wma to itunes conversion

Support
1

Hi,

I'm using WMP11 and I'm about to try an convert all my music to AAC in iTunes, however when I use the inbuilt file converter, I loose all my track ratings.
Does anyone know of any way of hard writing the rating data into the WMA/ID3 tags so that when I import them into iTunes, I keep my star ratings.

Thanks!!

PS On an aside is there a way of converting WMA tags to ID3 tags on WMA files? I tried the method suggested in the help files but with no success!

2

iTunes keeps all star ratings in its local database and does not read any tags like POPULARIMETER. So any attempt to extract the ratings from WMP and import them into iTunes would be fruitless.

3

Thanks very much. I feared it might be so.

Now I just need to find a rainy afternoon to re-rate my entire library!

4

Are you transcoding your WMP lossy format files into AAC lossy format files. This is likely a bad idea. And if you plan on reripping your music, go ahead and create a lossless version (FLAC, apple lossless, etc.). Then in the future you can create lossy versions from these without any loss in qualilty.

5

Well here is an ideo to get a workaround.
First of all check whether your WMP ratings are actually stored in the files (open MP3tag and best create a column for popularimeter).
Then abuse a field like e.g. comment and copy the contents of popularimeter into comment (create a format tag field action - the forum is full of hints how to do that).
In iTunes create an automatic playlist that looks into the comment field.
Select a criteria like "comment is 5" for all 5-star tracks so that iTunes only displays these. Then select all files in the playlist and add the rating in Itunes.
Do the same for those with a 4 (for 4-star tracks) and so on.
Should even work on a sunny afternoon :wink:

6

Ratings from media player are usually shown as %rating wmp% in Mp3tag.
(If wmp is configured to save ratings to the tag)

You can also try the auto playlists of WMP to get all songs with a certain rating.

7

WMP 11 has an option on the library tab called "Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files" which when checked will write the rating as a tag.

I know this works for Mp3 files, but I've never tried it with WMA's.

Why not just convert to Mp3, iTunes supports Mp3 and they're a lot easier to work with.

8

That is ingenious! Thank you very much, I shall go and work on that now.

I had tried using playlists, but of course all the root file directories had changed so it wouldn't find the right track again.

Thanks for all your help guys! :slight_smile: