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[jzexport]

I ripped about 1300 audio CDs to FLAC using MC 15. I then used MC to convert the FLAC files to MP3. In other words, a two-step process.

I found that about 43 of the FLAC-converted  albums cannot be converted to MP3. In the conversion dialog box, error messages say Failed Convert for each file as its conversion is attempted. After all fail, a message box says to check the original file format.

There is nothing wrong with the FLAC files as all of them that cannot be converted can be played by the MC player.

I suppose I could re-rip the CDs directly to MP3. But, that will be a lot more work, which I do not look forward to.

Any suggestions?

[glynor]

Just a complete guess, but check your DSP settings.  If you have it set to output 5.1 audio (or other multichannel audio) it can cause conversion weirdness.  This happens most often with externally decoded files (like converting from M4A/MP4 to MP3 or something like that with FFDSHOW set to output 5.1 audio), but it is worth checking even with the built-ins.

[Vocalpoint]

I still contend that MC has some major teething problems with FLAC. Over here I use EZ-CD Extractor along with Tag N Rename 3.x and every 12th or 15th conversion or so - when  I prep/tag my files and copy them to main lossless library and then run a manual import from MC - I see no files imported. I am so used to this behavior now that I immediate move the suspect folder back to my local drive - and run Trader's Little Helper against it - using it's Re-encode FLAC files option: This error is always the culprit:

Error processing file (reading metadata in FLAC input, first metadata block is not STREAMINFO).

So - somehow - using my preferred tools - I am getting some bogus metadata in the header. However MC doesn't do anything or say anything - about anything. It just acts like the files aren't there.

What's it's gonna take for MC to throw a meaningful error onscreen when it encounters a problem with a file. It's current behavior makes MC look lazy or it's reading it's FLAC data in a totally different way that the actual FLAC.exe file used by Trader's Little Helper.

BTW: The only way to correct the above error - is to extract the wavs from the FLAC files and re-encode to FLAC using Trader's Little Helper. Then I can retag and recopy to my directory...import via MC and it's all good.

I wish I could figure out where this problem is occurring so I can stamp it out. Obviously my ripper or tagger is putting something into the mix that is causing bad metadata. It would nice tho - to have MC tell me that I have a bad batch of files right away.

VP

[rick.ca]

Do you think this could be the cause of the problem reported here?

[Vocalpoint]

Do you think this could be the cause of the problem reported here?

Well - it may have something to do with it...I read that post but I am not certain that my issue has anything to do with semi-colons n' stuff. However - the one folder that gave me gears this week did have an apostrophe in the folder name tho....hmmmm

This particular issue drove me nuts for weeks until I finally got TLH to "help" me see the actual error in the header. Would be interesting to take a sample of Fred's items and run it thru TLH to see what comes up.

[JimH]

Why not rip with MC?

[jzexport]

Just a complete guess, but check your DSP settings.  If you have it set to output 5.1 audio (or other multichannel audio) it can cause conversion weirdness.  This happens most often with externally decoded files (like converting from M4A/MP4 to MP3 or something like that with FFDSHOW set to output 5.1 audio), but it is worth checking even with the built-ins.

Thanks. I checked this but I'm set for source channel output.

[jzexport]

I still contend that MC has some major teething problems with FLAC. Over here I use EZ-CD Extractor along with Tag N Rename 3.x and every 12th or 15th conversion or so - when  I prep/tag my files and copy them to main lossless library and then run a manual import from MC - I see no files imported. I am so used to this behavior now that I immediate move the suspect folder back to my local drive - and run Trader's Little Helper against it - using it's Re-encode FLAC files option: This error is always the culprit:

Error processing file (reading metadata in FLAC input, first metadata block is not STREAMINFO).

So - somehow - using my preferred tools - I am getting some bogus metadata in the header. However MC doesn't do anything or say anything - about anything. It just acts like the files aren't there.

What's it's gonna take for MC to throw a meaningful error onscreen when it encounters a problem with a file. It's current behavior makes MC look lazy or it's reading it's FLAC data in a totally different way that the actual FLAC.exe file used by Trader's Little Helper.

