations setting in the iPod before continuing. What I didn't realise is that there are actually two Compilations settings in the iPod and I'd only changed one of them. When I discovered this after my last posting and changed the other setting, things started working a whole lot better.
But that's only part of the solution. To cut a long story short, I've found that:
* MC13 crashes and freezes too often to be of any use to me in its current form
* MC11 is no longer any use to me either. One of the things I did when checking things out was to upgrade the firmware in my iPod, and it now no longer recognises any database created by MC11.
* That leaves me with MC12. Not a problem because MC12 seems to do quite a lot of things better than MC11 did.
* MC12 seems to get the "Mix Album" tag right and uses it to flag compilations in the iPod. But it doesn't work if I specify a conversion cache. I really want a conversion cache because converting all my music from WMA to MP3 takes many days of non-stop computing power.
* I tried creating my own cache by defining a new hard disk folder (N:\MP3s) as a Handheld and syncing to that. However the Mix Album tag doesn't seem to work on a Handheld (it only works in a Library) so when I sync from that device to the iPod, compilation albums don't appear in the menus as they should.
* So the only way forward as far as I can see is to create an MC12 Library from the folder that I defined as a Handheld, and load the iPod from that. I've tested the concept and it seems to work. Testing it completely will take the rest of the week at least.
So to sum up:
I create a hard disk folder "N:\MP3s"
I define a Handheld device called "MP3s" located in that folder
I sync from my "Jukebox" library to the "MP3s" device, converting from WMA to MP3
I create a new library "MP3s" and add the contents of the "N:\MP3s" folder to it
I sync from the MP3s library to my iPod
That all sounds quite complicated but to be honest it's hardly any different from what I've been doing with iTunes for several years now. I'll know within the next week or so whether it all really works and whether it's any better than using iTunes.
While I've been typing this MC12 has been preparing to convert my libary from WMA to MP3 and sync to "N:\MP3s". It's just got started and it says 311.9 hours remaining, so I hope it all works. :-)
Thanks again everyone.
JimH:
If you can get a log when it crashes, please send it, with a link to this thread to matt at jriver c om
mikebarnes:
--- Quote from: JimH on December 09, 2008, 07:01:23 am ---If you can get a log when it crashes, please send it, with a link to this thread to matt at jriver c om
--- End quote ---
As I said I've stopped testing MC13 but if there's likely to be a log file from a previous crash that I could send you, let me know where it is.
MC13 also froze on me several times, in similar circumstances. I was syncing an iPod or disk folder, and everything stopped when one of the files got to "Converting: 100%" and before "Uploading". I'm using the LAME encoder.
mikebarnes:
--- Quote from: mikebarnes on December 09, 2008, 03:54:52 am ---While I've been typing this MC12 has been preparing to convert my libary from WMA to MP3 and sync to "N:\MP3s". It's just got started and it says 311.9 hours remaining, so I hope it all works. :-)
--- End quote ---
Incidentally the progress box is showing speeds around 50 MB/sec. That's impossible over a 100 Mb/s LAN cable. A quick calculation shows that it should be saying 50 Mb/sec. :-)
The good news is now that it's settled down I've apparently only got 114 hours to wait.
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