ID3 Windows Rips and LinuxMCE

[GamerAyers]

So I have all my music on a windows xp mce.  It is all setup with ID3 tags, and album art.  There doesn't seem to be an easy way to transfer files back and forth between Windows and LinuxMCE.  I put the files in the public/audio and one cd sometimes turns into 15, all with the same name, with one track in each of them.  When I finally go through and combine them all, sometimes it sticks, and sometimes when I restart all the other CDs appear again.  Plus, understandable that the album art is different, no album art shows up.  I am a true audiophile and listen to all types of music.  Between me and my girlfriend we have upwards of 700 CDs on Windows XP mce so to transfer each over seems to be one heck of a project.  Is there a simple thing I am missing or it is just a pain in the butt to do this?  Thanks.

[totallymaxed]

So I have all my music on a windows xp mce.  It is all setup with ID3 tags, and album art.  There doesn't seem to be an easy way to transfer files back and forth between Windows and LinuxMCE.  I put the files in the public/audio and one cd sometimes turns into 15, all with the same name, with one track in each of them.  When I finally go through and combine them all, sometimes it sticks, and sometimes when I restart all the other CDs appear again.  Plus, understandable that the album art is different, no album art shows up.  I am a true audiophile and listen to all types of music.  Between me and my girlfriend we have upwards of 700 CDs on Windows XP mce so to transfer each over seems to be one heck of a project.  Is there a simple thing I am missing or it is just a pain in the butt to do this?  Thanks.

Hi,

I'm not sure what LinuxMCE version you are using but if it is LinuxMCE 0710 Beta3 or Beta4 then there will be some media organisation issues with those versions. In the release I think that most if not all of those will have been fixed.

Secondly... where to keep your media. Well one option is to copy your ripped CD collection from your mce PC to your LinuxMCE Core... that would certainly work fine. Another way would be to keep all your CD rips where they are and just add your Windows mce PC as a windows share to your core that way you dont need to move anything and you can continue to use the same files from either machine. The downside is that you would need to leave your Windows PC switched on and booted to access any of its files.

Andrew

[GamerAyers]

That would be the problem I am having.  I am using Beta 4 AMD64.

My goal is to migrate from XP MCE to quiet pcs for my directors and but 3 1.0 terabyte drivers in the server as a raid 5.  That is once I am finished building my house as I won't have money till then.

[totallymaxed]

That would be the problem I am having.  I am using Beta 4 AMD64.

My goal is to migrate from XP MCE to quiet pcs for my directors and but 3 1.0 terabyte drivers in the server as a raid 5.  That is once I am finished building my house as I won't have money till then.

That sounds like a reasonable plan to me.

[colinjones]

Just adding the share on your XP machine is definitely the way to go initially, at least - and then you can easily rebuild your core whenever you want. Maybe get a cheap NAS. LMCE will see the embedded id3 tags just fine! And for video it will create id3 files with the same name, as required, to store any metadata you add to them through the admin site.

As for the multiple albums thing, search my other threads on this issue ... and look at Mantis. It is due to the individual tracks having different "performer" attributes and the media grid query not grouping properly. Only happens with "compilation" albums that don't have the same performer attribute on all the tracks. It has been fixed in beta 4, and the genre filter/sort in a patch post-beta 4 that is listed for download on the wiki for beta 4. But I do note that it does still duplicate these albums when it initially indexes a new source of media - a reload or reboot then seems to zip them up correctly into a single album once the initial UpdateMedia indexing is complete (make sure it completes first!) If you then make changes to the attributes on some tracks, it will unzip again until the next reload/reboot. A bit annoying until you realise this, then it becomes irrelevant...