Importing From iTunes, some items missing Episode Number

[PoopertonThePious]

Hello!
A bit of background as this will sound strange.
I was using iTunes 10 for a loooong time. iTunes does not have an easy way to keep a chronological order of your library. You would think date added would work, but this gets reset if you ever move your library from one computer to another. I wanted a field that was basically "This is the fifth song I ever added to my library."

So, I had to find a way to keep chronological order of my songs. I did this by using a field on iTunes called "Episode Number". Yes, normally this is reserved for videos, but it worked! Every time I purchased or added a song I entered in manually an Episode Number in the "Get Info" screen of iTunes.

But in iTunes 11 or 12, they removed this. Get Info was severely modified, and I could no longer even see the field Episode Number. I could still sort by it! But any new songs I added would not have this field available, so I downgraded back to iTunes 10 and used that until, well, today.

Ok, so here is my issue. Originally when I was importing my library from iTunes to MM 5, I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably not be able to import Episode Number for my songs. But wow! MM DOES import them! ALMOST all of my songs have their Episode Number. I can't edit this field nor add it to a new song since MM I assume reserves this field for videos. But that's fine.

The odd thing is, I have 81 songs that MM determined the Episode Number to not exist. I am trying to figure out if MM could potentially get the episode numbers for those songs. I checked the iTunes Music Library.xml file, and the "Episode Order" field is definitely present on all those songs. But I noticed all the songs MM does not import episode number for are listed as "MPEG Audio File" kind in the iTunes application.

And then there's one song, that I recently converted from the protected m4p to m4a using iTunes match, that also is missing episode number in MM. It lost a lot of data when converting in iTunes, but even when I modify the Library.xml file to have the episode number, MM still does not import that. It imports the play count, last played, etc when I added those to the xml, but episode number is still an enigma.

So I guess my main questions are:
1) Does MM ONLY look at the iTunes Music Library.xml file when importing various metadata like Episode Number?
2) Is there something I can do to my xml file to get MM to recognize Episode Number for those MPEG audio files?

Here are the example xml entries for reference:
1) This song is correctly imported with Episode Number to MM.

Code: Select all

<key>1608</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Track ID</key><integer>1608</integer>
			<key>Size</key><integer>9762859</integer>
			<key>Total Time</key><integer>285753</integer>
			<key>Disc Number</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Disc Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Track Number</key><integer>9</integer>
			<key>Track Count</key><integer>9</integer>
			<key>Year</key><integer>2005</integer>
			<key>Date Modified</key><date>2022-03-05T17:47:56Z</date>
			<key>Date Added</key><date>2010-06-11T10:21:15Z</date>
			<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>256</integer>
			<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
			<key>Play Date</key><integer>3604748699</integer>
			<key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2018-03-24T22:04:59Z</date>
			<key>Skip Date</key><date>2018-04-18T14:15:43Z</date>
			<key>Release Date</key><date>2005-05-03T07:00:00Z</date>
			<key>Rating</key><integer>100</integer>
			<key>Album Rating</key><integer>100</integer>
			<key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
			<key>Artwork Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Episode Order</key><integer>362</integer>
			<key>Persistent ID</key><string>2FBBF78A272275DC</string>
			<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
			<key>Purchased</key><true/>
			<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>4</integer>
			<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Name</key><string>Seven Sirens and a Silver Tear</string>
			<key>Artist</key><string>Sirenia</string>
			<key>Album Artist</key><string>Sirenia</string>
			<key>Composer</key><string>Morten Veland/Sirenia</string>
			<key>Album</key><string>An Exixir for Existence</string>
			<key>Genre</key><string>Alternative</string>
			<key>Kind</key><string>Purchased AAC audio file</string>
			<key>Sort Album</key><string>Exixir for Existence</string>
			<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/Jaylee/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Sirenia/An%20Exixir%20for%20Existence/09%20Seven%20Sirens%20and%20a%20Silver%20Tear.m4a</string>
		</dict>

2) This song does not import episode number:

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<key>1610</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Track ID</key><integer>1610</integer>
			<key>Size</key><integer>4470912</integer>
			<key>Total Time</key><integer>279353</integer>
			<key>Track Number</key><integer>3</integer>
			<key>Track Count</key><integer>12</integer>
			<key>Year</key><integer>2002</integer>
			<key>Date Modified</key><date>2022-03-05T17:48:04Z</date>
			<key>Date Added</key><date>2010-06-11T10:21:15Z</date>
			<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>128</integer>
			<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
			<key>Play Count</key><integer>40</integer>
			<key>Play Date</key><integer>3590990561</integer>
			<key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2017-10-16T16:22:41Z</date>
			<key>Skip Count</key><integer>44</integer>
			<key>Skip Date</key><date>2017-11-15T14:55:46Z</date>
			<key>Rating</key><integer>80</integer>
			<key>Album Rating</key><integer>80</integer>
			<key>Album Rating Computed</key><true/>
			<key>Episode Order</key><integer>328</integer>
			<key>Persistent ID</key><string>E4110688E61581DC</string>
			<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
			<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>4</integer>
			<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Name</key><string>Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana</string>
			<key>Artist</key><string>SMAP</string>
			<key>Album Artist</key><string>SMAP</string>
			<key>Album</key><string>Drink! Smap!</string>
			<key>Genre</key><string>Rock</string>
			<key>Kind</key><string>MPEG audio file</string>
			<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/Jaylee/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/SMAP/Drink!%20Smap!/03%20Sekai%20ni%20Hitotsu%20Dake%20no%20Hana.mp3</string>
		</dict>

3) This is the odd file that was converted to m4a from m4p. It does not import Episode Number to MM. I added missing fields to the xml for Play Count through Episode Order. It correctly imports everything but episode order as far as I can tell:

Code: Select all

<key>2240</key>
		<dict>
			<key>Track ID</key><integer>2240</integer>
			<key>Size</key><integer>9419706</integer>
			<key>Total Time</key><integer>270893</integer>
			<key>Disc Number</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Disc Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Track Number</key><integer>5</integer>
			<key>Track Count</key><integer>14</integer>
			<key>Year</key><integer>1998</integer>
			<key>Date Modified</key><date>2022-03-24T03:30:26Z</date>
			<key>Date Added</key><date>2007-02-19T02:42:18Z</date>
			<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>256</integer>
			<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
			<key>Release Date</key><date>1998-02-20T12:00:00Z</date>
			<key>Artwork Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Persistent ID</key><string>749D75591F33F41C</string>
			<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
			<key>Purchased</key><true/>
			<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>4</integer>
			<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>
			<key>Name</key><string>Move Your Body</string>
			<key>Artist</key><string>Eiffel 65</string>
			<key>Album Artist</key><string>Eiffel 65</string>
			<key>Composer</key><string>D. Capuano, Massimo Gabutti, Maurizio Lobina, R. Molinaro &#38; Gianfranco Randone</string>
			<key>Album</key><string>Europop</string>
			<key>Genre</key><string>Dance</string>
			<key>Play Count</key><integer>154</integer>
			<key>Play Date</key><integer>3561192245</integer>
			<key>Play Date UTC</key><date>2016-11-05T19:04:05Z</date>
			<key>Skip Count</key><integer>64</integer>
			<key>Skip Date</key><date>2018-01-29T23:49:44Z</date>
			<key>Episode Order</key><integer>56</integer>
			<key>Kind</key><string>Purchased AAC audio file</string>
			<key>Location</key><string>file://localhost/C:/Users/Jaylee/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Media/Eiffel%2065/Europop/05%20Move%20Your%20Body.m4a</string>
		</dict>

I know this is a bit of a strange request so I apologize. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Ludek]

Hi, checking the code and MM4/MM5 only imports 'Play Count', 'Play Date' and 'Rating' from the XML file, the other metadata is imported from the file tag itself.

Tracking as https://www.ventismedia.com/mantis/view.php?id=18950

[PoopertonThePious]

Thanks Ludek! Thank you for clarifying that most metadata is from the file tag itself, that makes a lot of sense. So MM5 is only getting Episode Number from the file tag, not the XML.

In case anyone else finds this post I have some more info as well:

I was able to investigate and find that the reason Episode Number is not being imported from 80 songs is because of the format of the file. They are all mp3, and while iTunes let me "add" an episode number, mp3 files do not have that as a file tag. If you ever try to use the various programs to edit mp3 metadata, there's no Episode Number option. So iTunes must store the Episode Number internally somewhere else, and only writes to the file tags if the file format supports it.

All my other music is in a m4a or m4p format, which DOES apparently have Episode Number as a tag. This is why MM5 was able to import it for almost all my music.

As for my lone song that is recently converted to m4a, since iTunes won't let me add Episode Number anymore it won't be written to the file tag. I would probably have to find some kind of program that allows me to tag m4a files in order for MM5 to recognize it.

And wow, I didn't expect an issue to be opened for this! But this is great! Thank you so much for your help!