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got me an xtra today...

post #1 of 9
12/11/03 at 9:59pm
Thread Starter 
not sure yet whether i like it. by far, the biggest annoyance for me is that the thing uses ID3 tag info for organizing your mp3s, rather than my nice, neat directory structure.

I am utterly dreading fixing ID3 tags on 35GB worth of MP3s, but i feel i don't really have a choice...I don't care about shuffle mode, I want to be able to locate individual albums and play them as albums. Unfortunately, I've got like 600 tracks which are listed now as unknown artist, and all kinds of annoying CDDB ID3 tag issues (such as having "Smashing Pumpkins" and "The Smashing Pumpkins" listed as two separate artists), none of which mattered before.

So I guess I have two questions:

First, is there a hd-mp3 (40GB or larger) player out there which organizes things by directory-tree structure? I'm almost inclined to just say I'd go that route rather than invest probably 10-15 hours fixing all this stuff.

Second, is there a tool (or suite of tools) which makes changing large quantities of ID3 tags particularly painless?


Thanks,
Jeff
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post #2 of 9
12/11/03 at 10:35pm
The artist thing is fairly easy to fix, any MP3 program that lets you change the tags of multiple songs at once only allows you to change the artist and album and genre and a few others, iTunes does this. If there is a program called MP3 Rage, that's what you're looking for really. It's for Mac, but I'm sure there has to be a PC equivalent. It basically automates titling songs, be it the actual file name, or the ID3 tags. A really useful part allows you to make it automatically change the file name based on the ID3 tags or vice versa. Unfortunately, I don't know if such a program exists for PC.
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post #3 of 9
12/12/03 at 2:49am

Re: got me an xtra today...

Quote:
Originally posted by Jeffreybar
not sure yet whether i like it. by far, the biggest annoyance for me is that the thing uses ID3 tag info for organizing your mp3s, rather than my nice, neat directory structure.

I am utterly dreading fixing ID3 tags on 35GB worth of MP3s, but i feel i don't really have a choice...I don't care about shuffle mode, I want to be able to locate individual albums and play them as albums. Unfortunately, I've got like 600 tracks which are listed now as unknown artist, and all kinds of annoying CDDB ID3 tag issues (such as having "Smashing Pumpkins" and "The Smashing Pumpkins" listed as two separate artists), none of which mattered before.

So I guess I have two questions:

First, is there a hd-mp3 (40GB or larger) player out there which organizes things by directory-tree structure? I'm almost inclined to just say I'd go that route rather than invest probably 10-15 hours fixing all this stuff.

Second, is there a tool (or suite of tools) which makes changing large quantities of ID3 tags particularly painless?


Thanks,
Jeff

You are in a familiar boat.

Most MP3 players organize thier library by ID3 tag now, as it allows for much greater flexiblity when browsing the library... instead of just directory structure, you can list by artist, album, title, genre, year, etc... assuming your tags are correct. It can certainly take a lot of time to get them up to par. It took me months, literally, with a collection the size of mine.

There are some programs to help, IF you have you filenames standardized. Programs can read the filenames and use those to tag the file with the artist, album, ect

MP3 Tag/Studio can massive batch tagging from filenames, and quick too. The only shareware I ever registered. One of the most important tools in managing 250gb MP3.

If you don't want to bother, you should get an MP3 player made by either :
1) Archos
2) e.Digital Odyssey
3) iRiver iHP series
all of which have file Directory based libraries.

However, I would recommend putting the time in. Use that software, it will help. You only have to do it once, and the benefits are many. You obviously love music, this will give you a chance to get requanted with old tracks
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post #4 of 9
12/12/03 at 3:00am
Thread Starter 
Yeah...I'll probably start working on it, but it will no doubt take forever. I did find a good program for batch tag-changing (it's called TagScanner if anyone's interested), but as you pointed out, for it to really work efficiently, my files must be very consistently named. Of course, all the stuff I ripped myself is named according to my personal convention, so it works well for that, but it's a total crap-shoot for downloaded stuff (about 1/3 of my library).

