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Author Topic: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?  (Read 5374 times)

kstuart

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Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« on: January 24, 2013, 01:10:39 pm »

I've been ripping my CD's to audio files over a period of many years, and so my albums are ripped in a variety of different ways - depending on what was fashionable at the time.

In the early days, the fashion was to rip the CD to one APE file and put the track information in one CUE file.  The CUE file could burn a CD-R for the car or a portable CD player, and you could play the file on your PC.  Only one APE file was used because a lot of the audio software did not do either gaps or sector boundaries correctly, and so one CD "image" was safest.

Then iPods took over the universe, and you had to have individual tracks, so all the audio software managed to solve the gap and boundary problems, and so then you had individual FLAC files for tracks, and also a CUE file to burn CDs, and a playlist to play the FLAC files.   Then ripping software added the capability to make a CUE file that directly referenced the .flac files when burners supported FLAC files directly.

So, I've done all of the above, and have all the different combinations in my music library.

I've been testing importing my music library, and MC18 doesn't like many of the CUE files and rejects them, and conversely it will accept some CUE files but then not parse them correctly.  ( For example, I had a music player that required CUE files to play entire albums, so I used a freeware program that generated CUE files for FLAC files in a folder.  All those CUE files from that program cause MC18 to use the tag information from the CUE file only for the last track.  I discovered this from cases where the freeware program did not know the correct Artist or Album, and so the last track became filed as a different album. )

I could have Import ignore CUE files altogether - except that I have those rips where the CD is one APE file and all the track information is in the CUE file.


So I could really use an option in Import:

Only import those CUE files that are in a folder with a single audio file

and I could use some more specific information about what format MC18 requires in a CUE file, so that I can at least see why it is rejecting some and not reading others correctly.

( Otherwise, I am going to have to write a batch program to rename all my CUE file extensions to ".cuefile.txt" unless there is only one audio file in the folder.   That would be an ugly kludge and I do see Forum threads indicating that other people also need CUE files imported when there is only one audio file.)

kstuart

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2013, 11:18:25 am »

Thanks !

psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2013, 12:17:21 pm »

If the JRiver team really addresses the CUE files issue, there are a few more things to look into:
1) If a valid CUE file is found in a directory, MC should import only the contained tracks and not the single APE/FLAC/WV file as well. This feature existed in previous versions of the Media Center, but is has mysteriously vanished lately.
2) Provide for a more flexible way to import CUE files, providing more compatibility with more CUE file formats.
3) Provide an option to delete useless CUE files. In some cases, a CUE file still exists inside a directory even though the original APE/FLAC file has been split  to individual tracks. In these cases, during Auto Import , MC still tries to import these obsolete CUE files , and these files appear as not imported in the import report. It is not easy for a user to delete these files one by one. Even batch files are cumbersome especially if the directories are on a network share.
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kstuart

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2013, 01:28:25 pm »

psam - With the current build (120), I am not getting any duplicate entries for albums with one APE file for the whole album, accompanied by a CUE file with the track information - it puts all the individual tracks into the Library and not the whole album as a single track.

So, either the problem has been fixed, or else there is some particular characteristic of the files that produce the problem that is not always found (as I mentioned MC18 importing seems very sensitive to CUE file syntax).

psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2013, 03:45:33 pm »

psam - With the current build (120), I am not getting any duplicate entries for albums with one APE file for the whole album, accompanied by a CUE file with the track information - it puts all the individual tracks into the Library and not the whole album as a single track.

So, either the problem has been fixed, or else there is some particular characteristic of the files that produce the problem that is not always found (as I mentioned MC18 importing seems very sensitive to CUE file syntax).

Thanx for the heads up. I am away from home right now so I cannot check my library to confirm that, I will do so on Monday...
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psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2013, 12:18:37 pm »

psam - With the current build (120), I am not getting any duplicate entries for albums with one APE file for the whole album, accompanied by a CUE file with the track information - it puts all the individual tracks into the Library and not the whole album as a single track.

So, either the problem has been fixed, or else there is some particular characteristic of the files that produce the problem that is not always found (as I mentioned MC18 importing seems very sensitive to CUE file syntax).

The problem is still here on my setup.
I believe you are right. Media Center is not flexible enough for non-kosher CUE files...
This is the content of a CUE file I am having this problem with:

REM GENRE Country
REM DATE 1976
REM DISCID 8207D60A
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b2"
PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
TITLE "Havana Daydreamin'"
FILE "Jimmy Buffett - Havana Daydreamin'.flac" WAVE
  TRACK 01 AUDIO
    TITLE "Woman Goin' Crazy On Caroline Street"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 00:00:00
    INDEX 01 00:00:37
  TRACK 02 AUDIO
    TITLE "My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink And I Don't Love Jesus"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 04:10:25
    INDEX 01 04:11:45
  TRACK 03 AUDIO
    TITLE "The Captain And The Kid"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 01 06:47:00
  TRACK 04 AUDIO
    TITLE "Big Rig"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 10:05:20
    INDEX 01 10:05:42
  TRACK 05 AUDIO
    TITLE "Defying Gravity"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 13:35:59
    INDEX 01 13:37:05
  TRACK 06 AUDIO
    TITLE "Havana Daydreamin'"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 16:19:38
    INDEX 01 16:20:10
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    TITLE "Cliches"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 19:59:33
    INDEX 01 19:59:60
  TRACK 08 AUDIO
    TITLE "Something So Feminine About A Mandolin"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 22:45:33
    INDEX 01 22:46:17
  TRACK 09 AUDIO
    TITLE "Kick It In Second Wind"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 26:18:30
    INDEX 01 26:19:10
  TRACK 10 AUDIO
    TITLE "This Hotel Room"
    PERFORMER "Jimmy Buffett"
    INDEX 00 30:15:38
    INDEX 01 30:16:30

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kstuart

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2013, 04:17:24 pm »

So is that cue file one where you have a problem with single audio files that represent whole albums ?

