Answered by:
Windows media player 12 / Windows Media Center - Multiple-Cds Albums sorting in library

Question
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I have some problems to sort the music files in the library.
If there is an album with more than one disc, the sorting is like that:
1 - track 1 CD1
1 - track 1 CD2
2 - track 2 CD1
2 - track 2 CD2
etc...
I would like more logical sorting like this:
1 - track 1 CD1
2 - track 2 CD1
etc...
1 - track 1 CD2
2 - track 2 CD2
etc...
Do you see what I mean ? It seems that WMP/WMC doesn't sort using the "disc number" tag of the file (as it should be).
Is there any way to sort it fine without creating 2 different albums for a 2 disc album ?
Thank you.
Answers
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The strange "subtitle" answer above is not really a valid notion given the lack of persistence. When you step back, you see as koawmfot noted that this is really about the use of the "Set" field. WMP does not and will not use the Set field to sort. Instead it uses Album title as Shark noted.
So the correct answer here would be to use the Album title field as the descriptive identifier. If you really don't want to do this, you can use the track number such as by setting t1d1 to be 0101, t1d2 to be 0201, and so forth. So those are the viable solutions, really.
The problem with "Set" is that it doesn't fit well within the Explorer namespace / folder views. This is consistent with the player storing one album in one folder, as opposed to dumping everything to one common folder - where you may have issues with filename collisions depending upon your naming scheme.
As such it is not supported and is unlikely to be supported, sorry.- Marked as answer by Ronnie VernonMVP, Moderator Monday, April 19, 2010 9:07 PM
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Hi Darats,
I have tested the issue and found if we can add "Subtitle" to the music files, and sort it by Subtitle in Windows Media Player, it will arrange to the way you want.
To do this, please perform the steps below:
1. Right click on the music file and then click Properties. (Let's make "tack 1 CD1" as an example.)
2. On the Details tab, type CD1 in Subtitle section.
3. Click OK.
4. Open Windows Media Player, click Library -> Music -> Album and then double click the Album.
5. Press Ctrl+M combine key to show the Menu.
6. Click View -> Choose Columns.
7. Check Subtitle and then click OK.
8. Please sort by Subtitle and see if the issue can be resolved.
In Windows Media Center, we can perform the following steps to sort the music files:
1. Open Windows Media Center and then go to Music -> music library.
2. Click the album you would like to sort the files.
3. Click "play album".
4. On the left, click "View Song List".
5. Click "Edit "List".
6. Move the songs by pressing the arrow button listed and then sort the way you want.
7. Click Done.
In addition, you can save the list as Playlist.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Linda
- Marked as answer by Linda Yan Wednesday, October 7, 2009 1:23 AM
All replies
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Hi Darats,
I have tested the issue and found if we can add "Subtitle" to the music files, and sort it by Subtitle in Windows Media Player, it will arrange to the way you want.
To do this, please perform the steps below:
1. Right click on the music file and then click Properties. (Let's make "tack 1 CD1" as an example.)
2. On the Details tab, type CD1 in Subtitle section.
3. Click OK.
4. Open Windows Media Player, click Library -> Music -> Album and then double click the Album.
5. Press Ctrl+M combine key to show the Menu.
6. Click View -> Choose Columns.
7. Check Subtitle and then click OK.
8. Please sort by Subtitle and see if the issue can be resolved.
In Windows Media Center, we can perform the following steps to sort the music files:
1. Open Windows Media Center and then go to Music -> music library.
2. Click the album you would like to sort the files.
3. Click "play album".
4. On the left, click "View Song List".
5. Click "Edit "List".
6. Move the songs by pressing the arrow button listed and then sort the way you want.
7. Click Done.
In addition, you can save the list as Playlist.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Linda
- Marked as answer by Linda Yan Wednesday, October 7, 2009 1:23 AM
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Hi,
Surely if you name the Album, e.g. My Album (Disk 1) and My Album (Disk 2), then the tracks will be sorted first in Album then Track order. That's how I have all my music set up & it works fine :p
Hope it helps :)
Jeff
If anyone is helpfull, please click the 'Vote as helpfull' icon. If anyone has answered, please click 'Suggest as answer' at the bottom of the post involved :) Thanks -
yeah, I know it will works, but I will have two different albums instead of only one. Actually my question was more : How can I make WMP use the "album number" tag.
There is a hole bunch of normalized tags that can be put into a mp3 file. the problem is that WMP doesn't use it at all. The "album number" is just an example, but a lot of them cannot be displayed into the WMP library. If there is no way to set it up properly, I hope a new version or a plug-in will correct it.
