Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library

Subject: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 04:39 PM

I fed all of my CDs to my computer, partly to load my Creative Labs Zen Micro player to take to the gym and partly to catalog my CDs with track lists. Now that I have it all in the Windows Media Player music library and as separate wma files, how do I export this library/index into something useful, like excel or askSam? It won't save in any format except its own. I can't select and copy. How do I work with this? It is also in Creative MediaSource Organizer, which is only marginally easier to work with. Any ideas?

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 05 - 07:43 PM

printfolders, there are many versions out there. look around and decide which one you want. Newer versions have the harmless but naggy questions when you use it.

Here's a couple with comments
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Reviews/r369.html

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23030,00.asp

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 03:31 AM

Hmmm. At one time, Windows Media Player saved its index as an Access file, but I don't know if it still does it in that format.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 06:48 AM

The earlier version (Version 1) referred to above has been removed.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 07:30 AM

Susan - the Bonus pack for Windows Media has Powertoys for the XP media player which includes an Export to Excel function (from where you should be able to do anything with it). I can't see the powertoys separately but the Bonus Pack download is on MS site at: Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP. There are links there to the details of the Powertoys and how it exports the playlist file (.wpl) to Excel. (The full download is about 18Mb. I haven't used this so I can't offer any experience).

Alternatively you could try processing the .wpl files yourself - they're just text files with lines like:

            <media src="C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\My Music\beck.asx" tid="{59FEF2B8-53E0-43A6-AB56-CEA078D0960A}"/>

for the track. You could use a DOS batch file with Find to extract these lines from all your .wpl files.

Mick

(I hope you're using XP after all that!)

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 24 Nov 05 - 02:21 PM

Thank you. I downloaded the powertoys and installed the Import to Excel. I had to cut it into several playlists, since one was too big and converted those and finally assembled it back into one excel file. Now I can play with it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 04:24 PM

I have a new problem with this.

It used to be that when I fed the computer a new CD it would either go and find the information or give me a crack at finding it manually - look up artist and/or album - it would then either find the info or let me enter it and upload it for future people who have the CD.

Now when I feed it a CD it either finds the info or says it can't open windowsmedia.com. I can open windowsmedia.com on my own, but cannot find how to look up albums. I also went to the AMG website, which is the source of the info, and could not see how to look up an album. At this point, I can enter the names of the tracks for my own computer, but it will be listed under unknown album unknown artist, unless someone can tell me how to edit this.

Did my windows media player get "updated" without my permission? Has it suddenly decided it does not like Firefox after years of using it? Did the windows media website change? How do I get it to behave like it used to?

Thank you

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 06 - 10:40 PM

the story on CDDB, which used to be the database you accessed, but which was recently bought.

I have several programs which access something called FREEDB...(see in article), but I haven't used it 'recently'.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 11:50 AM

well....interesting. I started working thru music playing and cataloging programs last night and found only ONE that will still access the internet and find data on a CD...When I open Quintessential CD Player, it flashes a little window that says "Powered by Gracenote CDDB", and the 3 CDs I put in were immediately identified. (A Jean Redpath, an Ed Miller and a Margaret McArthur). But then This page says this support is somehow limited to a beta version??? All I know is that I have version 4.51a, and it works.

The FREEDB I referred to seems to have been chased out of business somehow, and the original developers are feuding with each other, although the database and software 'seem' to be available if YOU wish to have the whole thing. One page says they are looking for someone to host the DB online and run it and support it, but as of now, I don't 'think' anyone is. It says there are 2 million CDs in their database, but that seems like a lot (375 MEGS) just to access folk albums.

Anyway, the Gracenote version IS working, as long as you have the right program ('usually' a paid program, if I understand it correctly)

I guess I will used the QCD program noted above as long as it works.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 07:24 PM

Thanx, Bill. So no one will be able to use music library programs? So no one is supposed to buy CDs - only download cuts? I am surprised Microsoft is letting this happen to one of their programs. It is going to be a real nuisance. So I can write in the identity of cuts, but they remain as coming from Unknown Artist and Unknown Album, unless someone knows how to edit this.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 08:43 PM

You can always edit and fill in information for ANY music files you have using various editors. Probably the best (but kinda complex) is The Godfather....it will play, organize and edit info in many ways.

