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[Ziba]

Hi,

I'm trying to replace my mp3 library with my flac library, while preserving all my metadata, including playcount/number plays. My current mp3 library is made up of about 20,000 songs.

I'm currently using itunes. I was hoping to achieve this using Media Center, so I've downloaded the demo version of MC 20. If I succeed, I'll gladly ditch itunes for MC.

My mp3 library has the following file structure : C:\Music\Artist\[Year] Album Name
My flac library has the following file structure : F:\FLAC\Artist\[Year] Album Name

I've successfully imported my itune library to MC. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to replace all mp3 files in c : with their flac counterpart in f: Is there an efficient way to do this?

I've tried the following procedure, but it did not work :

1) Select a whole album in MC
2) Library Tools --> Rename, Move, & Copy Files
3) Check Directories box and enter new Base Path: F:\FLAC\Artist\[Year] Album Name
4) Check Find & Replace box, enter 'mp3' in Find What, and enter 'flac' in Replace With.

When I try to play a song, I get a "Something went wrong with playback" message.

I'm not sure I fully understand how to go about this. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[BryanC]

You want to run Find and Replace twice, first to change the drive letter and path, and second to change the extension.

Find: C:\Music
Replace with: F:\FLAC

Find: .mp3
Replace with: .flac

[Ziba]

Thanks for replying.

So, I selected an album in MC, chose 'Rename, Move, & Copy Files', unchecked 'Directories' and 'Filename', checked 'Find and Replace':

Find what: C:\Music
Replace with: F:\FLAC

Then,

Find what: mp3
Replace with: flac

While trying to play a song, I get the following Playback Problem: 'Something went wrong with playback'.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Claude Lapalme]

I realize I could be understanding this wrong, but are you changing the file extension from mp3 to flac ... ??

[Ziba]

Yes, I want MC to now read the flac files in f:\flac instead of mp3 files in c:\music.

Your suggestion makes sense to me, but it doesn't seem to be working for some reason.

Under the Filename (path) column, it now shows the new 'correct' path: F:\FLAC\Artist\[Year] Album Name. Not sure why I'm getting the Playback Problem message.

[Ziba]

I keep trying, but I still haven't figured it out. If I keep the mp3 album in MC and add the flac album in MC, both albums show up in MC and they both play just fine. However, if I try converting the mp3 filename to a flac (rename), and then replace the location from c:\music to f:\flac, I get the same playback problem message.

I've tried the following:

- Delete the flac files in F:\FLAC\Artist\[Year] Album Name, so the folder is empty;
- In C:\Music\Artist\[Year] Album Name, change mp3 extension to flac (Find and Replace 'mp3' to 'flac)
- Move these 'new' flac files from C:\Music\Artist\[Year] Album Name to F:\FLAC\Artist\[Year] Album Name

These 'new' flac files play without a problem, but they're actually the original mp3 files relabeled as flac files. Not sure what this means. Perhaps MC won't allow files to be replaced with entirely new files. Does this make sense?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fitbrit]

Make sure the [filetype] tag is actually FLAC and not still mp3.

Also, choose one FLAC file in standard view, right-click on it and run update library from tags on it (Library Tools submenu).

Then try playing that file.

[fauxfreshness]

In my case, I re-ripped a bunch of CDs and upgraded purchases from Beatport to AIFF.  Once I got them, I converted them all to FLAC and imported them from a separate drive, much like yourself.  In my case, I had a ton of ratings in iTunes, so I exported playlists of 1 star, 2 stars, 3 stars, etc. and imported each one.  At that point, I selected all the affected MP3s and applied the new rating since I imported those as well (I have a lot of MP3s that I can't get in FLAC right now, but I'm sourcing new media to replace old stuff).  I then made a new smartlist to help me carry over the MP3 ratings to the FLACs, and will phase out the old MP3s in favor of the new FLACs where possible.

Code: [Select]

[Media Type]=[Audio] [File Type]=[flac],[mp3] -playlistid==501829914 ~dup=[artist],[name] ~sort=[Name],[Artist]
The -playlistid==501829914 part means "don't use any tracks in the unrated MP3 playlist" so I don't waste my time dealing with them.  I'm at the point where I'm starting to replace various MP3s with their FLAC equivalents, which is why I found this post interesting.

