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[stevem87]

OK, So I have my CDs ripped onto my hard drive (3,000 of them) and would like to re-rip them as FLAC files. When I first did it space was an issue. I want to overwrite the existing WMA files so that the playlists stay in tact. There is an option to do this, but it doesn't work (I am guessing because the extensions are different, but that's pretty lame) I made sure that the new rip produced the same exact file name as the original, but no luck I have two versions of the same files.

Any ideas?

[Scolex]

Here is what I have done recently when changing from mp3 format to flac.

I select the old files and then use:
Rename, Move, & Copy Files
Update database to point to new location...
find what: .mp3
replace with: .flac

This keeps the tags from the old files in the library, a few need to be changed [file type] for instance so I use "update library (from tags)" to take care of that.

Not automated and a bit clunky but it works well.

I am not sure if the change will take in your playlists or not because I don't really use them other than some smartlists for maintenance.

[stevem87]

Thanks for the response. I was hoping for something a little more automated since I have a lot of CDs to replace. I tried you method and it didn't work for me. The only thing that happened is that it renamed the old file to have the new .flac extension, but didn't replace anything. I still have 2 files.

[Scolex]

It is just a method of moving the tags over and there is a playlist tag so they should appear in your playlists.
Do a couple of test files and check to see if the playlist tag gets updated.
If it does you can then remove the extra flac records from the library and delete the wma files.

[stevem87]

Thanks again, but this doesn't really help. The playlist is unchanged, still has the old file in it.

[rick.ca]

It is just a method of moving the tags over and there is a playlist tag so they should appear in your playlists.

[Playlists] is not a field, but a value updated dynamically from playlists. I've never tried it...Are you sure playlists are updated to reflect Update database operations? It does for Rename operations, so the method of changing the extension in MC and then replacing the files outside of MC (with Auto-Import off) will work. I think this method should also be more reliable because cases where filenames are not identical are obvious and easily fixed.

An (often-requested) function automating this process would make things much easier. Until such a feature is implemented, a manual file replacement method is the only way to preserve Library data will upgrading files.

[stevem87]

This still doesn't work. The new files are not brought into the playlists. They still need to be manually brought in. At this point it would be faster to just wipe the old stuff out and start all over again. At least on an artist-by-artist basis.

[rick.ca]

This still doesn't work.

Then you're not using the method as described. Try changing the extension of a file that's a member of a playlist. You'll see that file is still a member of the playlist. Now if you were to replace that file with another with exactly the same filename outside of MC, MC will not know the difference. The final step is to update the file tags from the library, so those too are the same as they were in the old file.

[BartMan01]

Then you're not using the method as described. Try changing the extension of a file that's a member of a playlist. You'll see that file is still a member of the playlist. Now if you were to replace that file with another with exactly the same filename outside of MC, MC will not know the difference. The final step is to update the file tags from the library, so those too are the same as they were in the old file.

I use this (rick.ca) method all of the time - rename inside MC to new extension and/or location (if extension or location is changing).  Outside of MC, replace files and make sure they end up exactly overlaying the old files (no naming differences).   Then back in MC - updated tags from library, followed by update library from tags (to pick up video dimension/bitrate/filetype/etc. changes).  Then finally for audio files re-do the audio analysis on those files in case the levels are different between the two files.  Works like a charm, but it WOULD be nice to have an automated 'replace' function that just ran through all those steps.  One big thing I have been using this for lately is replacing old lower bit rate files from iTunes/eMusic/Amazon/etc. to higher quality AAC files using iTunes match.