Does someone know if editing the Windows registry via "regedit" could help to put more tags into WMP ? -
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I am considering finally building a Media Center PC and was testing out WMC just now and noticed this flaw. This is a dealbreaker for me as I have hundreds of multi-disc albums in my collection and am not willing to re-tag them. I'm adding my request for this to be fixed by Microsoft. If they have in Windows 7, I would consider buying a copy if I can somehow demo it first.
Thanks for bringing this up! -
The strange "subtitle" answer above is not really a valid notion given the lack of persistence. When you step back, you see as koawmfot noted that this is really about the use of the "Set" field. WMP does not and will not use the Set field to sort. Instead it uses Album title as Shark noted.
So the correct answer here would be to use the Album title field as the descriptive identifier. If you really don't want to do this, you can use the track number such as by setting t1d1 to be 0101, t1d2 to be 0201, and so forth. So those are the viable solutions, really.
The problem with "Set" is that it doesn't fit well within the Explorer namespace / folder views. This is consistent with the player storing one album in one folder, as opposed to dumping everything to one common folder - where you may have issues with filename collisions depending upon your naming scheme.
As such it is not supported and is unlikely to be supported, sorry.- Marked as answer by Ronnie VernonMVP, Moderator Monday, April 19, 2010 9:07 PM
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This feature works great in Zune.
Of course the Media Center software ties into Windows Media Player and not Zune, so I have no way of using Zune elsewhere in the house if I wanted to network my media. I have dozens, perhaps hundreds, of multiple disc albums and this is a big deal for me. It sure would be nice if Microsoft fixed this. -
Microsoft unforunatly needs to work with the way tags are supposed to be used, not what is convenient to them to use. Telling us all to not use the tags correctly is a bit like assuming there is no issue with the software but that we should live with way that windows does not work with multiple CD albums. Albums have a name, and that does not include Disc 1, Tracks have a name, and the numbers of CDs in a particular album, is something that Microsoft has to realise is a reality. I alos have many Multi CD albums, and put simple this is a basic flaw in the software, which should be fixed now not in the future.
As it stands Windows Media plyer can not handle correctly any multi CD albums, and as such is broken as a media player. This has always be a major flaw in Media player and Media center.
Come on Microsoft stop telling us to use some cobbled up work around, such as renaming each CD which basically gives you multiple albums not one and then you have issues trying to just play a multi CD album without a playlist.
This is not hard just use the tags, as other well known MP3 player do. I have 2 copies of Windows 7 so far but I'm unable to use Media player in either and have instead to use Itunes as this (for all its other flaws) at least can handles multi CD albums without any issue.- Proposed as answer by Gwk Thursday, March 11, 2010 6:35 PM
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My 2 cents, basically the same as BHauxwell.
The title is the same for a release, not a disc number stuck on the end. You wouldn't ask a music store for "whatever disc 1" so why would you have to use this as the title?
If ID3 standards do not include album number, fine don't use them. But ID3 does support subtitle, as does WMP, but ordering should be Title - subtitle - tracknumber. The only way this can be done is in a single album view. Absurd. Create a new play list for every multiple disc release? Crazy.
For all the things WMP can do right this is the reason I keep turning it off.
Maybe one day Ill be able to get this streaming, in the right order, to my Xbox360 also.
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If it bothers me having the discs treated individually, I just renumber the multiple CD tracks into a single album. So, 1-12 on Disc 1 and 1-12 on Disc 2 becomes 1-24. (Easily done in one shot using Mp3tag and it's renumbering wizard.) Problem solved, and 100% compatible with every player and device out there. Like it or not, support of disc # sorting is not universal.
This seems to be the way digital music stores treat their catalogs as well.
By the way, the pre-Zune HD devices don't deal with disc # at all... even though the Zune PC software supports it. So, Zune didn't really support it. Left hand, meet right hand. Thankfully, Zune HD now matches the software. -
Doesn't work that well for 5-6 disc box sets renumbering to sequential, also subtitle is not valid truly a valid fix because its a track subtitle by id3 definition. ID3v2.3 specs TPOS which is Set in WMP (but not used???) or disc number in itunes for disc numbering....
So is WMP an expanded file browser only, or is it a media player which should be handling tags correctly? -
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Not really an option. Watch your library albums entries blow out by another 20% and forever trying to find things on the streamed end (Xbox 360). And once again it's not true to the release.