As for renaming an MP3 to a FLAC, that's just not going to work.  The MP3 file is a stream, while the FLAC is a container that can hold streams.  What you're doing is akin to renaming an MPEG-4 M4V video file to MP3 and trying to get it to play in a basic MP3 player.  Not going to happen.  And since the MP3s are already lossy, they're the result of a "tuned" process that rolls off "unnecessary" frequencies and uses a much lower effective bitrate per second, so all you'd be doing is "inflating" them to whatever FLAC compression level you're setting and at best, hoping for a file that sounds as good as the original MP3 did, much less the source material.

[Ziba]

Make sure the [filetype] tag is actually FLAC and not still mp3.

Also, choose one FLAC file in standard view, right-click on it and run update library from tags on it (Library Tools submenu).

Then try playing that file.

Yes, that did it!

I had no idea there even existed a [file type] tag. I manually changed one song's tag from mp3 to flac and it worked. Then, I tried the  'Update library (from tags)' in Library Tools and it updated all mp3 tags to flac. 

Thanks to everyone for replying. Cheers!

[Ziba]

And I realize I wasn't being clear with my experimentation. For the sake of clarity, I'm fully aware that changing a file's extension from mp3 to flac is nonsense (it doesn't make that new file a 'real' flac). Since I couldn't figure out how to properly redirect the mp3 files to their flac counterpart, I tried different things just to see how MC would react, including renaming an mp3 to a flac and moving that file to where I want the real flac file to be. I was hoping that trying different scenarios would help me understand what I was doing wrong.

Anyhow, thanks for your help!

[glynor]

I made a tool with this express purpose.

See:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76147.0

Pay particular attention to MCFileIngester:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76147.msg528833#msg528833

[Ziba]

I made a tool with this express purpose.

See:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76147.0

Pay particular attention to MCFileIngester:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76147.msg528833#msg528833

So I thought I was finally out of the woods, but not quite yet. Everything seemed to work perfectly at first, but I'm having two issues that I can't seem to be able to resolve. I've searched the forum for a while, but can't find an answer. I apologize if these issues have been brought up before.

Issue 1: I want to preserve the mp3 metadata (not only playcount). The metadata seemed to carry over to the flacs at first, but the next day (after a reboot perhaps), the metadata got updated somehow with the flac files' original tags (artist, album name, genre and others). I have no idea how this happened and have no idea how to fix this. I'll start over by deleting everything, re-importing the itunes library.

glynor, I just notice your reply. Will the MCFileIngester tool help me preserve the metadata?

Issue 2: I'd like to sync the flac library to my ipod by converting "on-the-fly" to mp3 (V0 or 'extreme'). I've done this and it seemed to work just fine, until I added a new album to the library. I noticed each time I do a new sync, the whole library reconverts from flac to mp3 somehow (20+ hours). I can't figure out which option I need to set differently. I obviously would like only the newly added flac files to convert and leave the other mp3 on the ipod as they are.

This second issue is unrelated to your tool to the mp3-to-flac library update, but I'm hoping someone can help me figure this out.

Thanks.

[glynor]

For #1, yes.  That's exactly what it does.  Watch the little video I made (a bit further down from the MCFileIngester post in the thread linked above).

There is one "bug" in it, though I haven't quite decided what to do about it.  When you clone or replace a file and the NEW file (the FLAC in your case) has an entry in a particular field, but the OLD file has nothing in that field (so it is completely blank), then the new metadata is preserved.  This is actually nice in many cases (it kinda "merges" the two, though the OLD file always wins if it contains anything at all in a particular field).

That's why I haven't fixed it, because in my circumstances, it is often convenient.  Where I encounter it the most is if the newly ripped file has cover art or an album name, and the old one is blank in those fields.  Most of the time, I'd rather keep the information and manually blank it if needed.  But, I suppose it isn't "right" so it bothers me.

Otherwise, though, yes, it actually copies ALL metadata from the OLD file ontop of the new one, and then actually replaces the old entry in the MC Library with the new one (like what you did) so that it even preserves Playlists.  Then, lastly, it "refreshes" the file so that it has the right file type and whatnot in MC.

It works perfectly, except that one point noted above, in all the use I've made of it (fairly substantial).

[glynor]

#2 would be best addressed in another thread, but can certainly be achieved.

We'd need to know exactly what settings you're using in the Handheld Conversion thingy.