Not to be long winded BUT: After skipping around and trying a bunch of applications I bought ZenPoint's Digicenter and it just wow's the pants off of me so far. I am relatively new to this kind of application as most of my "music" was on Vinyl...eventually CD's and forget downloads. Either way I have a collection via iTunes and it's CD import abilities that now total about 3500 tunes. I did use the CD ripper in the digicenter software and it works well. I don't know that the art work or artist info comes out of the process yet. Some have titles, some say unknown, some have cover art and a few seem reasonably complete. I do have a few that come from the year 2019 and 5005 but I can live with that stuff for a while. I did downlaod the recommended mp3tag editor but I am not sure what I am doing there. My problem is that I am having trouble MANAGING so many titles. I would really need to change a few names, artists and cover art. Seems like MANY have NO COVER listed. In iTunes, the application would retrieve them from some internet source in most cases but my back ups and restoration to the "empty" computer did not take a lot with it. I basically just cut and pasted all of the iTunes titles on the CD backups to the My Music directory The skin looks so brilliant on the 15" touchscreen monitor stuck in the wall in the basement bar.... I can't wait for a group of friends to come by and check this out. I can see that a few of them will be making this same decision. Thanks for any guidance and help. I can see this may be a very tedious job re naming so many titles in hundreds of folders |
knuckle47
02-11-2012 00:03
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Knuckle47,
You said you had an iTunes library set-up already?
Whatever album names, artists, cover art, etc... you had in iTunes should be the same you see in ZenPoint.(iTunes works like the mp3tag program in that it will edit mp3 tags)
The reason you may see some "unknown" items is that either that's how you had them in iTunes or ZenPoint didn't get the info when you used it to rip.
I suggest managing your music through iTunes and just pointing Digital Center's "Music" data path to that iTunes folder. It will save disk space because you don't have to copy all your library to another directory on the same computer. The only reason you would not want to do this is if you didn't want ALL of your music to get imported into the Digital Center library.
If you have a large library of "unknown" or missing album cover art, I suggest using TuneUp (www.tuneupmedia.com). It works with iTunes to grab missing info, album cover art, or wrong information. It has its bugs though. It will misidentify some music, but if you know your music that should be easy to catch. It will also not give you originating albums for tracks. For example, If I was processing a song by The Beatles, it probably wont give me the original album that the song first appeared in, but some compilation album instead like "the best of the 60's".
I like it even though it isn't 100% capable of identifying all music. It has helped me sort through over 30,000 tracks. Whatever it can't find, I use SoundHound on my iPad to identify and manually enter mp3 data.
Hope that helps.
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avg24
02-11-2012 08:12
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Hi Avg24, ( I use your virus software ) :) Thank you so much for the tips. Yes they will be EXTREMELY helpful as it minimizes my editing needs. Some of the old CD's I have are possibly too obscure? I am very unaware of how this use of a computer in music really works. I use it at work to schedule and monitor trucks for shipping, and send emails to my kids. Being new to this , I have printed the manual, pages and pages of these forum suggestions and will spend this snowy northeast weekend, getting it all shaped up. Since the jukebox computer is a dedicated but older 32bit Vista OS and an old ASUS P4 motherboard, it is starting to slow a bit as windows applies it 135+ monster upgrades. I kept iTunes off of the system to keep the 120gb drive free. I can see now that my newer (but still 3 yrs old) unit is going to be upgraded to replace this oldest one since it is so much more capable in terms of speed and storage with 2- 500gb drives. I have also discovered that Media Player has a type of ...go online and get the album information.. I did this last night at 1am. It appeared to look up but did say it was busy and re-trying, so while it LOOKED locked up, I let it run and went to bed. To my surprise at 8:45 am , 7 hours later, it actually did do something. The green line runs across the page and claims to be finished. I ran over my main computer in the house to see if a reply was available here to my first questions. There it was....from Zenpoint... and I will heading to the "wall" where this jukebox is mounted to see what it actually has gotten. I thank you so much for your reply and noticed that you do seem to have many solutions to peoples issues. I look forward to bouncing a few more out here in the next few weeks..... Once agin...A big thanks AL |
knuckle47
02-11-2012 15:00
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Well AVG24... The site you referred me too is excellent. Tried the lite version an in seconds, it clearly add Covers, Titles and details to25 of my 855 missing album covers etc. Once I can transfer all of my stuff back onto a new drive and computer board for better and faster operations, this is my next add on. I took your advice and will use iTunes with it. Never really used any Media Player stuff since using windows back in the 90's and have toyed with itunes since the first ipods were out. I do have several other file management questions and will post tem under a new heading Thank you again for some terrific suggestions..AL |
knuckle47
02-11-2012 18:21
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Al, You mentioned you wanted to keep iTunes off the dedicated jukebox computer due to space. Unless you have a pretty full drive already, iTunes will only take up the amount of space required by the installation plus a little extra (less than 1GB for sure). Provided you set up iTunes correctly, you will keep all your music organized without taking up any extra space. Sometimes people keep the option to copy music that it organizes, this will take up space as essentially you will have two of every song on your computer.