BTW: The only way to correct the above error - is to extract the wavs from the FLAC files and re-encode to FLAC using Trader's Little Helper. Then I can retag and recopy to my directory...import via MC and it's all good.

I wish I could figure out where this problem is occurring so I can stamp it out. Obviously my ripper or tagger is putting something into the mix that is causing bad metadata. It would nice tho - to have MC tell me that I have a bad batch of files right away.

VP

Sorry you are having aggravation, too, albeit different.

Your post did point me to a reencoder/decoder, xrecode. There is a free version that worked for me. It could convert the flac files to mp3 that MC could not. It also preserves all of the tagging, which I was hoping for, and a main reason I did not want to rip from the CD to mp3 anew.

[jzexport]

Why not rip with MC?

Because many of the failed CDs are classical that needed tons of manual tagging entries, which I do not want to have to do again.

This sort of reply from MC irks me. I see it repeatedly. I think MC is for me the properly featured HTPC interface. But, it is buggy and its so-called documentation is a largely haphazard user-written collection of WIKI entries. My guess is that there is not a single person in MC whose sole responsibility is customer support.

When bugs come up, suggested solutions from MC are to look at an irrelevant WIKI entry or a work around that creates a lot of work for the user, if it works at all, or ignored.

Granted, reproducing bugs can be problematic. Would it be so hard for MC to ask me to send them the folder with the troublesome flac files and see if they can convert to mp3, and if not, figure out why not?

[Vocalpoint]

Why not rip with MC?

Jim,

While I hope we can try and keep the focus on the issue of why MC continues to not provide error checking routines on FLAC files - I will comment on the "rip in MC" angle - for me it's painful. MC is not designed to be a flexible rip solution - it has this habit of always wanting to place the ripped files into the library - which is not necessarily what I want. Then I have to spend umpteen minutes, hours repositioning everything or constantly checking dialog options to make sure the ripped files are going to the right place...too much "click here, close that, open this, adjust that" for me currently.

As for the required re-tagging - MC tag tools are simply not flexible nor ergonomic enough to play in that space for me. I have very specific meta-data requirements depending on whether I am ripping to archive, ripping to play, ripping to convert...ripping for broadcast etc....plus 100% of my tagging occurs OUTSIDE MC so that in itself pretty much rules MC out....

While MC is my defacto playback environment (and it's tagging tools are fine once the files are in the library) for my hard core cataloging/prep work - these tools are too elementary to be considered a pro-level staging environment.

Finally - for my broadcast requirements (I run my own voiceover company) - I often receive files that are already in FLAC format and without MC making any efforts to show possible incoming error conditions....it's a tad frustrating.

[glynor]

Would it be so hard for MC to ask me to send them the folder with the troublesome flac files and see if they can convert to mp3, and if not, figure out why not?

I think that exact thing would and does often happen.  Unfortunately, your post was somewhat poorly timed, as there are some key people at JRiver on vacation right now.

Otherwise... I'm a bit confused.  In the OP I thought you said you DID rip the FLAC files with MC.  Is that not the case?  If MC is borking some of the tags in FLAC files, causing those files to be broken and unable to be converted to MP3, that seems like a pretty serious issue.  I mean... I rip some things to FLAC, but then I ALWAYS want to convert them to MP3 (to keep it in a stack).  MC needs to be able to rip to FLAC without messing up the files in a way that it can't then convert them to MP3.

If you didn't rip the original FLAC files with MC, then I think it is up to debate who bears the responsibility to fix the issue.  But that doesn't seem to be what happened here.

This sort of reply from MC irks me. I see it repeatedly.

I think you are reading too much into his question.  I think it was a legitimate question, not really a suggestion.  There was a question mark at the end, after all.

I'm confused by why he asked it, but still... How are they expected to improve their product if they can't ask for feedback on it.  His question was simply "Why not rip with MC?"  Why not give him an answer, rather than a diatribe about documentation?  He can't make suggestions to the team on ways to tangibly improve the ripping process without feedback.  For me, for example, I'd absolutely NEVER want to rip with anything else, and I have zero desire to spend a bunch of time tagging the files pre-rip.  It is so much easier to just do it later in MC.