Agree about the subtitle being bogus, why was it suggested in the first place? -
I have tried MonkeyMedia, Foobar, Tversity and I'm using iTunes due to my phone. On Linux I'm using Quod Libet. They all have plus and minus points. None of them have this issue with multiple disc albums.
If WMP is the core of the standard Microsoft environment (PC, Media Centre, 360 streaming) then it should do it right. The only way that happens is if people raise the the problems in the first place. Just changing a media player on the computer opens up new issues regarding streaming/encoding/other people who use the computer etc. -
Microsoft unfortunately needs to work with the way tags are supposed to be used, not what is convenient to them to use. Telling us all to not use the tags correctly is a bit like assuming there is no issue with the software but that we should live with way that windows does not work with multiple CD albums. Albums have a name, and that does not include Disc 1, Tracks have a name, and the numbers of CDs in a particular album, is something that Microsoft has to realise is a reality. I alos have many Multi CD albums, and put simple this is a basic flaw in the software, which should be fixed now not in the future.
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The subtitle suggestion is in my opinion bogus.
Set doesn't work because then you get into filename collisions in the shell.
The best plan is to use the Album Title: "Self's Awesome CD Box Set [Disc 1]" or such.
Can you please explain how this would cause filename collisions in the shell? -
For example DJ Shadow's Diminishing Returns disc 1 and 2 have matching names across discs. (That's off the top of my head from the first match in my library. There will be many other collisions.)
There are semi-messy ways to work around the filename collision problems, but evidently the team in charge of this implementation decided to go with the simpler approach in both aspects.
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Seems that there is no acceptable solution, I need something that works with standards. Neither the Album title solution is okay (in face, I want it to be displays as one album on other devices (mp3 players) and the subtitle solution is also a wmp only solution. Hope for a fix from MS! Guess I have to use iTunes again!
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WMP is truly an awful program, i used it as my primary media application for years and finally switched over to iTunes because WMP had so many damn bugs that they just didnt seem to care to fix, problems that existed back in WMP6 and still do (the disc # support being my biggest issue, its constant insistence on making and displaying an albumart.jpg image that is 200x200 when i have perfectly good 500x500 image embedded in each song file, trying to split artist tags like "AC/DC" into "AC" and "DC" as well as many other variants, not even reading the tags on 300+ songs which i tagged myself and lumping them into the 'Unknown' category, etc. etc.).
Microsofts Zune software is a huge step in the right direction tho, if you havent tried it id sincerely recommend it. Currently ive had to go back to WMP to try to set up media streaming to my Xbox 360 for music because i cant seem to get the Zune software to do it, and im hating every second with WMP. Switch to iTunes or Zune, Zune does a great job of monitoring your media folders, iTunes does a great job of not messing anything up lol!
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Agreed that the suggested solutions are bogus.
I have three albums with over 200 tracks each (all long audio books). The longest has over 1000 tracks. All of course are very multidisk, and it rather matters which order they are played in.
Do they suggest I then create this 1000+ long playlist, or edit 1000+ files to get them into the right order? Or are they going to fix their broken software?
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No, the correct answer here is for the user to tag albums correctly (with "Disc 1" etc. in the album title only when it was in the original release title, and the machine-readable disc number information stored in the "Disc" tag). Any semi-competently-designed media player (including iTunes, MediaMonkey and any of the default Linux media players) will read and use this information.
I don't have a problem with software companies taking bold decisions to improve usability, but this is an omission motivated by laziness and incompetence. Fix it.
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Not sure if this has been mentioned or will help but:
Select all the music files you want for disc 1.
Right Click > Find Album Info > Edit > Tick Box "This is a multiple CD" > Select Disc 1 > Done > Finish
WMP will re-label as "Album Name Disk 1"
Repeat for however many discs you have.
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Not sure if this has been mentioned or will help but:
Select all the music files you want for disc 1.
Right Click > Find Album Info > Edit > Tick Box "This is a multiple CD" > Select Disc 1 > Done > Finish
WMP will re-label as "Album Name Disk 1"
Repeat for however many discs you have.
Yeah... a fun word of warning on this. WMP will happily screw all of your composer information when you do this. Not really a viable option if you care about things like that. -
Yeah, I really want to be able to do this, too. I was pretty much forced to abandon iTunes because ripped files won't play properly on my new Android phone. So now I'm puzzling over how to combine my multi-disc albums into a single album rather than separate albums. If WMP could do this before, why was the ability removed? As a computer programmer, it seems rather stupid to remove useful features. Will WMP11 work in Windows 7? If so, where can I get it? Meanwhile, I'm going to fuss around with Mp3tag to see if that will solve my problem. Microsoft, please restore this functionality. It really IS important.
