Legacy Network Products

[Mephisto66]

Hi,

how can I modify the Central Axis Media Server so it sorts the mp3 by Name or other ID3 tags?

Right now the sort is weird.

For example:

01-Name01

02-Name02

03-Name03

....

becomes

02-Name02

01-Name01

03-Name03

....

For music files it doesn't matter, some kind of random.

But for Audiobooks it really gets frustrating.

At first I thought it is a problem of my musicpal, but then I noticed that my Onkyo receiver uses the same sort, so it must be the Central Axis. I also tried to add track numbers with some mp3 ID3 editors, without success.

So how does the central Axis sort the mp3 in the media server?

How can I get a usefull sort?

Thanks a lot.

[EasyUser]

The media server DOESN'T sort.  It sorts the file by the time the file copied to it.  So if you copy zxxx before axxx, zxxx will list before axxx.

[Mephisto66]

I already noticed, that it doesn't sort. ;-)

Thanks for the answer, but how can I solve this problem?

I already tried to copy the mp3 to a new location. And switched the Media Server to "monitor" the new one, but even then it sorted this weird way.

Thats what I did,

Disabled and cleaned the DB, then I created a new share "music", created in this share a folder "My Music" and copied a dir (for testing just one) containing an audiobook from my "old" - "My Music" to this new dir.

Then I started the Media Server and told him to look in the new share for content.

And even then it did this weird "timestamp" sort.

[EasyUser]

I used to wrote a program to sort files by name then copy file one by one.   Using the windows build in copy command won't work, since it keep the timestamp. 

One thing you can try is to re-encode each file by the name.  For example, you can use the FormatFactory to reencode the whole list of file, when you create the job list, make sure your files are sorted properly.  As FormatFactory encode file one by one, the one encoded eariler will have an earlier timestamp.  I tried many other ways, none of them worked.

[fzabkar]

I have no experience with a Maxtor Central Axis Media Server, so please excuse my ignorance. Furthermore, I'm still using Win98SE so I can't test the following command lines. However, I believe they should work in an NT class Windows OS. I'm not sure if the target is specified correctly, though.

Paste the following commands into a BAT or CMD file, and then copy this file to the directory containing your MP3 files.

FOR /f "tokens=* delims=" %%a in ('dir *.mp3 /b /on /a-d') do copy /b /y "%%a"+,, \\server\AudioBooks\"%%a"
DIR /p \\server\AudioBooks\

There should be two lines, the first beginning with FOR, the second with DIR.

The principle behind the copy is the following:

sort the MP3 directory by name
copy /b fileA + fileB fileC

Files A and B are concatenated to create file C. By replacing fileB with a comma, we are effectively adding nothing to the file. However, the consequence is that fileC, which is a copy of fileA, will have the current date/time stamp.

WARNING: I would advise testing the above routine in a junk directory before letting it loose on your data.

Message Edited by fzabkar on 16-02-2010 11:03 AM

[EasyUser]

To make it work, create an empty file called ie. empty.txt, now do copy /B file1.mp3 /B + empty.txt /B file1_2.mp3.

Message Edited by EasyUser on 02-15-2010 05:00 PM

[fzabkar]

I probably have the syntax wrong, but I expect that the same principle should apply.

In any case, I'm sure your problem could easily be solved in NT batch language. The people at the alt.msdos.batch.nt newsgroup would be able to provide a solution for you. They are the McGuyvers of Usenet. :-)

However, the following variation may be worth a try.

echo blahblah > file1
rem > nix
copy /b /y file1 + nix file2
pause
dir file?

The REM line creates a file called NIX which contains 0 bytes.

So file2 = file1 + zero bytes = file1.

[EasyUser]

Looks like both of us were updating the thread at the same time :-).  The empty file is critical to make it work.

[Mephisto66]

Thanks to both of you,

I'll give it a try, with your provided "copy" scripts. At least I know now what needs to be done.

Did I get it right a real copy process needs to be initialized?

(I tried it with some timestamp change software. Similar to linux 'touch' and this didn't help)

So the Central Axis reall looks for the time  the file was copied...

BTW. The formatfactory software, could do the trick as you said, but getting the files in the right order is more difficult as your scripts seem to be.

[fzabkar]

You can download my script here:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/sortcopy.cmd

You will need to edit the destination spec (\\server\AudioBooks\) with a text editor.

I advise you to test the script on a junk directory.