CD Catalog Program ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter effdee
  • Start date Start date
Any one know of a freeware CD cataloging program like 'Catraxx'

effdee
Click to expand...

The suggestions of Cathy, Catfish, etc. just don't cut it for what you are
looking for. These programs catalog tracks on CDs as Track01.cda,
Track02.cda, etc. ... hardly what one needs. If the catalog software
doesn't have access to FreeDB, CDDB, or AllMusic, then it really isn't
(music) CD catalog software.

I've been looking for something similar to Catraxx also, but really haven't
found anything.

That being said, you might take a look at Jesterware JeFCo:

http://www.jesterware.org/software.html

It's main purpose is to facilitate building a local FreeDB database of your
music discs (which is what I use it for), but it does maintain a viewable
hierarchy of the discs and the data downloaded from FreeDB.

The main issue for me is that it's written in JAVA, so it's got that JAVA
look and feel (which I don't particularly care for), but it does work.

Hopefully, someone can suggest something that I've not seen that's even
more closely related to Catraxx.
 
Visual CD v1.7 (January 2004 version)
http://boozet.xepher.net/ 2.3mg
Visual CD is a disk cataloguing tool to index CD/DVDs, floppy disks, hard
disks, and even folders. You can then explore the disk catalos, search
files and folders, create MP3 playlist file without having the physical
disks in the drive. Upon insertion of the corresponding disk, you can open
files, split files into smaller pieces, extract ZIP, RAR, and CAB archive,
and more.
Rose W
 
Visual CD v1.7 (January 2004 version)
http://boozet.xepher.net/ 2.3mg
Visual CD is a disk cataloguing tool to index CD/DVDs, floppy disks, hard
disks, and even folders. You can then explore the disk catalos, search
files and folders, create MP3 playlist file without having the physical
disks in the drive. Upon insertion of the corresponding disk, you can open
files, split files into smaller pieces, extract ZIP, RAR, and CAB archive,
and more.
Rose W
Click to expand...

Rose,

I use Visual CD (as opposed to Cathy or Catfish mentioned by the other
posts). Visual CD has proven to me to be the best of the free DATA CD / DVD
catalogers that I am aware of, but it certainly is not what the OP is
looking for (the OP is looking to catalog AUDIO CDs) . Visual CD will
catalog audio discs, but it stores the tracks as Track01.01, Track.02, ...
Track.n and has no online access to FreeDB, CDDB, or All Music. Adding
online access to FreeDB is not that big of a deal...plenty of free
components that do that function are available... the author of Visual CD
would just have to add it in. As it stands now, Visual CD does not have
this.

Can you imagine having to catalog tens, hundreds of audio CDs and then
having to manually type all of the album, artist and track info?

If the OP can't find free software that auto-downloads the data from an
online database, he would save a lot of money by simply buying a a pay
version that does do that. I'm sure he considers his time wasted typing to
be quite valuable.

PS

Evidently Visual CD is going to get a big boost in an upcoming version by
adding thumbnail support for image files...the option is now on one of the
menus, but when clicked, a message box pops up with "Under Construction".
I've been waiting for that feature. Now, if FreeDB access is added, it
would almost make it the complete free disc cataloger.
 
Re: Visual CD will catalogue audio discs, but it stores the tracks as
Track01.01, Track.02, ...Track.n and has no online access to FreeDB, CDDB,
or All Music.

Oh, that is unfortunate. I did a catalogue of one of my hard drive folders
that has a mixture of music types and of course it catalogued it perfectly
with all the titles and music types. I guess once it goes onto a cd in music
format things get changed. The labels of Track1, 2 etc is not acceptable.

Re: adding thumbnail support for image files
Now that will be really a great feature. At the moment in v1.7 a right click
menu allows access to another program so the Xp fax photo viewer will open
the image. This is fine for checking one or two images. Browsing thumbnails
would be icing on the cake.

Re:if FreeDB access is added, it would almost make it(Visual Cd) the
complete free disc cataloguer.
I'm not exactly sure what FreeDB is but I interpret it would allow notes or
a comment file to be added. I downloaded File Notes which allows this in the
Fat32 Xp so a comment column can be in the Windows explorer. Unfortunately,
it doesn't 'stick'. If the file is burned to Cd no File Note goes along with
it or if the folder or file is moved to an NTFS drive the notes don't move
also. This defeated the effort of adding a comment so I have gone back to
creating a list and adding a comment that is saved as a text file.
Would a FreeDB allow for a short explanatory note or reminder to be attached
to individual files in a long list of downloaded freeware which would show
up if it were burned on a CD?

When all these additions are put into Visual CD it will be on its way to
'commercial ware' <LOL>
Rose
 
Re: Visual CD will catalogue audio discs, but it stores the tracks as
Track01.01, Track.02, ...Track.n and has no online access to FreeDB, CDDB,
or All Music.

Oh, that is unfortunate. I did a catalogue of one of my hard drive folders
that has a mixture of music types and of course it catalogued it perfectly
with all the titles and music types. I guess once it goes onto a cd in music
format things get changed. The labels of Track1, 2 etc is not acceptable.
Click to expand...

