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Author Topic: Unassigned  (Read 4893 times)

qdfb

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Unassigned
« on: December 03, 2011, 05:25:14 am »

Dear All

I have a problem with all newly ripped CD's (ripped in iTunes on a Windows 7 64 bit PC) being impoted as "unassigned" in both Media Centre 16 and now (just upgraded) 17.

All fine in iTunes.

Everything was fine when MC16 was first installed - its albums subsequenty ripped that are the problem.

I have tried clearing the library but it makes no difference. 

I don't really have the time to mess around with endless different settings. To be useful to me it just as to work.

Thanks
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qdfb

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Re: Unassigned
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2011, 07:29:42 am »

Latest on this

I can of course assign an artist and album to the unassigned tracks manually, then ask Media Centra to find the album artwork, and that works but:

 - the album name and artist is there in the file path and iTunes has no proiblem so why should Media Centre?  Im not adding info that is not available already.
 - Its a monumental waste of my time.  Surely Media Centre could import this data without my needing to do so manually?

I mean, come on guys get this sorted. Sound quality from MC is great, but this is an admin pain.
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MrC

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Re: Unassigned
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2011, 10:49:21 am »

There's a workflow issue here that is confounding the problem.

1) Rip with Media Center.  It will present either CD data (obtained from first JRiver's YADB, or FreeDB), or provide the opportunity to enter the data.  The CD look-up database used by iTunes is not used by MC.  Many CD look-ups succeed; some are not yet in the YADB database (but are likely in the FreeDB database); still, sometimes new CD data requires someone to enter the Album, Artist, Genre and Year.

2) For your existing files, you can ask MC to obtain properties based upon your file's locations.  See Library Tools > Fill Properties From Filename

Honestly, getting CD album and track properties takes a couple of seconds at most.  There's a lot of power at your fingertips that you'll come to appreciate; give it a little time.
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Alex B

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Re: Unassigned
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2011, 11:22:04 am »

I guess the file format is WAV.

iTunes adds file tags to its other supported file formats, but not to WAV files. If the files are in WAV format the metadata that is displayed in iTunes is stored only in the iTunes database.

In addition to what MrC said (the Fill Properties From File Location tool should be able to fix the problem), you have some other options.

One option would be to convert the files to some other format with iTunes. AIFF would be similarly uncompressed as WAV and it would support file tags. Apple Lossless would be losslessly compressed and the files would be smaller. Both formats are supported in MC. If you have enough disk space, AIFF conversion would be faster. If you need WAV files for other player devices or software you can convert the files back to WAV with MC. MC supports WAV tagging, but depending on your MC version you may need to enable it, see this link: http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/WAV_%26_AIFF_Tagging.

Another option would be to export an iTunes xml playlist of the files and import that playlist to MC (in MC: File > Import Playlist...) An iTunes xml playlists contains the file tags and MC should be able to import file metadata from it (assuming the disk files are still in the original "iTunes location").
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