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rhiguera: the Windows Media Player Plus! plug-in can make WMP's library recognize disc numbers.
The only supported way to get WMP 11 on Windows 7 is to install and run it in Windows 7's (virtualized) XP Mode. For details, see
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/install-and-use-windows-xp-mode-in-windows-7
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk- Proposed as answer by andy_bell Friday, March 17, 2017 10:18 PM
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I hate to say it but I have to continue to use iTunes for now.
MICROSOFT NEEDS TO SUPPORT CD# and Track #. Is that too much to ask? The work arounds above are all bull#$% I wish people would stop posting garbage like that!
Renaming an album is NOT an option. Renaming Tracks to add in the CD# is NOT an option. Supporting CD# is the only option and it's hard to imagine that in 2012 Microsoft has not figured that out? Really? STOP working on Windows 8 and just fix the current version!
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I looked through everything, and this is the first one that actually had everything in the menus that I needed. It was very easy to do. Never would have found it in the Windows Media help center.
You're a gem! Wouldn't have though to use find album info.
Straightforward and easy to follow. Thanks!
I am printing this out for when I forget how to do it tomorrow.
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I did a search on the Windows Media Plus!, and BM Productions offers it for free as well as a CD text reader add-on. There is a lot of chatter about this, and hydrogenaudio.org has many screenshots. I think I will try it, as I am tired of renaming, only to find that both iTunes and Media Player 12 rip the albums apart, through unrelated tracks together in the "Unknown" album folder, and I do want to listen to them in their proper order. Note that iTunes loses access to the file. When I am in file explorer, although the data and the tracks are there (I did rename the tracks 101, 102...201, 202,,,-1921! under one playlist, which plays, but for some reason both iTunes and MP12 lose track of the first CD in a series, throwing the first CDs into one big "unknown". With all the mucking about I just want to have a clean insertion into my library, too.
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Linda, I appreciate your efforts in mucking about with MP12, but really, you might want to check out the Media Player Plus! and BM Productions MP CD Text Reader. I think Microsoft should include these on their website, maybe pay BM Productions some assist money, since they have done Microsoft a favor.
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tch! tch! zachd, please take a look at the add-on Media Player Plus! and the companion Media Player CD Text Reader and don't be so hard on Microsoft's customers. No programmer gets all things right, but there is an active programming community that is solving these problems, and Microsoft should take a look and take them under its wing, support their efforts, include tested versions on their external links and verify these for the rest of the community.
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Actually, both messed up my tracks - all disc 1's in a different series got lumped together in an "unknown album" and when I tried moving things around, couldn't find them, even File Explorer could find them. I want to try the Media Player Plus! suggested further down in this forum, and would like others to also try it and if everyone agrees, we ask Microsoft to verify it and add it to its repertoire of add-ons.
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Well, sometimes its the dedicated users who do the work after publication and production and release. Please try the Media Player Plus! and see if Microsoft will give more credence to the post-release programming community and verify their work for free to include on their website.
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Ok, Tim, I asked everyone to try this add-on, and also mentioned your MP CD TExt Reader, so have you gotten Microsoft to verify this work of yours, and will they include a link on their website?
ohernova: I appreciate your support for my plug-ins, but please don't post tens of consecutive replies in a thread. It's annoying and may even be considered spamming. Can you delete most of your replies again so that just one reply remains? You can then use the Edit link on that remaining reply and put everything you want to tell in that reply. Thanks.
As for Microsoft linking to my plug-ins, I don't think that they have done that for any third-party software (but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). I definitely don't see them doing it without getting anything in return. Something that doesn't make money one way or another isn't worth the effort for any company.
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk -
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I've had the same problem with Windows Media Player. The solution is to change the track numbers of the songs on the second disk, so they are sequential in reference to the first album e.g. if the first track of the second disk is the 12th song of the double album, you have to change the track number from "1" to "12."
You can do this by going to the folder where your songs are kept.
Right click on the song.... Click on "Properties"..... Click on "Details".... Scroll down to the line for "#".... Click on the existing number e.g. "1" for the first track on disk 2, and change it to the correct number in the sequence for the double album, "12" in my example above..... Click "OK".... Repeat for the rest of the tracks on the second disk....