All in all, I think I'm still going to return (or possibly sell on ebay) my Xtra...the user interface in general just bugs the hell out of me. No dedicated hold button, organization only by id3 tags, questionable button layout (and function overlapping)...it makes my little iriver remote control for my slimX seem like a marvel of HCI engineering. I didn't think all this stuff would bug me so much (after all, I knew that the Xtra had probably the worst interface of the major choices), but when you're talking about 40GB of files to go through, I know eventually it'll drive me nuts.

I'll just chill with my SlimX until the iHP-140 or whatever comes out.
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post #5 of 9
12/12/03 at 12:00pm
I know it seems like a huge pain in the ass to have to organize your mp3s by tag at first, but trust me, it's worth it. iPods let you sort by most of the tag criteria, which is very handy. I'm can't speak for the Zen, but I'm sure it's pretty similar.

The program I use is called Tag and Rename. Very usefull for renaming large numbers of tags based on file names.
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post #6 of 9
12/12/03 at 4:08pm
Jeffreybar, sorry to hear that you don't like the Zen Xtra's inferface. I don't have a problem with it. The learning curving isn't too hard either. I was able to master it in about 30 minutes.
Once my music was properly tagged and uploaded to the unit, it was a snap to find albums, artists and songs and make on-the-fly playlists.

I also second Austonia's recommendation for Mp3/Tag Studio. Nice batch tagging program. So far, it has tagged 40GB of mp3s for me. Then again, I did rip and tag as I went along, as opposed to having to do them all at once.

You can download it here:

Mp3/Tag Studio 3.0

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post #7 of 9
12/12/03 at 4:51pm
What's a "dedicated hold button"?

I would give yourself time to get used to the new interface. There's always something about all interfaces that will be different and you have to get used to. I had the Archos, but now am totally used to the Zen Xtra, and like it much more. Especially if you're into the quality of the sound. The Zen probably has the best sound quality of any HD MP3s out there. I know it's waaaaaay better than my Archos was. I totally love the Zen Xtra with my Shure E5Cs... sonic delight!
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post #8 of 9
12/12/03 at 6:05pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, the sound quality is quite good, and it's built like a tank: both big plusses in my book. But I don't know about the interface...I figured it out pretty quickly, but it takes a lot more effort (effort meaning sheer number of button clicks + looking at screen) to do things than it did on my SlimX. Having organization by directory structure would help for this: since for some artist groups (like a band, then various solo albums of members, etc.) I have 20-30 albums, it would break my 400-something album collection into several much more meaningful chunks, rather than having to scroll through a long list. Ok, ok, it's my own prejudice, but I reserve the right.

By "no dedicated hold button", I mean that there is no physical button on the player marked "hold" which will lock the player's functions so that buttons aren't accidentally depressed in my pocket. Not an absolute necessity, but a feature I use almost 100% of the time (and frequently switch on and off). Having to look at the screen to lock/unlock the buttons is kind of a pain. Again, personal prejudice.


-Jeff
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post #9 of 9
12/13/03 at 12:20am
Unless I'm missing something, tagging all of your files to give you the ability to play by albums is one operation for the whole shot with Mp3/Tag Studio.

Your files are already organized in a directory structure, presumably something along the lines of Genre/Artist/Album. With Mp3/Tag Studio anyway, you can use any information in the file name and the path as the source for tag info.

So you just set up Mp3/Tag Studio to use the Genre, Artist and Album from the path to create the tags. Pick the Tag from Filename tab, define the directory structure you're using, press Execute and you're done with that part of it.

The only thing that might cause you problems would be extracting the track number and song title out of the file name proper if there are a lot of different formats, but with a little thought even that shouldn't be too much trouble.

I doubt it would take you more than a few hours unless the filenames themselves are really screwed up.
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