Using iTunes with ripped CD's

[technophobe]

I have ripped a collection of CD's in wave format but, while all the meta data including artwork is present and shows in Windows media player I can not get iTunes to recognise any album or artist data. Because of this iTunes moves the albums to a folder marked unknown making them impossible to access easily.

These CD's are going on a Mac and need to be compatible, anyone know what i should do?

[Wayne]

I do not think that iTunes recognises tags in wav files and you'll going to have to use the apple lossless format.

[technophobe]

This is what should happen when I rip a CD, all the Artist/Album details etc are all in the correct columns, this works with iTunes.



This is how the CDs are being saved, no Artist or Album info in these columns although it is all there in the file name. I am wondering whether it may be a computer issue as it used to work correctly?



Help this is doing my head-in!

[Spoon]

Your first picture is MPEG which is mp3, not wave.

[technophobe]

Does that make a difference to the metadata then?

[garym]

Originally Posted by technophobe

Does that make a difference to the metadata then?

yes. virtually any program will read mp3 tags. But WAV tags are not universally supported and, if used at all, tend to be read only by certain limited programs (usually the one that created the WAV "tags" or database).

p.s. As many folks are likely to mention, use of WAV files is very inefficient. First, the size is about double other LOSSLESS files (FLAC, Apple Lossless, etc.) and as you have learned tagging is a problem. Google WAV versus FLAC or something similar and you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know as to why saving your music in WAV doesn't make sense.

[technophobe]

Ah that makes sense now, thank you.

So the big questions is what format do I record in to retain the very best quality for playback that will allow iTunes or even a UPnP device to see the album and artist etc?...and can the recorded wav files be converted using the DB converter to that to restore the metadata?

[EliC]

Apple Lossless is what you want.

[garym]

And I don't use apple lossless, but I'm pretty sure that dbpa will convert from wav to apple lossless. I assume ITUNES will as well. Not sure about apple lossless on UPnP devices. I use ITUNES to manage a mirror image mp3 library for my ipods/iphones, but keep my main music as FLAC files and use either foobar2000 or my Squeezeboxes (with SqueezeboxServer software) for playing through my home stereo. Other than ITUNES, FLAC is likely your most widely accepted LOSSLESS format.