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[Twynns]

I have a 4000+ song library on MC13 and have tried to synch w/ iTunes.  My MC13 library is exclusively stored in FLAC.  I converted all files to .WAV (took 3-4 hours!!!) but iTunes brought the entire library in as a single album and none of the meta data (no album data or other info...) was retained for any song...  Can anyone recommend a lossless file type or file conversion I can use for iTunes (from MC13) in which all of the MC13 meta data will be preserved?  I can use the Fluke app on my MAC to bring FLAC files in one at a time, but I have files organized by artist and then by album as a file structure in Windows.  I would have to do each album separately (in the very best case--some cases would require each song to be done separately) using Fluke if I wanted to retain the flac files.  I'm far less concerned about using FLAC than I am having to essentially re-rip every CD I own...I'm using a 1TB external drive to move files.

Any help or suggestions much appreciated!

Many thanks!

RW

[ruze]

iTunes brings in WMA files with metadata.  This is why I switched from FLAC to WMA...

You should not have to re-rip.  You can convert between lossless formats right within MC.

[Alex B]

I don't know how you could "sync", but you can convert FLAC files to ALAC on Mac and preserve tags: http://sbooth.org/Max/

In addition, you can play FLAC files on MAC with "Play" (http://sbooth.org/Play/), but it is quite different from iTunes.

[loki128]

You can convert your FLAC files into Apple Lossless (ALAC) - iTunes' lossless format - in one easy operation, preserving your metadata.

Here's how you could go about it:

- Download and install dbPowerAMP (there's a 21 day trial available at www.dbpoweramp.com)
- Also download and the ALAC and FLAC codecs from the Codec Central section of the website
- Open the 'Batch Converter' from the Start Menu group
- Select the folder containing your FLAC files
- Click 'Convert', tell it to use ALAC as the output format, and tell it where to put them
- Leave it for however long it takes
- Transfer those to the Mac
- Optionally, enable the 'copy files when added' option in the Advanced tab of iTunes Preferences (depends how you want things organised)
- Drag the files into iTunes

... and you're done.

You may want to download foobar2000 (www.foobar2000.org) and its ALAC codec to double-check that no metadata was corrupted during the conversion process - add the music into a playlist and it'll show you all the metadata. Incidentally, while I have done this before myself, I don't recall if it saved coverart - but iTunes' coverart search will help to a certain degree if it doesn't.

If any metadata was damaged (I have found that tags with Unicode characters are not always maintained), you can use MusicBrainz' (www.musicbrainz.org) 'Picard' tool to automatically add the metadata back (well, in the majority of cases anyway!) - drag the ALAC files from foobar in to the top of the left pane, then select them and click 'Scan' at the top - and as Picard fingerprints the files, they should appear in the right-hand pane. Organise them manually if it gets them wrong, then select them and click 'Save'. There's a more in-depth userguide on the website - that's only skimming the surface. Keeps my files in check with minimal effort. =D

At this point you can either delete or backup your original FLAC files.

EDIT: Oh, unfortunately this won't save your star ratings, play counts, skip counts, or any extended metadata from Media Center - there's no immediate method of moving this data across to iTunes easily. All you'll get into iTunes is the basic metadata.