Thread: Update iTunes library automatically via disc?

Originally Posted by GoHybrid

Ok, I figured I ought to open this up for general discussion but I was reading Iamgnat's thread on synchronizing media files in iTunes and I wanted to narrow the focus a little.

Here's the goal: To be able to create an "update disc" containing any new mp3s (tagged in iTunes w/ jpg for cover art) and have the mac automatically detect that disc on insertion and update the iTunes library.

Iamgnat got me thinking about just how that kind of information is stored. I'll be conducting my own research on this as well but I wanted to gather input from the resident mac geniuses here as well.

My standard practice is to use iTunes to edit song information. I place the jpg containing the cover art for the album in that album's folder along with the songs. I copy this folder from the PC to the mac and manually add each one to iTunes.

So the next question i have: Is the data that I am entering on the PC side stored in some other iTunes file or is it writing directly to the mp3s? Can iTunes embed all the desired metadata into mp3s themselves? If so I think that an automatic import of new music becomes alot simpler.

To focus this even more, my single biggest concern is for the cover art. track info etc... seems to be mostly correct from machine to machine.

Discuss.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Apple dropped the bomb on this one in iTunes 7.0. From what I understand (which may be wholly incorrect) cover art is no longer stored in the .mp3 file itself. It's now stored in an external file and theres a reference between the .mp3 and the location of it's album art. The advantage of that is you don't have essentially 15-20 copies of the same album art (one copy of the art embedded in each song of the album).

There may be a way around it. I don't know.

hmm... i was afraid of that. If iTunes will still correctly reproduce album art that is embedded in the mp3 with another program then maybe all is not lost. I'm going to do some looking around and see if that's the case. Then it's just a matter of telling iTunes to add all files in all folders from a cd named _______ . That shouldn't be too hard... i don't think, but i've been wrong before.

Originally Posted by GoHybrid

hmm... i was afraid of that. If iTunes will still correctly reproduce album art that is embedded in the mp3 with another program then maybe all is not lost. I'm going to do some looking around and see if that's the case. Then it's just a matter of telling iTunes to add all files in all folders from a cd named _______ . That shouldn't be too hard... i don't think, but i've been wrong before.

You are right. iTunes should still be able to read the album art that is embedded in the file by another program (id3 tag v2.whatever or something or another.) I can still DL CD's and add them to my iTunes library and iTunes 7.0 still picks up the album art embedded in the files. Perhaps iTunes' new way only affects songs that you are adding album art to, for the first time, within iTunes.

Yes, it's entirely possible to have iTunes add all files in all folders, etc. I wrote an importer for my front-end, AMP, that would copy all files from a folder. To have iTunes import the file, i had iTunes set to "automatically copy files to the music folder when added to the library", and then gave the following AppleScript command (I'm pasting it from my source-code, so just rip out the AppleScript from the obj-c):

PHP Code:

NSString *processSetup = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"set del_song to %@\nset this_item to \"%@\"\n", delete, hfsStylePathString];
NSString *processiTunes = @"try\ntell application \"iTunes\"\nlaunch\nset this_track to add this_item to playlist \"Library\" of source \"Library\"\nif the playlist_status is \"OK\" then\nduplicate this_track to this_playlist\nend if\nend tell\nset counter to counter + 1\nend try\n";
NSString *processDelete = @"if del_song is 1 then\ntell application \"Finder\"\ndelete this_item\nend tell\nend if\n";

NSString *scriptToRun = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@ %@", processSetup, processiTunes, processDelete];
[AMPDiskUtils runAppleScript: scriptToRun]; 


(the delete was an NSString that was set to 0 or 1 depending on if the user wanted to delete the files after importing.)