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Topic: Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center (Read 20749 times) previous topic - next topic
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Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

I'm trying to add my music collection, which is 90% FLAC, to Windows Media Center's Library, but so far have been unsuccessful.  I am using the instructions here.  I am using Illuminable + WMP Tag Support Extender.

If I drag and drop a FLAC file into Media Player, it plays back fine, and I see the tag info; but the file does not get added to the library.  If I drag and drop a file directly into the Windows Media Player library it still doesn't get added.  So they playback no problem, but the Media Player/Center library doesn't like them.

At one point - and I don't know how - I got it half working.  All of the flac files were added, but without their tags, so they were all bunched together under 'Unknown Artist', which is not what I really wanted.

(What I am trying to do overall is be able to play music through my Xbox 360, since it works as a Media Center extender.  I thought about alternatives to Media Center, but I don't know if any of them imitate Media Center in a way that My Xbox 360 can recognize.  If there is such a program that does that, please let me know.)

I'd also like to point out I'm on Windows Vista, since Media Center comes with it.  It could be some type of compatibility issue I'm dealing with, I'm not sure.  The overall problem, though, seems to have little to do with actually playing the files but rather recognizing them and adding them to the library.

Thanks in advance.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #1 –
Quote from: Eleo on
I'm trying to add my music collection, which is 90% FLAC, to Windows Media Center's Library, but so far have been unsuccessful.  I am using the instructions here.  I am using Illuminable + WMP Tag Support Extender.

If I drag and drop a FLAC file into Media Player, it plays back fine, and I see the tag info; but the file does not get added to the library.  If I drag and drop a file directly into the Windows Media Player library it still doesn't get added.  So they playback no problem, but the Media Player/Center library doesn't like them.

At one point - and I don't know how - I got it half working.  All of the flac files were added, but without their tags, so they were all bunched together under 'Unknown Artist', which is not what I really wanted.

(What I am trying to do overall is be able to play music through my Xbox 360, since it works as a Media Center extender.  I thought about alternatives to Media Center, but I don't know if any of them imitate Media Center in a way that My Xbox 360 can recognize.  If there is such a program that does that, please let me know.)

I'd also like to point out I'm on Windows Vista, since Media Center comes with it.  It could be some type of compatibility issue I'm dealing with, I'm not sure.  The overall problem, though, seems to have little to do with actually playing the files but rather recognizing them and adding them to the library.

Thanks in advance.


I'm doing exactly what you're doing. WMPTSE doesn't work well when adding all the files at once, so you have to set it to monitor the folder and let WMP slowly add them one-by-one.

It will work eventually, but because I like to have my files replaygain-adjusted, and because i also like to access files via the dashboard (with the cool imagery) and in games, I just ended up batching some replaygained MP3 versions of all my files via Omni Encoder. Seems less hack-ey, and only requires another 20GB.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Eleo on
At one point - and I don't know how - I got it half working.  All of the flac files were added, but without their tags, so they were all bunched together under 'Unknown Artist', which is not what I really wanted.


I'm not much of a Windows Media Player user, but I also did some testing with the WMP Tag Support Extender and had exactly the same problems concerning the plugin's habits about adding FLAC files to the library and reading their Vorbis comments. I finally got the whole junk running following these steps:

First of all, don't even bother trying to make the Media Library add the files by dragging them into the player. I got the best results by doing an intensive search via Options-->Media Library-->Monitor Folders... and clicking the OK button there (the names might slightly differ in your case, since I'm translating the German player's options). This process might have to be repeated several times until all files are found, since the plugin tends to eat quite a lot of memory, causing the player not to respond anymore.

To solve the "Unknown Artist" issue I used the "Refresh Now!" option of the plugin. You'll find it in Options-->Plug-Ins-->Background-->WMPTagSupportExtenderPlugin-->Properties (again, the names might not exactly match). At least in my case (Windows XP instead of Vista) this caused the library to finally clean up the "Unknown Artist" section. But don't expect the plugin to read the DATE tags, it's not able to do so yet.

Edit: Grammar, grammar!

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #3 –
D'oh.  This isn't as streamlined as it could be.  I don't think I even really enjoy using Media Center; but it seems like it will be a necessary evil if I want to stream media from my PC to my Xbox 360.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #4 –
A little OT but what application are you using to transcode FLAC to an xbox 360 compatable format?
I hope you know that just because it can be played and viewed on your PC doesnt mean the same for the 360 unless you use an MCE extention.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #5 –
It was my understanding (could be wrong) that MCE would do the transcoding and stream the resultant audio to the Xbox 360; similar to how Transcode360 transcodes unsupported video formats (such as mpeg4) to the 360 for playback.  ie the transcoding is not taking place on the 360 but on the Media Center computer.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #6 –
Ah you are correct. After reading, audio does indeed get transcoded. Its video that needs the extra applications.
I was getting confused with the recent updates that allow video to be played back over UPnP

My apologies on both my misunderstanding and going horribly offtopic

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #7 –
Cool.  (Actually you had me worried for a second that I was wrong.)

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Junon on
Quote from: Eleo on
At one point - and I don't know how - I got it half working.  All of the flac files were added, but without their tags, so they were all bunched together under 'Unknown Artist', which is not what I really wanted.


But don't expect the plugin to read the DATE tags, it's not able to do so yet.



this was just fixed..check out the release thread here

Oh right here

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....8400&st=325

btw, this stupid illubmable directshow codec hasn't fixed seeking issue or integration with explorer yet right?

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #9 –
Whatever happed to Core FLAC?  I can't find it anywhere.

This setup is buggy at best.  I managed to add everything, but albums with multiple artists got split up until multiple albums.  Maybe I should just transcode everything to v0 and call it a day.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Eleo on
Whatever happed to Core FLAC?  I can't find it anywhere.

This setup is buggy at best.  I managed to add everything, but albums with multiple artists got split up until multiple albums.  Maybe I should just transcode everything to v0 and call it a day.


Like I said, transcode to MP3 - its just less hackey. -V0 is so overkill though, but I guess if you have the space, who really cares.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #11 –
It can't be any more overkill than having flac files on my hard drive (especially considering I've backed up every last one of them.)  What do you suggest instead of v0?  To be honest I haven't messed with mp3s in like two years.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Eleo on
It can't be any more overkill than having flac files on my hard drive (especially considering I've backed up every last one of them.)  What do you suggest instead of v0?  To be honest I haven't messed with mp3s in like two years.


Well I can't ABX anything (even problem samples) past -V2 --vbr-new. Most people can't past -V5 even. It has really improved a lot recently. Make sure you use --vbr-new on the newer Lames though.

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #13 –
anybody know what happened to coreflac?
 

Playing FLAC in Windows Media Center

Reply #14 –
My collection is all FLAC and when playing them in MCE I only get the album art to show for the first track of any album, after that the default icon with the musical note shows when the other tracks are playing.  I've seen other notes about this in other online forums but haven't found a solution yet.  Any ideas?

Johnny_Canuck