11 replies to this topic

[Fred Flange]

Hi,

I'm trying to make a music DVD of all my favourite CD tracks, using the Music Disc Creator component of RecordNow 9 Music Lab Premier.

Assembly of the project appeared to be going well, and I've added all the tracks to it. I am now trying to arrange the tracks into a running order that I want, and I have done so with my first 200 tracks.

I burned a test disc containing these 200 tracks, but I was dismayed to discover that, when I play the disc in my DVD player, the running order seemed to have become corrupted somewhere. The first track on my desired running order, for example, became track five when I played the disc.

When I look back at the project on the PC, the running order in the main track listing is as I've arranged it, but if I expand the 'All Tracks' smart menu sub-folder (which seems to group tracks into lists of eight) I see that they have somehow been rearranged in there, and it is in the order that they appear in this sub-folder that they seem to want to play on the DVD player, so I suspect the problem may lie here. Furthermore, it doesn't seem possible to drag-n-drop the tracks in these sub-lists into a preferred order.

Does anyone know how to force the 'All Tracks' sub-folder to keep to one's preferred running order please? Or is there another solution?

Cheers

[lynn98109]

It would appear you are not making a Music CD, but rather an .mp3 disc, which is basicly a data discs with .mp3 files and is read by the alpha-numeric method.

The solution is to override the alpha with numeric, to wit,

001 Trackname
002 Trackname
003 Trackname
010 Trackname
100 Trackname
etc.

Since you said you have over 100 files, you need to use the 3-digit numbering.

Lynn

[Fred Flange]

Lynn,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to try and help me.

However, I think I may have misled you somehow. I am using the Music Disc Creator component to build my music DVD, and the main interface window of that allows one to import tracks from CDs, which is what I'm doing.

The program may indeed put them on the DVD as .mp3 files, (the fact is, I don't know...), but nowhere does it mention that it is going to do that. In fact, it saves them all on my hard drive as .wav files, and the space they are estimated by it to occupy on the eventual DVD is roughly the same as the space they're taking up on my hard drive, suggesting very little compression a la .mp3.

The main interface also appears to allow one to order the tracks as required; the first column of the track list is titled 'Order', suggesting just that.

The alpha-numeric idea is a very logical one, except that the corrupted running order in the 'All Tracks' groups are not in alphabetical order. Here are the orders:-

Original
1 Free World
2 Lovely Day
3 Eternal Flame
4 Desire
5 Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
6 Save A Prayer
7 Manchild
8 Walk Of Life

Corrupted 'All Tracks' First Group
1 Lovely Day
2 Walk Of Life
3 Eternal Flame
4 Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
5 Free World
6 Desire
7 Manchild
8 Save A Prayer

As you can see, the corrupted list is in nothing like alphabetical order, so I'm still at a bit of a loss here.

Cheers,
Fred

[lynn98109]

Some thoughts:

• Get a DVD/RW to play with - after trying something you can erase the disc if it doesn't work and re-try; if it does work, re-do the burn as a DVD/R and erase the RW disc for another day.
• Might the list be being rearranged by artist (either first name or last name)?
• use the numbering of the titles in the groups of 8, and see if that overrides whatever the problem is

Lynn

[Fred Flange]

Thanks for your continued assistance; all ideas appreciated.

I had a think about the rearranging by artist theory, but whichever way I put it, the corrupted list still doesn't make any sort of alpha-numeric sense.

Nevertheless, I went ahead and tried the title numbering. Unfortunately, the corrupted list still appears in exactly the same (corrupted) order it was before, just with out-of-sequence numbers on it as well.  

Also, thinking through that idea further as I did it, having the numbers would mess up one of the other menu screens:- The 'Tracks A-Z' menu screen wouldn't show any track at all that began with a letter, which would be very confusing.

Cheers,
Fred

[lynn98109]

Did you put in numbers and re-burn, or just put in numbers?  If the latter, the computer would remember it, but the disc would be unchanged.  If you did a test re-burn, I'm out of ideas.

Lynn

[tbrewst]

First off,numbers or whatever you try to add isn't going to fix it.You are NOT making mp3 files so they're not data and Windows isn't doing it's thing to the list.You have 3 choices for a format,none of which is mp3.