Yes. Music stored on hard drives is usually of the formats MP3, OGG, FLAC,
WAV, WMA, etc. These are all formats that can be named whatever you want
AFTER extracting / ripping the original data from an audio cd. That's why
Visual CD correctly reads those names and stores them as expected. However,
an audio cd has its tracks laid down somewhat differently and are only
listed as Track01.cda, etc. That's what Visual CD sees. Not very
informative or useful.

I'm not exactly sure what FreeDB is but I interpret it would allow notes or
a comment file to be added.
Click to expand...
Would a FreeDB allow for a short explanatory note or reminder to be attached
to individual files in a long list of downloaded freeware which would show
up if it were burned on a CD?
Click to expand...

FreeDB ( as in free database...as opposed to GraceNote's CDDB which costs
developers money to implement) is an online database of thousands of audio
CDs. If a piece of software has FreeDB implemented, you can insert a CD in
your computer's player and check FreeDB, which will then download all of
the CD info (album name, track names, artist, year of release, etc.)
Because this info can't be stored on a pre-recorded CD, the FreeDB-aware
software usually has some facility to store the data on your hard drive so
next time the CD is inserted, the info will show up (as opposed to
Track01.cda, Track02.cda, etc.) without even having to be connected to the
internet. Sometimes this is stored in a common Windows file called
cdplayer.ini, but more sophisticated software will actually create a FreeDB
database structure of your CDs in a folder of your choice.

Also, if you have a high speed connection and available hard drive space,
you can download the entire FreeDB database locally (hundreds of megabytes)
from here:

http://www.freedb.org
When all these additions are put into Visual CD it will be on its way to
'commercial ware' <LOL>
Rose
Click to expand...

Hope not. :)
 
Any one know of a freeware CD cataloging program like 'Catraxx'

effdee
Click to expand...

I asked a similar question a few weeks ago, and found nothing useable for
audio CDs. FWIW, I reverted to paying for an excellent shareware app
which has everything I need in a music CD catalogue (including CDDB).
With more than 400 audio CDs, I didn't need a program that forced me to
enter everything manually!

If you want more info on the shareware app, e-mail me off-list.
 
effdee said:
Any one know of a freeware CD cataloging program like 'Catraxx'

effdee
Click to expand...

Maybe this one:

MediaMonkey Standard

Manage a music library consisting of small to very large collections
of audio files and playlists, whether they're located on your hard
drive, CDs, or a network. Organize, browse, or search music by Genre,
Artist, Year, Rating, etc., and never waste your time trying to find
mp3s you know you have.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/download.htm
 
I asked a similar question a few weeks ago, and found nothing useable for
audio CDs. FWIW, I reverted to paying for an excellent shareware app
which has everything I need in a music CD catalogue (including CDDB).
With more than 400 audio CDs, I didn't need a program that forced me to
enter everything manually!

If you want more info on the shareware app, e-mail me off-list.
Click to expand...

That's been my experience. Wonder why so many freeware authors write
programs that address compressed audio cataloging / maintenance (Godfather,
etc., etc. ad infinitum) and a few have written data CD catalogers, but
audio CDs have been left out in the cold. All that extracted / compressed
music had to come from somewhere originally.

See ya.
 
Maybe this one:

MediaMonkey Standard

Manage a music library consisting of small to very large collections
of audio files and playlists, whether they're located on your hard
drive, CDs, or a network. Organize, browse, or search music by Genre,
Artist, Year, Rating, etc., and never waste your time trying to find
mp3s you know you have.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/download.htm
Click to expand...

I just downloaded and tried that one. I at first had some reservations
about it being an all-in-one software (database, ripper, encoder, player,
etc.) but after trying it, I think I'll just ignore those features. Would
have been nice, however, to have included the ability to exlcude those
components during installation.

It is kind of slow to start (certainly no slower than the JAVA software I
mentioned), shows a splash screen at start-up that can't be turned off (at
least I couldn't find it in options) and it doesn't create a standard
FreeDB database that can be used by other programs. It does store the data
in an Access database file (*.mdb) which opens up a whole lot of other
possibilities and can be exported to csv, html, and excel spreadsheet
format. Another preference of mine would have been that the *.mdb file
could be stored in a directory other than the installation directory, but
no option exists. I checked the registry and the Media Monkey *.ini file to
see if the setting could be changed there, but it must be hard-coded in the
executable.

I also didn't care for the fact that it creates a folder in the root of the
installation drive without prompting during installation. The folder is for
storing "Virtual Previews" using an OGG preview plug-in. The folder can,
however, be moved to a folder of your choosing after installation via a
setting under options.

All those things aside, I think I'll play with it for a while. It seems
like it might be useful.

Thanks for the link.
 
I just downloaded and tried that one. I at first had some reservations
about it being an all-in-one software (database, ripper, encoder, player,
etc.) but after trying it, I think I'll just ignore those features.
Click to expand...

Meant to say "...ignore those features except for the database feature".
 
Art Iculos said:
Rose,

I use Visual CD (as opposed to Cathy or Catfish mentioned by the other
posts). Visual CD has proven to me to be the best of the free DATA CD / DVD
catalogers that I am aware of, but it certainly is not what the OP is
looking for (the OP is looking to catalog AUDIO CDs) .
Click to expand...

I've just installed visual CD and I'm puzzled.
I'm trying to catalog my data DVDs (about 10) and 30 odd assorted
CDR/CDRW and Zip disks. If I create a catalog file and catalog a DVD I
can't see how I can then add the rest of my disks. I normally use
Advanced Disk Catalog which allows me to 'Add' another disk to that
catalog. It looks to me as if I had to create a separate catalog for
each removable disk How do I do that in Vision CD?
Vision CD seems to be a lot quicker that ADC (which isn't freeware I
know) but if someone can answer the above query I think I would prefer
to use it.
 
On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 15:46:00 +0000, Rosie wrote:

I've just installed visual CD and I'm puzzled.
I'm trying to catalog my data DVDs (about 10) and 30 odd assorted
CDR/CDRW and Zip disks. If I create a catalog file and catalog a DVD I
can't see how I can then add the rest of my disks. I normally use
Advanced Disk Catalog which allows me to 'Add' another disk to that
catalog. It looks to me as if I had to create a separate catalog for
each removable disk How do I do that in Vision CD?
Vision CD seems to be a lot quicker that ADC (which isn't freeware I
know) but if someone can answer the above query I think I would prefer
to use it.
Click to expand...

Rose,

I haven't ever used Advanced Disk Catalog (ADC), but as a far as I'm aware
of Visual CD functionality, each disc or each folder + sub-folders
cataloged becomes a separate Visual CD catalog with extension *.vcc.

I think ADC must use the ability to add discs to a catalog to keep them
organized and perhaps to allow for searching for items across discs. These
two functions can be achieved in Visual CD also, but in a different way:

1. Organization - After creating a new catalog, you can add the catalog to
a folder under the Visual CD Favorites tab to group discs with similar
content, i.e. Photos, Spreadsheets, Work Data, Music, etc. etc.

2. Search - Visual CD can search across any number of its catalogs for a
particular item. Catalogs to be searched through can be added to the search
parameters...search all catalogs, 1 catalog, catalogs in certain Visual CD
Favorite Folders created in Item 1 above, etc., etc.

I have always viewed creating a separate catalog for each disc as logical
for software such as Visual CD (so long as that didn't prevent the search
function from searching across catalogs), and I don't see it as a
limitation. Maybe if you view the Visual CD structure of "Catalogs in
Folders" as being equivalent to ADCs structure of "Sub-Catalogs in Main
Catalog", it will work for you.

Maybe someone with more experience can point out the benefit of one system
over the other that I cannot see.

See ya.
 
Art Iculos said:
On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 15:46:00 +0000, Rosie wrote:
Rose,

I haven't ever used Advanced Disk Catalog (ADC), but as a far as I'm aware
of Visual CD functionality, each disc or each folder + sub-folders
cataloged becomes a separate Visual CD catalog with extension *.vcc.

I think ADC must use the ability to add discs to a catalog to keep them
organized and perhaps to allow for searching for items across discs. These
two functions can be achieved in Visual CD also, but in a different way:

1. Organization - After creating a new catalog, you can add the catalog to
a folder under the Visual CD Favorites tab to group discs with similar
content, i.e. Photos, Spreadsheets, Work Data, Music, etc. etc.

2. Search - Visual CD can search across any number of its catalogs for a
particular item. Catalogs to be searched through can be added to the search
parameters...search all catalogs, 1 catalog, catalogs in certain Visual CD
Favorite Folders created in Item 1 above, etc., etc.

I have always viewed creating a separate catalog for each disc as logical
for software such as Visual CD (so long as that didn't prevent the search
function from searching across catalogs), and I don't see it as a
limitation. Maybe if you view the Visual CD structure of "Catalogs in
Folders" as being equivalent to ADCs structure of "Sub-Catalogs in Main
Catalog", it will work for you.

Maybe someone with more experience can point out the benefit of one system
over the other that I cannot see.

See ya.
Click to expand...

Thanks very much for taking the trouble with the explanation. I can see
what you are saying but I'm finding this method of using Favourites very
cumbersome as it isn't (to me) very intuitive, so I think I'll stick
with Advanced Disk Catalog!
Thanks again.
 
Thanks, but I mean a music CD catalogue system.

effdee
Click to expand...
why not use the database system within a couple of music 'playing'
programs? They will also catalog the other music files they play...MP3,
etc......I just added CD data in both dbPowerAmp and Jet Audio. Jet
Audio 'may' be the easiest one to use, depending on how you use it, but
dbPowerAmp's "My Music Collection" allows lots of editing of data and
even a track normalization function to tell the program whether the
sound level needs to be raised or lowered when it is played.

read here:http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dbpoweramp.htm
or:http://www.jetaudio.com/download/index.html (freeware version)
 
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