There is also MP3Tag---which will do similar tag editing, but not all the other tricks The Godfather will do.

   You can also try the QCD player, and see if it will do as mine does and get the info for you. It's really a neat program for playing all sorts of music.

I'm sure there are other editing programs...

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 08:55 PM

And of course, there are a number of database programs designed especially for music that you can fill in, but as you say, that's a LOT of typing considering the # of files and CDs you have. Unless they have an 'import' function....

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Sep 06 - 09:45 PM

just for fun, here's a screencapture of MP3Tag which I opened to Child 04, showing the editing fields.


oh...wait! I was messing with MP3Tag, and *IT* seems to still access the FreeDB database. I inserted my CD of Songs from the Grieg-Duncan collection, and it popped up the listing!

It also will find information from listing of MP3 files, though it gets quite a list...I'm not sure yet what it searches on, but I sure am gonna explore.

So...one more possibility!

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 01:39 PM

Just keeping this up top for those who don't pop in on weekends.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 04:01 PM

Bill

As far as you know, which one will import my existing windows media library or read the files in My Music (I have 8500 songs I do not want to re-enter) and give me a usable, sortable, searchable, playable listing that looks up the information when I feed the computer a CD? Which do you recommend?

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 04:45 PM

just to be clear...are you talking JUST song files..MP3, WMV,..etc...or some text listings in Excel or such...or both?

The Godfather will import data about 9 different 'sound' formats, then allow you to edit the data...and it will access FREEDB and suck up the data from a CD.

I have a player/database combo called MediaMonkey which says it will export track lists as Excel, HTML, XML or CSV, AND says it will access FREEDB, (though I haven't tried it)

MP3Tag is just for collecting and editing the data (tags), but is good & simple.

There is another VERY well-known inter-related set of apps called 'dbPowerAmp' which plays, converts, organizes a database of music files, and which will export as HTML.


I am just not sure what YOU need to import and in what format. I 'think' I'd take a look at http://www.mediamonkey.com/ and see what you think...(it was just improved, I see)...but it may require you to take a couple of these for a test drive to see if they suit your needs. (You know me, I gotta try everything, but I don't have any pre-existing idea of how it should be...I just tell the program "here be music files...do your trick"..you could do that too, then see if you like it...even a short test on a subset, rather than gulping up all 8500.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: NightWing
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 08:38 PM

I use Audio Grabber software to rip my CDs to MP3. It accesses the FreeDB database; you can also download the whole database (VERY large) and store it locally.

I'm in the midst of trying to write a macro module for Excel that will let me read and write the tag info (ID3). (This will NOT be accessing the FreeDB.)

I started doing this when my MP3 player showed me that I had MP3s with five different values for the Artist tag; same group.

BB,

NightWing

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:16 PM

hmmm! I have AudioGrabber...never thought to look at it for this!

I 'might' be tempted to get the whole database,(375 Megs) just in case it becomes hard to find or access online....but since 98% of it is stuff I am not interested in, I dunno. Storage is not the issue it was just a few years ago.

Will investigate more.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:21 PM

I just used Real Player instead of Windows Media Library. The good news is it found the info for 1 CD, but not the other, let me enter the artist, album and song titles for the one it did not know, and ripped the songs into "My Music" directory on the computer. The bad news is that it did not become part of the listing in the Windows Media Library. So one program can still search for info and the other cannot.

