how many MP3 files can Music Disc Creator handle?

[eckert]

So far I've burned only one MP3 music CD sucessfully. I have lots of files I ripped from my audio CDs, and I used EMC10's Music Disc Creator to create playlists for groups of music... then I start a new project, create a few folders, and drag playlists into those folders. After a few drag-and-drops that seem to work, it hangs. Windows Vista (home premium) cannot suggest a solution but wants to keep reporting the crash. I have to use the Task Manager or Taskbar to kill the tool.

 

So now I'm wondering if there's a limit of 100 files or something like that? The one CD that did work I burned using 256kb data rate. This time I'm trying to use 128kb so almost twice as many files should fit.

 

Steve

[Beerman]

So far I've burned only one MP3 music CD sucessfully. I have lots of files I ripped from my audio CDs, and I used EMC10's Music Disc Creator to create playlists for groups of music... then I start a new project, create a few folders, and drag playlists into those folders. After a few drag-and-drops that seem to work, it hangs. Windows Vista (home premium) cannot suggest a solution but wants to keep reporting the crash. I have to use the Task Manager or Taskbar to kill the tool.

 

So now I'm wondering if there's a limit of 100 files or something like that? The one CD that did work I burned using 256kb data rate. This time I'm trying to use 128kb so almost twice as many files should fit.

 

Steve

I couldn't duplicate your problem with MDC. I added by both drag and drop and importing, 116 files (432 min, 42 sec) with it not crashing. I did not try burning to disc but did burn to a successful image file.

If you are dragging and dropping, try using the 'add audio tracks' instead. I don't know why this would work better but it might. And, before you drag a second file, make sure the first file or files are already completely added. Maybe adding multiple files causes your problem though not in my case.

[tbrewst]

I just burned one with 132 files on it.The mp3's were differing data rates.Worked no problem.I added the files by dragging from the Media Selector,I didn't try with playlists.

[eckert]

I added the files by dragging from the Media Selector,I didn't try with playlists.

 

With roughly 70 hours of music to manage, I don't want to be adding tracks one at a time... so the playlists allow me to handle groups of songs easily, PLUS double-clicking them allows me to play the same sets of songs in Windows Media Player.

 

I had some trouble figuring out how to make playlists in Music Disc Creator. The only way I found was to select tracks and right-click, then choose Create Playlist. The file format is plain text, and the files all look the same.

 

It works to add some playlists. It seems to NOT work when adding too many. The point at which it crashes varies, so I'm thinking it is something other than just number of tracks.

 

Thanks for the replies. But it doesn't seem anyone is doing quite what I am. Dropping playlists into folders already created in the MP3/WMA Disc portion of Music Disc Creator.

 

Here's what I just did to re-create the program hang:

 

put a blank CDRW into my drive (erased with Vista)

Start EMC10

Start Music Disc Creator

click on MP3/WMA Disc

click icon to Create Folder (6 times, for 6 folders)

drag one-hour playlists into each of the 6 folders

(total project duration nown shows as 364 mins)

(estimated free space is 317MB out of 650MB)

drag one more one-hour playlist into the last folder

boom - Vista wants to close the program because it stopped working

(no other error message)

 

Just for kicks, I tried dragging in playlists without creating folders. This time, unlike other times, the fourth playlist crashed MDC. This time, unlike other times, Vista asks if it can send information about the crash to the mothership (see below) but there doesn't seem to be any useful info there either.

 

My project setting are to convert all tracks to MP3 at 128kbps, forcing conversion of files of the same audio format, plus I checked "rename tracks to ensure playback order". I don't have to change these settings, they're remembered.

 

Any clues? Anyone care to repeat these steps? Again, the playlists were created in Music Disc Creator and they all behave nicely (in WinMediaPlayer and Roxio) most of the time.