Does the flac file itself have any tag info ?

psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2013, 11:17:11 pm »

So is that cue file one where you have a problem with single audio files that represent whole albums ?

Does the flac file itself have any tag info ?

Yes, this is an example where I am getting all tracks imported in the library, but a 33 minutes track (in this case it has the tags of track 2) is found there as well.

I guess the single flac file has tag info. I copied it to a different directory on its own (no cue file) and foobar reports it as track #2.

Another thing in the CUE file is that between some tracks there are two INDEX entries, INDEX 00 and INDEX01, while in other cases there is only one INDEX entry..

Is that correct?
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lendallp

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2013, 05:45:48 pm »

I have been using MC13 and just downloaded MC18 a couple of days ago.  In MC13 I used to rip classical pieces broken up into movements or other chunks into sngle files using the advanced ripping option  This would result in (for example) one flac or wav or mp3 file and one cue file for each grouped rip.  All this worked fine under MC13.  Now I see that this advanced option is missing from MC18.  (I don't know when it disappeared since I did not really try the intervening versions.)  Now I find that pieces ripped as a single file into (e.g.) flac files show up fine on Windows Explorer and play fine on VLC Media Player, but do not import into MC18.  As a matter of fact, if I go to the File menu and browse for these files ripped under MC13, they do not show up at all on MC18.  This is kind of a problem for me as far as using MC18 is concerned.

I am not as tech-savvy as some of the people on this thread.  Are there reasons I should know why using this "rip as single file" option was a bad idea?  It was really useful for me, primarily because the way that track divisions are done on classical CDs is somtimes really annoying.

Thanks.
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Remote27

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2013, 05:26:34 pm »


  Running MC18 for two days. Newly added audio files will not playback and I receive this prompt.
 
      (The track named " " cannot be played because the volume labeled "Unnamed Disc" was not found.)
   
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JustinChase

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2013, 09:07:26 pm »

If the JRiver team really addresses the CUE files issue, there are a few more things to look into:
1) If a valid CUE file is found in a directory, MC should import only the contained tracks and not the single APE/FLAC/WV file as well. This feature existed in previous versions of the Media Center, but is has mysteriously vanished lately.
2) Provide for a more flexible way to import CUE files, providing more compatibility with more CUE file formats.
3) Provide an option to delete useless CUE files. In some cases, a CUE file still exists inside a directory even though the original APE/FLAC file has been split  to individual tracks. In these cases, during Auto Import , MC still tries to import these obsolete CUE files , and these files appear as not imported in the import report. It is not easy for a user to delete these files one by one. Even batch files are cumbersome especially if the directories are on a network share.

I am also seeing that some flac files are being imported as the full file, as well as the individual tracks designated by the cue files.  It doesn't seem to import all of them, and i haven't had much/any time for thorough testing, but I am seeing this as well, and would like to see it fixed (again).

Also, if you move or copy the tracks designated by a cue file, the resultant files are actually the full original flac file with the track tag info, but each new file is the exact same as the original full file.  Obviously this is not good/correct.

I think I'd prefer to just permanently break up the full files into individual files, and not continue dealing with the cue file issues, but currently MC can't do this correctly.
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psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2013, 02:38:35 pm »

I am also seeing that some flac files are being imported as the full file, as well as the individual tracks designated by the cue files.  It doesn't seem to import all of them, and i haven't had much/any time for thorough testing, but I am seeing this as well, and would like to see it fixed (again).

Also, if you move or copy the tracks designated by a cue file, the resultant files are actually the full original flac file with the track tag info, but each new file is the exact same as the original full file.  Obviously this is not good/correct.

I think I'd prefer to just permanently break up the full files into individual files, and not continue dealing with the cue file issues, but currently MC can't do this correctly.
The problem persists in version 126 as well.
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psam

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #12 on: February 09, 2013, 01:25:59 am »

Can we get the old fix back again?

Is there a problem with its previous implementation?

If a valid CU file is found in a directory, and the referenced tracks are safely indexed in the library, the container big audio file should not be imported automatically. The MC Team had fixed that for a while, but then the fix was tossed away somehow.

We keep discussing it but nothing is done....

Similar to the previous problem with the CUE files I had raised, and it took 60 versions to be looked into....

Proper manipulation of CUE files is important for some of us.

Thank you
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mschneid

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Re: Importing CUE files - MC18 requirements ?
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2013, 03:30:30 pm »

Welll let me add on here...


Disc crashed and so I had to rebuild the Hard disk to match the library.
i don't want to loose all of the work put into the customized tags stored with each logical file

In rebuilding the new hard disk.  I collated some folders and then using tools\library tools\rename, move and copy.... I changed the disk drive designation in my library.

This worked well and the library matches up to the song file on the disk.... for everything ACCEPT cue files.   
So These files exist in the libary and have the designation  of the the location indicated by the file location on hard disk.... but they will not play.

I run auto input and import single folders with or without cue file ticked...
With it ticked... I import a complete new set of files spelled out by the cue file.    but i have lost all my old tagging.
If I don't tick cue...     nothing gets updated.

If I tick make changes... spare missing drives... in auto import..  I get all of my previously working files removed from the library.

How do I  match up my library of cue files to the one on disk wihtout starting over?
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