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[steveklein]

I have a couple of free trance albums that I downloaded where an entire disc was one 75 minute, 100+ MB track. when i import it into MC, it shows up as not just a single mp3, but also as broken into 13 pieces. the files don't appear to exist on disc, but media center reads them as filename.mp3;1 filename.mp3;2 and so on and so forth.

I like having the tracks broken up, but if I delete the main file, all of the little pieces go away too. Is there a way in MC for me to be able to have the tracks separated physically on disk based off of where these markings already are?

Thanks

[Vincent Kars]

You probably have 1 physical file on the HD and a playlist or a cue-sheet describing its content.
If you select the split ones you can use Format Conversion to split the single file into a file per track.
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/MC14/Advanced/Splitting.htm
Before you delete the original do check if you can get the files to play gapless!

[Alex B]

When a cue sheet that points to a so called "disc image file" (i.e. to a single audio file that contains all audio data that is referenced in the cue sheet) is imported, MC creates virtual "cue tracks" by interpreting the cue sheet's index data. Each virtual track has a playback range that is stored in the Playback Range library field. When a cue track is played MC reads the playback range data and plays only the specified passage from the referenced audio file.

MC can convert cue tracks like any other audio tracks. If the target format supports gapless playback the resulting separate track files will play gaplessly. MC can encode and decode gaplessly all lossless formats and many lossy formats, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Musepack. Encoding & decoding AAC/M4A files gaplessly is possible when MC is configured to use an external encoder: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=59513.msg437855#msg437855.

However, I wouldn't advice re-encoding the tracks from a lossy MP3 image file to lossy track files unless absolutely necessary. "Lossy to lossy" will always further reduce the audio quality. Of course, if the used quality setting is high enough, the additional quality loss may be practically inaudible.

Some programs can split MP3 files losslessly, but technically splitting is only possible at the MP3 frame boundaries, and the resulting files will not usually play exactly gaplessly. AFAIK, the only lossless MP3 splitter that can create track MP3 files that also play gaplessly in MC is pcutmp3: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=35654

Alternatively you can convert the cue tracks to a lossless format. The files will be a lot bigger (about as big as directly encoded lossless files would be), but you will preserve the decoded MP3 audio without any further quality loss and the files will be natively gapless. If you have only a few MP3 cue albums to convert the increased file size might not be an issue.

[Alex B]

I like having the tracks broken up, but if I delete the main file, all of the little pieces go away too. Is there a way in MC for me to be able to have the tracks separated physically on disk based off of where these markings already are?

You can remove the main audio file from the library, but not from the disk. Then you'll have only the cue tracks in the library and they will play correctly as long as the main audio file is not deleted or moved.