 

Steve

 

Here's one of the files Vista wants to send to Microsoft:

<EXE NAME="MusicDiscCreator10.exe" FILTER="GRABMI_FILTER_PRIVACY">
    <MATCHING_FILE NAME="DVDMusicAssistant10.exe" SIZE="63984" CHECKSUM="0x72D91ABB" BIN_FILE_VERSION="10.0.0.42" BIN_PRODUCT_VERSION="10.0.0.42" PRODUCT_VERSION="10.0.0.42" FILE_DESCRIPTION="Roxio DVD Music Assistant" COMPANY_NAME="Sonic Solutions" PRODUCT_NAME="Roxio DVD Music Assistant" FILE_VERSION="10.0.0.42" ORIGINAL_FILENAME="DVDMusicAssistant.exe" INTERNAL_NAME="DVDMusicAssistant" LEGAL_COPYRIGHT="Copyright (c) 1994-2007 Sonic Solutions" VERDATEHI="0x0" VERDATELO="0x0" VERFILEOS="0x40004" VERFILETYPE="0x2" MODULE_TYPE="WIN32" PE_CHECKSUM="0x1EE0B" LINKER_VERSION="0x0" UPTO_BIN_FILE_VERSION="10.0.0.42" UPTO_BIN_PRODUCT_VERSION="10.0.0.42" LINK_DATE="08/18/2007 10:28:39" UPTO_LINK_DATE="08/18/2007 10:28:39" EXPORT_NAME="DVDMusicAssistant10.exe" VER_LANGUAGE="English (United States) [0x409]" />
[snip]

[eckert]

And, before you drag a second file, make sure the first file or files are already completely added.

 

I tried it again, this time before adding each playlist I moved around in the folders of Music Disc Creator just to be sure it wasn't busy. No benefit from slowing down.

 

My MP3 files are sampled at a higher rate than what I want to burn on the CD. I think that's important.

 

It seems to hang when I go over the limit on how much would fit on the CD using the native file format. Since the playlist files have the track length embedded in them, maybe MDC is doing something silly like tripping itself when it sees more than 70 mins of music on a 70 min CD?

 

Steve

[tbrewst]

I'd have to take a look to see if the lists are still on my machine.I'm not there right now.

I can tell you I used pretty much the same set of tracks to make the lists in both EMC and WMP.I didn't have them at exactly 1 hr.A couple were shorter and a couple were longer but I did add 6 of them to folders.

[eckert]

Sorry for the slow responses. I'm on the "moderated" list so a Roxio human must approve each post. They didn't tell me when they did that nor did they tell me how to get off the list of bad people.

 

I followed what you did.I created playlists with Media Manager.I tried 3 times and each time when I got to the 4th or 5th folders playlist MDC stopped working and it shut down.

Thanks for duplicating the chain of events! I feel a little less insane now.

 

Then,just to check I went into Windows Media Player 11 and created playlists there.When I used those in MDC the thing worked like a charm.

That's progress! Do you still have those playlists? Do you have a way to compare them (like with Unix "diff") and see what's different? It might just be the order of tracks, or it might be minor differences in syntax. They're plain text files, so you can read them in Notepad or Word.

 

If you only want to create playlists for your computer and not burn to a CD

Yes, but I *do* want to burn them to CD.

 

You should be able to set the bit rate for those mp3 in project settings. Perhaps you have it set higher?

I used project settings to LOWER the bit rate from 256k of the MP3 file to 128k so more files would fit on a disc. If I don't do that, it doesn't USUALLY crash. But sometimes it still does. It's just that I've never gotten it to work ever with more than about 95 songs on a CD, which is the limit for full 256k bit rate files.

 

Steve

[sknis]

I tried it again, this time before adding each playlist I moved around in the folders of Music Disc Creator just to be sure it wasn't busy. No benefit from slowing down.

 

My MP3 files are sampled at a higher rate than what I want to burn on the CD. I think that's important.

 

It seems to hang when I go over the limit on how much would fit on the CD using the native file format. Since the playlist files have the track length embedded in them, maybe MDC is doing something silly like tripping itself when it sees more than 70 mins of music on a 70 min CD?

 

Steve

 

Perhaps a way of testing this. If you only want to create playlists for your computer and not burn to a CD, try choosing to make a DVD Music Disc, it will put up to 50 hours of mp3 music on one disc. You would not run into the same type of problem.

 

You should be able to set the bit rate for those mp3 in project settings. Perhaps you have it set higher?

[tbrewst]

Ok,the mystery deepens.

I followed what you did.I created playlists with Media Manager.I tried 3 times and each time when I got to the 4th or 5th folders playlist MDC stopped working and it shut down.I restarted Vista each time.

Then,just to check I went into Windows Media Player 11 and created playlists there.When I used those in MDC the thing worked like a charm.It burned a disc with 6 folders with 6 playlists.

Don't know why this worked this way but it did.