Hacking Windows7 MediaCenter

You probably want the best quality audio for your CD rips for playback on your Media Center setup, who wouldn’t? Ripping audio to FLAC is the preferred method for storing audio CDs without losing any of the original detail. FLAC is known as a lossless codec, meaning there is no loss in quality between the original CD and the FLAC file, unlike MP3 which can degrade the quality quite a bit.

How do we get that data off the disk and onto our drives though? Simple, a program called Exact Audio Copy. This apply named program will take the pure audio from your disk and encode it to FLAC without much hassle at all. It even includes the ability to retrieve disk information from freeDB and some fairly advanced error correction (for those less than new CDs).

Getting started is easy, just download and install Exact Audio Copy then run the program. An initial startup wizard will appear asking you to set some of the basic options. During this you should let EAC know that you’ll be encoding to FLAC not MP3. Also, entering your e-mail address is required to retrieve information about CDs from freeDB.

Once the initial setup has been completed insert a disk into the drive you setup as the default during configuration. After a few moments EAC should display a listing of al the tracks on the disk in the main window. You’ll notice that none of these tracks have any tag information and EAC will most likely want to process offset information on a first run. Go ahead and let that happen and any gap processing EAC would like to run.

Now to retrieve information for this CD automatically you can press the CD icon in the toolbar to access freeDB. As long as freeDB recognizes the disk you’ve loaded it should automatically retrieve artist, title and track information. Otherwise, you can edit basic information in the main EAC interface before ripping.

To begin ripping the CD to separate FLAC files you just need to press the MP3 button on the left. This slight confusion in the interface can cause some trouble for new users but the button will use your default compression mode, MP3 or not. There are also options available to rip the disk to a single or multiple uncompressed WAV file(s) with or without a cue file. Unfortunately, at this time WMP and Media Center do not support cue files.

During encoding you can monitor the process through a small dialog displaying the progress of the current track, the entire disk and any problems that arise in the Status box. You will also be able to monitor any error correction taking place through the small red grid box on this window. Any error processing will appear as a progress type display in the box.

Once the encode has completed that’s all there is to getting the audio from the disk to your hard drive. You’ll need to follow the guide on Playing FLAC Files in WMP and Media Center before you will have access to them in those programs. Then just sit back and enjoy your high quality lossless encoded audio!

Get more control over audio in Media Center with this guide on Using FFDShow Audio in Media Center!

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Tagged As: flac, music library, programs

Works with Windows 7 Play To on extenders!

Currently Windows Media Player and Media Center don’t include native file support for a number of lossless audio codecs including FLAC, OGG, and basically anything other than Microsoft’s own WMA files. There is a cure for this minor omission though so no worries.

First, as always, we have to make sure we have the proper codecs for windows to play back these files. Codecs for both x64 and x86 versions of windows can be found at Xiph’s open source site. The files linked above are the latest versions available at the time of this post but you should check Xiph’s page to check for updated versions.

Once you have the proper codecs installed it’s time to get them to show up in the Music Library. The most convenient way to manage your Music Library in Media Center is through Windows Media Player 12. Changes made to your Music Library in WMP will be reflected in Media Center and it provides a relatively simple GUI for manipulating your files.

If you have already established your WMP Music Library it may be necessary to clear your Music Library before this fix will take effect. The most effective way to clear your WMP libraries is to remove your albums from inside WMP by selecting them and pressing delete. Be sure when prompted you select the option to “Remove from Library only” so you don’t lose all your songs! There is also and option under “Tools > Options > Library Tab” that should be unchecked before clearing your library inside of WMP.

Close WMP and navigate Windows Explorer to “C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player” then delete the file “CurrentDatabase_371.wmdb” contained inside. You may need to stop the WMP Network Sharing service by going through Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services and selecting the service and stopping it in order to delete the main WMP database.

Now, one more step before we reopen WMP to check our new Library for FLAC files, download and install the WMP Tag Support Extender plug-in. This will enable files with FLAC (and other) extensions to be picked up by the Library. Next we can finally reopen WMP.

Once you’re back inside WMP go to “Tools > Plugins” and ensure that the WMP Tag Support Extender plug-in is enabled. Once it has been enabled select your Music Library. Your music should begin to repopulate the Music Library, this may take some time to complete. Once you’re sure the process has finished, find your artists that you have FLAC files under and verify they are indeed there. Once you can see your newly supported files inside WMP they should also be included in your Media Center Library as well, have fun!

Note: Certain aspects of these files will still not be displayed properly, such as the length of the files. Also, Check out our guide on playing MKVs in Windows 7 Media Center!

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Tagged As: codec, featured, flac, windows 7