For the record, MC's Wiki is far better documentation than MANY of the $30,000-$100,000 Digital Asset Management systems out there.  I know, because I'm deeply involved in trying to find a good one for my company.

[jzexport]

Do you think this could be the cause of the problem reported here?

This was the right path.

I found that the common thing in the filenames that would not convert was the presence of a semi-colon. If I converted the semi-colon to a comma with the replace tool, the files would convert from flac to mp3.

Thanks!

[jzexport]

I think that exact thing would and does often happen.  Unfortunately, your post was somewhat poorly timed, as there are some key people at JRiver on vacation right now.

Otherwise... I'm a bit confused.  In the OP I thought you said you DID rip the FLAC files with MC.  Is that not the case?  If MC is borking some of the tags in FLAC files, causing those files to be broken and unable to be converted to MP3, that seems like a pretty serious issue.  I mean... I rip some things to FLAC, but then I ALWAYS want to convert them to MP3 (to keep it in a stack).  MC needs to be able to rip to FLAC without messing up the files in a way that it can't then convert them to MP3.

If you didn't rip the original FLAC files with MC, then I think it is up to debate who bears the responsibility to fix the issue.  But that doesn't seem to be what happened here.

I think you are reading too much into his question.  I think it was a legitimate question, not really a suggestion.  There was a question mark at the end, after all.

I'm confused by why he asked it, but still... How are they expected to improve their product if they can't ask for feedback on it.  His question was simply "Why not rip with MC?"  Why not give him an answer, rather than a diatribe about documentation?  He can't make suggestions to the team on ways to tangibly improve the ripping process without feedback.  For me, for example, I'd absolutely NEVER want to rip with anything else, and I have zero desire to spend a bunch of time tagging the files pre-rip.  It is so much easier to just do it later in MC.

For the record, MC's Wiki is far better documentation than MANY of the $30,000-$100,000 Digital Asset Management systems out there.  I know, because I'm deeply involved in trying to find a good one for my company.

Request for feedback or suggestion? I said in my original post that I did not want to rerip because of the effort.

Diatribe? Maybe my criticism was not put as constructively as it could have been. I did say I was irked. I stand by my observations, however, regarding the support, regardless of how it compares to others in your experience. My expectations are probably different and IMHO not unreasonable. An example of a never responded to problem is the middle of my project to rip the 1300 CDs, MC changed behavior and would not let me rip successive CDs without restarting the program. That was of course a big pain. I requested help and MC never responded.

[glynor]

I'm not saying your criticism wasn't valid.  It is.  I think that JRiver absolutely needs to do a better job with documentation (and support at times).  Of course, there is a flip side to the issue (J River is a tiny company and has limited resources).  But that's neither here or there.  My point was simply that it seemed like your reaction to a simple question was based on reading much more into his question than may have been valid.

Now, it is certainly possible that Jim was being "cute" and suggesting that your problems were of your own making.  That's how you read it, as a "this isn't our problem" dismissal of your issue.  But it is also certainly possible that he was honestly just asking "hey, why did you do it the way you did it?"

That's the only point I was making.  It is hard to convey tone in web forums like this.  I find it is generally best to give people the benefit of the doubt.

[Matt]

Please upgrade to the latest version.

From the build 103 history:
Fixed: Path names with semi-colons in them could be problematic.

Thanks.

[jzexport]

I'm not saying your criticism wasn't valid.  It is.  I think that JRiver absolutely needs to do a better job with documentation (and support at times).  Of course, there is a flip side to the issue (J River is a tiny company and has limited resources).  But that's neither here or there.  My point was simply that it seemed like your reaction to a simple question was based on reading much more into his question than may have been valid.

Now, it is certainly possible that Jim was being "cute" and suggesting that your problems were of your own making.  That's how you read it, as a "this isn't our problem" dismissal of your issue.  But it is also certainly possible that he was honestly just asking "hey, why did you do it the way you did it?"

That's the only point I was making.  It is hard to convey tone in web forums like this.  I find it is generally best to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Fair enough. I agree.

[jzexport]

Please upgrade to the latest version.

From the build 103 history:
Fixed: Path names with semi-colons in them could be problematic.

Thanks.

Thanks for the fix!