PS, get rid of Vista. Go with XP or Windows 7 for your dedicated jukebox computer. The only thing to note here is that as you build your library, ZenPoint will use more memory and processing power. There isn't much in terms of minimum requirements for hardware specified by the people at ZenPoint, just know that IF you build a larger library and use album covers, I will strongly suggest a dedicated video card on the computer with at least 1GB of memory. This may not be an issue for you since the need for that type of dedicated video card will come into play once you reach tens of thousands of songs and/or albums, but it is something to consider for future expansion. |
Avg24
02-12-2012 08:54
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Once again AVG24, this is the kind of stuff a newbie never knows until much time and energies have gone into the project....THANK YOU. My newer old computer is significantly better and has much better video. Currently a GEforce 5200 and going to a 9800GT with 2gb ram. So that should be a better options. Additionally the CPU and mobo run 64 bit Quad Core 2.33 and it runs Win 7. I am wondering what you are saying about the "correct" setup in iTunes. TO ME...it seems to install itself but clearly you mean there are options. I wonder which . My question next goes to the current library, I now see about 4500 tracks as I spent much of yesterday sliding cd's into the cd tray and ripping and ripping. Now THAT's a fun day :( What might you suggest as a efficient backup method to carry over to the other computer? In iTunes, it is a few clicks but I did not see anything specific in media player to mp3 backup. Thank you for sharing your knowlede... AL |
knuckle47
02-12-2012 14:36
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Al, The specs on the computer you are using seem to be good. I am assuming you are saying that the computer has 2GB of ram, not the video card. It seems the 9800gt has 512MB, which should be fine for your application. I would up the ram though, 2GB on windows 7 is ok, but not great. Go at least 4GB. 6 would be great, 8 even better.
By iTunes being set up correctly, i mean there are two options you should configure. They may come default this way, but you want to check. The options are, going off memory, something that might say something like copy files imported. You want to uncheck that. The other option is to have iTunes organize your library and it might say something about moving and sorting. You want that checked.
Backups are tough. I dont think there is a bullet proof (reasonably priced) backup method as accidents happen and electronics fail. What I am doing is taking a mirror image of the drive in my jukebox with another drive of the same size (1TB) and storing it away; my media files currently take up about 500GB so backups for my jukebox are more difficult. An internal raid configuration would be nice if you could swing it or a NAS with raid would be great too. With the NAS, you could access your files from any computer on your network and it would give you a centralized storage location for all of your files and backups. I use a NAS for my files, programs, and other backups. I definitely can't use it for my juke backups due to size. i just have to hope my backup drive won't fail mysteriously when it's needed until I build a larger NAS. |
Avg24
02-13-2012 08:00
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Thanks AL, Yes The video card for some reason has 2 gb memory. I was using it in a video editiing environment prior to the new computer so it has capabilities there. and on the newest ( old ) computer it runs 4gb ram so I believe your suggestions are being accommodated. I will imagine there are some improvements that I will see in the changeover. I am still waiting to hear from the guys at ZenPoint regarding the license issue. I did go thru the support heading on the website. I downloaded iTunes last night to the current Vista system and its' familiarity did make it seem user frindly but then it is like an old friend I guess. I will check for the options you describe. THAT backup method you describe is a good idea. Would you think one of those 500gb pocket drives would make a good backup device?, I would not need to be mounted in the case and can be stored in a different location? I see that the average cd I have uses about 400 mb of space a library of my size should be fine at 500gig. I have a collection of CD's over the last 25 years from some oddball music sources but frankly, being that the jukebox simply makes it so much easier to play it if ever strikes a chord within. Certainly instead of being in a box somewhere in a basement !! I am sure you know this by now with your experiences. Once I get the new license I guess I can use both drives to just move files into the music directory on the bigger drive. AL your help has been monumental and along with printing out the relevant questions and answers on the forum, my manual is getting huge. Worth it though. Thank you , AL |
knuckle47
02-13-2012 15:22
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The guys at Zenpoint sometimes take a while to respond, but they have always responded to my inquiries.
A pocket drive will work, the only problem I see is if you want a quick swap if the hard drive goes bad. The reason I am doing it the way I am is that if the HDD dies, I have a replica I can just swap in and not have to do all my Windows and program configurations again. All I'll need is a new license file.
With a pocket drive, you don't have that option. You would either have to remove the pocket drive's HDD and install it in your computer, or buy a replacement HDD and then use the pocket drive to restore from. Also, depending on your hardware, an internally installed drive will copy much faster than a USB drive which is important for me and my large library (i install my drive, image it, and then remove it).
If you already have a pocket drive, go for it. But it the plan was to buy one and make it the primary backup for the juke, you will end up spending more money down the line.
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avg24
02-15-2012 08:07
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