That being said,I just tried it and what you are saying is happening.The tracks are rearranged in the All Tracks list,why I'm not sure.Let me do some more checking on this.Please forget about the renaming,it isn't gonna help.



Try this,go to Smart menu options on the left of the screen.When it opens choose All Tracks in the drop down.You will then have choices as to how you want them sorted.The help files say Music Disc Creator sorts the tracks according to what you do there.
As far as what order they play in I think they'll play in the order they are in in the menu you are in.

Edited by tbrewst, 18 October 2007 - 10:40 AM.

[Brendon]

Lyn is out of her depth because she hasn't run anything higher than version 6. You should follow Terry (tbrewst) because he is working 'hands on'.

Regards,
Brendon

[Fred Flange]

Thanks all.

Having followed tbrewst's advice to look in the smart menu options, I can now understand why the 'All Tracks' menu screen is being corrupted. None of the options for ordering the tracks in there include 'as per main project list order', (which, in my humble opinion, it ought to...), so it is ordering them as per the default setting, which is album name, followed by track order. No wonder I was mystified by it!  

Having now discovered why what is happening is happening, I think the only solution is to simply un-tick the 'All Tracks' smart menu, so that it just doesn't appear on the finished disc at all. If it doesn't appear on the finished disc, it shouldn't mess up the running order... at least I think it shouldn't...

Cheers,
Fred

[lynn98109]

So it was Alpha, after all ... just a different piece of info was beng used.

Let us know how it goes, for others who come after you

Lynn

[Brendon]

Hello Fred,

I went playing with Music Disc Creator myself and found the same strange thing as you found.

I can load a couple of hundred music tracks into the Track List and arrange them how I want them.  When I 'Play All' from the main menu they will play in the order I arranged, but if I use the 'All Tracks' Smart Menu they rearrange themselves for some strange reason that I can't fathom and can't change.

If I go to the 'Smart Menu Options' as Terry suggested I get the choice of three sorts with seven options. I thought unchecking all of these should leave the tracks in their original arranged order, but NO the display order of 'All Tracks' still gets the default sort. It should be unsorted if the boxes are unchecked.

Easy Media Creator 9 has this application included, so I went to the EMC9 PDF manual which you can get here.
I couldn't find any mention of Smart Menus at all, so I guess we're stuck with the in-program Help file.

The help file told me that the 'All Tracks' menu creates a submenu for each 10 tracks (mine does 8 tracks, not 10) but doesn't give any info on what sort order is used if the boxes are unchecked.

Based on all this I think that some programmer has screwed up, and if you want to play all tracks in the order that you arranged you might as well forget the 'All Tracks' SmartMenu and just play the 'Tracklists' menu, like you suggested.

Having said this, I would be delighted if someone else who actually uses the program can show us how to make the 'All Tracks' SmartMenu display in the proper order - but I'm not holding my breath.

So it was Alpha, after all ... just a different piece of info was beng used.

Let us know how it goes, for others who come after you

Lynn

You still don't understand do you, Lyn. It was something totally different from what you were talking about. It wasn't alpha and you weren't on the same page.

We are saying It doesn't work properly, so you might as well not use it. So there is absolutely no point in you saying cheerfully " So it was Alpha, after all ... just a different piece of info was beng used. Let us know how it goes, for others who come after you "

Brendon

[tbrewst]

Thanks all.

Having followed tbrewst's advice to look in the smart menu options, I can now understand why the 'All Tracks' menu screen is being corrupted. None of the options for ordering the tracks in there include 'as per main project list order', (which, in my humble opinion, it ought to...), so it is ordering them as per the default setting, which is album name, followed by track order. No wonder I was mystified by it!  

Having now discovered why what is happening is happening, I think the only solution is to simply un-tick the 'All Tracks' smart menu, so that it just doesn't appear on the finished disc at all. If it doesn't appear on the finished disc, it shouldn't mess up the running order... at least I think it shouldn't...

Cheers,
Fred

I found the same thing also when I was checking it.I had unchecked all the boxes and it still sorted them by some mystery method.Like you I thought by checking nothing it would retain the original order but alas this was not true.
I've never made one with the All Tracks menu included so I hadn't noticed this.Good find.I think just leaving it out may be the solution