What I have is:
1) the music files in My Music which have directories for each artist with albums as subdirectories under that. (with Various Artists as the largest directory for all those field recording CDs...)
2) Windows Media Library listing of all these, from which I can search and play songs
3) a large excel file I constructed from the Media Library using Powertoys/import to Excel recommended above. This has one worksheet with everything in My Music (without the music files attached) as well as listing for my vinyl records. There is another worksheet that just has the Child ballads on it. I keep more info in this database than the Windows Media keeps track of - Child, Laws, and DT numbers, record labels and numbers, etc. Excel is very handy since I can slice and dice (sort) it in various ways, but I can't play them from there (perhaps a poor decision a while ago, so I play from the Windows Media Library.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:36 PM

well, I just used AudioGrabber to find data on "The Voice Squad" Good People All (it did NOT find Janet Russell & Christine Kydd in FREEDB)


My best guess right now is to try MediaMonkey...turn it loose on your My Music files where you play songs from and let it catalogue your files in it's own way...then it says it will EXPORT as Excel, which you are already familiar with, and it says it will access FREEDB (I think FREEDB requires an email addy as a check before it works) I think you may like PLAYING songs in Media Monkey..it's a nice interface.

The CDDB run by Gracenote may have a larger DB by now, so I will double check stuff like Russell & Kydd by using QCD player...

ain't technology FUN?

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 18 Sep 06 - 09:39 PM

BTW...I am so prejudiced *wry grin*...I will NOT allow Real Player on my machine. I can play Real Media a couple other ways and after the problems I had with RP a few years ago,...never again!

YMMV

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Sep 06 - 07:16 PM

Those who do use Windows Media Player may be interested in the recent Microsoft To Issue Fix For DRM Stripper App.

The article gives a bit of "history" on recent WMP versions, and perhaps suggests what future versions may look like.

The article talks about a feature I wasn't aware of. As I'm not much of a media collector I'll leave it to the experts to decide whether the article actually says anything.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Scrump
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 11:06 AM

Slightly off topic, but I wonder if anyone can recommend a simple software CD player (preferably freeware or at least cheap) that would allow me to put an audio CD into the drive, and have it play the CD? I used to have something like this on an early Windows PC before the web becamse widespread.

I now have Realplayer, Windows Media Player, etc., but I hate them because every time I put a CD in, they waste time going to the Internet to download the track titles, etc. I don't want any of this clever stuff, I just want to be able to play the CDs - I don't need to have them tell me what the tracks are as I have the CD covers to refer to if I need to know!

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 11:41 AM

well yes, but for most of them you'll 'probably' have to go thru the process of setting it to be the default player and maybe setting within the program the option to play instantly.

Try Quintessential CD player that I referred to above. It will do a LOT more than just play a CD, but its options actually show you the current associations, and allow you to change them from within QCD, and right below that the option to start QCD when you insert a CD.

another good one is JetAudio

or maybe even Foobar2000, which is a VERY excellent player with more options than you'll ever need (you can set very technical stuff, but you don't need to even look at it), but the interface is simple & clean. It can easily be set to be your default CD player in the options.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: pattyClink
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 12:03 PM

Scrump, in Media Player you can reset the way it operates. Open MP, Look at the upper left corner there is a little button with 2 tiny arrows. Click it and you get the full menu version. Go to Tools, Options, and there are lots of things you can reset. I have all the items under the "Player" tab set to un-checked, one is so it doesn't shoot me to the internet against my will.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Susan of DT
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 04:01 PM

Well the CDs entered into Real Player are in .ra format instead of .wma format, so my MP3 player (a Zen) won't touch them. The reason I started feeding my CDs to the computer was to get the music onto the Zen, but the index has become a tremendously useful feature. Guess I have to try these downloads to find something that will work.

Subject: RE: Tech: Windows Media Player Music Library
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Sep 06 - 05:43 PM

nope, portable .ra is either non-existent or rare. There are plenty VERY nice ways to rip a CD to MP3 or .wma..... AudioGrabber (above)might be one of the easiest...or JetAudio....

but AFTER you convert CDs to MP3, some of the programs I noted will make a nice index ON your PC.

(Not sure what your Zen wants...do you just plug it in and tell it to suck up MP3s?) as you know, I had to burn CDs for my) player.

AudioGrabber seems like easiest way right now. (MP3 conversion is built in...some programs you have to download separate LAME file to do conversion...not too hard, but...)