Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ScottCocoaBeach]

I have just finished re-ripping my entire CD collection - over 600 CD's to FLAC.  My collection before was mostly in WMA with the playlists in Media Center 12.  Now I want to keep my playlists but where ever a FLAC file exists I would like to use it in the playlist instead of WMA.  Directories and possibly even song names could be different since this was a fresh rip of my collection.  I would like to find a program that will go through my playlists and seek out the new FLAC files and if it can't find them give me the option to locate them maually or switch to a WMA or MP3 if it's from a CD I don't have in FLAC.

Hopefully someone has gone through this before and can point me in the right direction.

Many thanks!

[Alex B]

Since MC uses the filename (including the path) as the primary file identifier and the playlists inside the library consist of these files what you ask is difficult to achieve if the filename paths are completely different.


Normally, I would recommend the following re-rip procedure:

1. Organize an off-line copy of the old library (all files disconnected) using the
[Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]\[Disc #]\[track #] filename structure
so that the actual filenames will be e.g. 01.wma, 02.wma, 03.wma etc. (i.e store the track names only in the library)

2. Rip the lossless files to a new separate library using same filename & folder structure. No CD database lookup is needed. Just take care that the Artist and Album tags are correct. You can delete this library after the re-rip process is finished.

3. Load the off-line library. Use the Find and Replace tool for fixing the filename extensions (and the base path if needed) so that they match with the re-ripped files.

4. After the new files are correctly linked with the library use the

a) Update Tags (from library) and Update Library (from tags) tools (in this order) for updating file data
b) Rename Files From Properties tool for changing the [Album Artist (auto)]\[Album]\[Disc #]\ paths and [track #] filenames to what you prefer to use.
c) Analyze Audio tool for re-analyzing the replay gain values if you use Volume Leveling (a lossless format may have slightly different peak values).

EDIT

I forgot to mention that the Auto-Importer should be disabled during this kind of operations.

[ScottCocoaBeach]

Thanks for the suggestion.  I have already re-ripped my entire collection in FLAC so I don't think I could go through these steps.

Here would be an updated feature request - allow the import of a playlist where the software searches on the song name with a preferred extension (in my case flac) - in the case of multiple finds have a window display a list of possibilities so I can select the one I want - i the case of no matches with my preferred extension allow me to manually select whatever files I want from the library.

I would think with the number of people re-ripping to lossless an option like this would be invaluable.

Thanks for the suggestion,

[Alex B]

Yes, I understood that you have already re-ripped. I wanted to explain my re-rip system once again in case someone else finds the procedure useful.

I think your best option is to export the old static playlists as files and edit them with a word processor. You could first mass replace the filename extensions and then fix the paths and filenames where needed.

It would help if you first rename the files in the old and the new library using the [Disc #]\[track #] rule as I explained. This would make the track specific parts of the filenames identical.

The old smartlists should be automatically correct if you import the new files to a copy of the old library. You can delete the old library files before or after importing or let the Auto-Importer handle that.