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Topic: Synchronising lossless & lossy files (Read 10594 times) previous topic - next topic
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Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Is anyone aware of anything out there that will synchronise my lossless and lossy audio files? I have a large collection of FLAC files extracted from CD, and from this I wish to generate equivalent MP3 or AAC files for use on my iPod. I can do this fairly easily as a one off event using foobar or whatever I know, but is there any way I can keep the files synchronised - for example if I alter FLAC tags or add new FLAC files to my lossless collection, is there anything that can just work out the changes and re-synch/generate the MP3 or AAC files? I am getting tired of doing it manually, and mistakes are creeping in ...

Thx.

Howard

Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #1
I dont know of a program that will do this.  I use foobar's masstagger copy utility.  Most of my files are mpc/wavpack/ape. . . all of those use apev2 tags.  Does anyone know if copying tags over adds the appropriate tag version as well (mp3 id3v1 -> mpc apev2)?

Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #2
I dont know of a program to do it either. if it REALLY meant that much to me to update the tags of the MP3s and FLACS at the same time, then id keep both file formats in the same folder and run a command line for loop to tag them simultaniously. for example, if i wanted to update the year tag on a set of floyd files, id do something along the lines of this (ive got winXP):

for %f in (Pink Floyd - Meddle*.*) do [whatever command line tagging program and its options to add YEAR=] %f

That would tag any song from Meddle with any extention. im sure a tagging program exists where that could be done, and the scripting shell of winXP, OSX, and Linux systems all have a for loop. Im sure it wouldnt be hard to set up a batch file or its OSX/Linux equivilent either.

Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #3
Thanks for replies. Thought as much. For what it's worth, I have gone the scripting way. Putting lossless and lossy files in same folder is a bit problematic for me - my audio apps then pick up 2 versions of the same song. So I just wrote a script that scans a dirctory of FLACs and creates lossy equivalents in an identical (but separated) folder structure. If the lossy already exists it just checks the tags and updates if necessary. Still haveing a bit of an issue with tagging but I'll sort it.

Cheers.

H.

Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #4
Bumpety...

Old thread, but I wondered if maybe a solution had appeared during the intervening years.

I have my ALAC iTunes library sitting on a dedicated NAS box.  This device is rarely switched on.

I also have another NAS box that contains all my other media.  This is switched on all the time and is accessed by devices over LAN and WAN.

I would like to have a copy of my iTunes library on the 'always on' box.  However, I'd like it to be in a lossy format - partly for compatibility (e.g. PS3 won't play ALAC), and also for better performance over WAN.

Is there any software (Windows or Linux) that will monitor my iTunes library and convert or re-tag accordingly to another drive?  In much the same way that I can run SyncToy and it will spot the differences and make the necessary changes, it would be very handy to have something to do similar with my music files (with the added enhancement of performing format conversion).

A part of me suspects that there'll be a way to do it with the marvellous Foobar 2000, but I can't quite think how.

Many thanks,

Gavin.

Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #5
"make" should be able to do that.  Remake (encode) any result (lossy file) who's source file (FLAC) is newer.

Re: Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #6
I was searching everywhere for a solution to this and I thought for the life of me there was a plugin specifically for this propose.

99% sure I saw it around about a year ago only had no need for it. Can't find it anywhere now.


Re: Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #8
Does this fit the bill? Not mine but I have used it in the past successfully

https://github.com/robinbowes/flac2mp3
Unfortunately, I don't need to convert as I've already that done.

I need the two versions to sync tags if I edit them in the future. So this would be no use. Thanks.

Re: Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #9
This script does syncing of tags without conversion if the mp3 file exists already -have a look at the readme file where the author explains this :)

 

Re: Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #11
I was wondering, does something like this exist for flac>opus

Tags is not really a issue for me, but I have lots of FLAC files and now I would like to convert all my music to Opus with the same file structure (to a 256GB microsd card). I can do this with Foobar using the convert tool and some variables. It works, but it does not synchronize changes.

I cannot imaging nobody dealt with this same problem before, so I would love to hear if anyone has a solution for this.

Thanks in advance!



Re: Synchronising lossless & lossy files

Reply #14
See also

https://github.com/SimonPersson/flac2opus

for an excellent script for this purpose.

Thank you, I found the program but then from another creator (Windows program) ( https://rewster.uk/2018/12/20/flac-to-opus-convert-a-folder-of-flac-lossless-music-to-opus-compressed-versions-and-keep-them-in-sync/ ) and it does EXACTLY what I need. I combine it with FreeFileSync that can write to MTP destinations.

Did 2 suggestions to the creator and they have already been implemented in the beta version. Absolutely fantastic :)