Batch Convert from a Playlist

[irad]

I have a massive collection of FLAC files that were created with your software. As I did the encoding, I created playlists for various purposes. I would like to find a way to convert to WMA files, but only those songs that are on a particular playlist, so I can carry a subset of the music around. Is this something you might implement in a future version?

[RonM]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

I, too, would like a way in dBp to batch-convert a playlist. I have many large playlists which I typically use for both my main listening at home, and for mobile listening. For the latter I use lossy files.

I have two parallel libraries, one lossy and one lossless. In order to use the playlists in both contexts I need to build the playlists twice, one for each library. This is hugely annoying.

What would be great would be to create the playlist in the lossless archive, and then batch-convert the playlist to a lossy format (for me, this would be MP3 320). I don't see a way to do that now.

[garym]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

I, too, would like a way in dBp to batch-convert a playlist. I have many large playlists which I typically use for both my main listening at home, and for mobile listening. For the latter I use lossy files.

I have two parallel libraries, one lossy and one lossless. In order to use the playlists in both contexts I need to build the playlists twice, one for each library. This is hugely annoying.

What would be great would be to create the playlist in the lossless archive, and then batch-convert the playlist to a lossy format (for me, this would be MP3 320). I don't see a way to do that now.

are your two libraries equivalent except for parent? That is:

x:\lossy\artist\album\....
x:\flac\artist\album\....

the m3u files are just text files. You probably already know this, but if so, you could easily use a text editor to open the flac .m3u file and do a find and replace (find "x:\Flac\" and replace with "x:\lossy\" and then I think ".flac" with ".mp3". Then save this new m3u file. It will automatically point to the lossy versions of the files.

[RonM]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

are your two libraries equivalent except for parent? That is:

x:\lossy\artist\album\....
x:\flac\artist\album\....

the m3u files are just text files. You probably already know this, but if so, you could easily use a text editor to open the flac .m3u file and do a find and replace (find "x:\Flac\" and replace with "x:\lossy\" and then I think ".flac" with ".mp3". Then save this new m3u file. It will automatically point to the lossy versions of the files.

Yes, I've thought of that. There are some issues.

In my primary archive, where all the flacs go, there are actually four file types. The flacs, obviously; legacy ripped CDs which were originally ripped to lossless wma; MP3s, which is what I can sometime only get in downloads (e.g. from emusic, older cdBaby content, other, um, sources); and aac (from iTunes). They are all in the primary archive because they are the best I have for that particular file.

In the lossy archive, I have all MP3s, converted from flac (or ripped directly using the multi function of dBp), wma and aac, or just copied if the original is an MP3.

So to do what you'd suggest it would be best to create the playlist within the primary archive folder and have the specified playlist path relative to that file location. I could then do a find/replace on the text file for the three non-MP3 filetypes, but would have to do that separately, and put the resulting file in the same relative location. Should work, although sometimes the file structure in the lossy archive doesn't exactly match that in the primary archive (it's a legacy issue of folder structure built on artist vs albumartist, among other things).

And I'd have to do it each time I made a new playlist. Certainly doable, but it would be a more compact process to just convert from the playlist in the master archive, with an output directly to a flash drive or to some other location.

R.

[garym]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

good point. hard but possible with the m4a, etc. files, but when you throw in the other differences it makes it really hard. My brain starts hurting when I try to think about how the software would know to recreate my playlists for the portables when the directory/filenames of lossless vs lossy are not necessarily identical (other than the file extension and parent directory). If they *were* identical, I suppose the software could be setup to look at both libraries and where there are two versions take the lossy version for one playlist and the lossless version for the other. When there are NOT two versions, it could include the file in both playlists. but then my brain starts hurting again. :smile2:

In my own use case, I only worry about playlists for my main library (which is also FLAC plus various lossy where I don't have the FLAC). For my mirror for portables (mp3, m4a, etc) I don't worry about playlists in any case. This stuff is just a few things to listen to on airplanes or cars (complete albums I've moved to my portables or just a random selection of stuff I've moved to my iphone or ipad).

Still thinking though....my library is basically:

for LMS (home) librar is "music"
music\flac\artist\album\....
music\lossyonly\artist\album\...

for portables:
portable\lossycopies\artist\album
music\lossyonly\artist\album

So both point at the lossyonly portion. Not sure if that would help me automate lossy vs lossless playlists or not....

[RonM]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

Yes, the brain hurts. I had decided earlier that it was easier to just recreate the playlists separately in the respective libraries. I do use the lossy playlists most actively, actually, for making collections for playing in my car.

Would still be a nice feature for dBp, to work from a playlist for conversion. I'm no coder, but I wouldn't think it would be too hard -- read the playlist for file location, determine type, convert to target type and location, move to next. I'm sure it's more complex than that.

R.

[RonM]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

On a different matter, I do have a difficulty around how I create playlists. I used to use WMP for this in the lossless archive, but have had one too many bad experiences with it altering my tags and album art when I got careless. Too bad, because I found the playlist-maker to be reasonably easy to use.

I use Winamp to make playlists on my lossy archive, as I use it as my default player on the computer. This is fine, and it's set to read the lossy archive. I don't want to mess with having two different libraries in use at different times, although I suppose I could do that, because I would never use Winamp to play from the lossless archive.

I haven't tried using Foobar -- how does that compare in terms of playlist creation?

[garym]

Re: Batch Convert from a Playlist

I haven't tried using Foobar -- how does that compare in terms of playlist creation?

I think you will like Foobar2000 for this purpose. It is a playlist based player in any case. You can create playlists (manually or using any sort of filter, etc.), then save (export) these as either *.fpl, *.m3u, or *.m3u8 playlist files to use anywhere else.