Zune Thoughts

Zune Thoughts.com

Thanks for visiting Zune Thoughts - be sure to register in our forums!


Laptop Thoughts

Loading feed...

Windows Phone Thoughts

Loading feed...

Digital Home Thoughts

Loading feed...




Go Back   Thoughts Media Forums > ZUNE THOUGHTS > Zune Software

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 05-29-2008, 11:00 AM
Jason Dunn
Executive Editor
Jason Dunn's Avatar
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
Default Album Tracks Out of Order? Here's The Fix



Have you see the above problem with your Zune music library? I've seen it on quite a few of my albums, and I was having a really hard time figuring out what was going on - why was it listing the tracks out of order? I dug deeper into the metadata and discovered something interesting: if the metadata lists the "Disc" field as zero (0) instead of one (1), it will show those tracks before Disc 1 Track 1. I'd never had this problem before, so it's something that the Zune 2.5 software does differently than Windows Media Player 11.



The fix then is to select your track(s), right-click, select EDIT, and change the value for DISC from 0 to 1. What if you have this problem on more than a few tracks? That's the situation I found myself in: only about 10% of my songs were correctly tagged as "Disc 1". Unfortunately the Zune multi-album editing interface doesn't allow you to change the DISC metadata tag, so you need a better tool for the job: go download a free copy of MediaMonkey and use it to change the DISC metadata tag in batch mode. Point it at all your music, press CONTROL+A to select all your tunes, press SHIFT+ENTER to open the metadata editor, put a "1" inside the disc field, check off the box next to that field, and click OK. Give it some time - it's pretty fast, but if you have 1000's of tracks, it might take 10 minutes or more.

What's that? You have songs that really are part of disc two? It's probably easiest to change all your music to disc one in batch mode, then go back and manually change the disc two tracks to...disc two. Or, do what I do: create separate folders for multi-disc collections so that the folder and album title says "Disc Two" but the tracks are really from the same disc.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog.
__________________
Want to contact me personally? Use this. Want to read my personal blog? Check it out. Want to follow me on Twitter? Here you go.
 
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 05-29-2008, 06:57 PM
Adam Krebs
Contributing Editor
Adam Krebs's Avatar
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 519

Yeah, the problem's really annoying, but fortunately you can use the multi-edit feature of the Zune software to change this up. If you select songs from more than one album, just use the Edit tool and change only the Disc field (which is greyed out but should be usable). No need for third-party tools!
 
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 06-02-2008, 06:37 PM
rzanology
Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 607

the way i fixed it was to sort the song by album in song listing pain on the right. lol....that drove me craaaaaaaazy for days before i figured it out.
 
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 06-03-2008, 08:52 PM
aaronwe
Neophyte
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 1

Any idea how to mirror this behavior on the Zune itself?

While it's great being able sort a box set by disc in the Zune software, the Zune doesn't follow that sorting. The tracks get listed 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, etc.

The only workarounds I can come up with are splitting each disc out as a separate album, or manually re-numbering each track so that (for example) 4 discs of 15 tracks each are numbered 1-60.
 
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 06-04-2008, 04:54 PM
Jason Dunn
Executive Editor
Jason Dunn's Avatar
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160

Quote:
Originally Posted by aaronwe View Post
The only workarounds I can come up with are splitting each disc out as a separate album...
Yeah, I think that's the best approach and that's how I do it now.
 
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 06-07-2008, 07:14 PM
Talyn
Ponderer
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 86
Send a message via MSN to Talyn

Anyone know if this is doable from mp3tag? I've tried adding the DISCNUMBER tag but when I check from the Zune software, I'm not seeing a change.
 
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 06-04-2008, 04:53 PM
Jason Dunn
Executive Editor
Jason Dunn's Avatar
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Krebs View Post
Yeah, the problem's really annoying, but fortunately you can use the multi-edit feature of the Zune software to change this up.
Ah, I see where I went wrong - I was trying to edit the albums, but you have to select and right-click on the songs themselves to get the option to edit the track. Crazy.
 
Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 05:40 AM.