Author Topic: Change song file format but keep playcount and rating  (Read 13092 times)

illmatic

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Been advised to post this in the Wishlist in the hope it could be made possible in the future.

Basically I would like to be able to replace the song file with one of a different format - e.g. mp3 with m4a but maintain the playcount and rating of the original song.

I can do the first bit - replace the song file and relocate the file within MB, but once located the rating and playcount are reset.

I don't know how difficult this is to implement or whether it is even possible, but thought I would ask!

Many Thanks.

greenday1987

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I'll +1 this incase I ever upgrade to FLAC
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Najica

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I too sometimes change format and it'd be nice to retain the play count and rating  :)
+1

paq

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A tip for how it could be implemented, from an users perspective:
* Select the song you wish to change the source for and choose Tag Editor > Properties.
* Now at the bottom you have Location. You can now either
a) Edit the location, like replace .mp3 with .flac if the new file is in the same folder or change the location completely.
OR
b) If you click the button in the location field you would get a "Save as"-dialogue instead of the "Chose folder" as it is now. If you would then select an already existing file then that would be the new source, otherwise you would copy/move the file (whichever it does now).

Right now when you want to save it tells you that the file already exists but this could be changed into a pop-up warning: "Do you want to change the location to this already existing file? Tags/metadata will replace current tags in the new file and the old file will be unlinked from your library. OK / Cancel"

One downside with this though is that you can't do it as a batch process. Another idea that could solve this would be if you could select multiple tracks, Edit > Copy tags and then paste onto multiple tracks. This would also include some of the data under properties as play/skipped count. This would of course only work if you would copy from the same number of tracks that you would paste onto, and the copy/paste would go sequentially.

illmatic

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paq, that sounds pretty much exactly what I'd like to do - particularly like the idea of doing it as a batch process for a full album. Would save a lot of time!
Good to see there's a bit of support for this suggestion, hopefully Steven can take a look at it sometime.


Steven

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this seems a fairly popular request and something i had in the back of my mind as well
i will do this, but am thinking just adding another option on the file converter dialog
ie.
select file/ Send To/ Format Converter

paq

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this seems a fairly popular request and something i had in the back of my mind as well
i will do this, but am thinking just adding another option on the file converter dialog
ie.
select file/ Send To/ Format Converter

I am not sure I follow you, could you please elaborate? Will this option let you replace existing files with new ones in a different format while retaining tags, rating and play/skipped count?

Steven

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Steven

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i've added playcount preservation as an option to the file converter, and also in the tag editor if you rename the file extension it uses the highest quality converter settings to re-encode the file.
However, its not so great in that it locks up the GUI while the conversion is done. I have said at some point i will make tag editing save in the background but at the moment its not something i am prepared to take on.

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Last Edit: June 27, 2012, 10:27:03 PM by Steven

greenday1987

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That doesn't cover replacing the files with files from another source though unless I am mistaken. ie download an album in MP3 then later buy the CD and and rip my own FLAC. I can't delete the MP3 rip from my 'pc and library' and rescan finding the fresh FLAC rip in it's place and have the playcounts etc etc transferred from the MP3 to the FLAC version. The above posted tweak could be handy though :)
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Steven

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That doesn't cover replacing the files with files from another source though unless I am mistaken. ie download an album in MP3 then later buy the CD and and rip my own FLAC. I can't delete the MP3 rip from my 'pc and library' and rescan finding the fresh FLAC rip in it's place and have the playcounts etc etc transferred from the MP3 to the FLAC version. The above posted tweak could be handy though :)
would Edit/Copy Tags (Ctrl-C)
then paste on the flac file not do what you want for this scenario?

edit:
that wouldnt copy ratings, or playcount so what i will do is create a hot-key command to copy all those values
Last Edit: June 28, 2012, 07:44:02 PM by Steven

greenday1987

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Thanks Steven for all your efforts. That's an excellent idea
RIP OiNK


I've recently joined last.fm - http://www.last.fm/user/drjswho
Feel free to add me if you wish :)

EAC V1.0 beta 3 can be downloaded here
And a full guide on setting it up and ripping a CD can be here