Has there been any discussion of how to automate the process of backing up long file names with something like DOSLFNBK.EXE, and then having the long file names renamed and shortened so they can be burned to CD-Rs that are limited to the 64 character Joliet file system?

It would be really nice to write batch files that could be run on each MP3 folder. One that would backup LFNs and rename the files, and one that would restore the LFNs.

The documentation for DOSLFNBK indicates that the /o switch is supposed to "Always overwrite existing LFNs". But I haven't been able to get it to work. Maybe I'm not understanding the funtion of the switch.

If anyone has a good suggestion for dealing with archiving MP3s witj long file names, I'd sure appreciate hearing from them.

Thanks,

Shel

Well, what I do is I make sure that all my MP3s have proper tags, even if it is just the Artist and Title of the song. That way, when I burn them to a CD I don't care that the filename gets truncated, since if I ever need to use those backups I can always rename then back using Tag.

You use M3U tag software to rename them in mass? That's a good idea.

But I'm having problems with long file names that are set up to confirm with **** specifications: <Artist> <CD Title> <Track Number> <Track Name>

Some of the classical CDs I have very long names for CD titles and artist names. By the time the track number and title gets put into the string of characters, the 64 character limit of the Joliet file system has already been exceeded. So Nero chokes when it tries to create filenames from the first 60 characters of each file before the .mp3 extension.

I can run DOSLFNBK, and then rename all the files manually... but I'd really like to automate the process. Working on multiple folders of MP3s can get tedious.

Shel

MOD.: no links to or names of sharing groups, thank you.

hmm... well it still would be kinda tedious... but you could use tag to rename them to just Artist - Title or just Track Title if you have them all separated into folders... that would shorten the names up just for the burn

then you would have to run tag again to rename them back in your hdd... lots of disk churning, but at this point there is nothing else that can be done

isnt there a format that has support for longer filenames? don't know what it's called, but i think microsoft included it in XP... not sure tho, plus i dont think that nero can burn in that format anyway

Yeah... It would be a lot faster to use a batch file to rename them all in DOS. I still don't understand that /o switch for DOSLFNBK.EXE. If it would rename the files to xxxxxx~1.mp3, xxxxxx~2.mp3, xxxxxx~3.mp3 as is displayed with the /l switch that lists the contents of the .lfn file, it'd be great. But I can't see what the /o switch actually does.



Both Nero and EZCDCreator use Joiliet. I don't know if other CD burning software uses anything else that would work... and if it does, if it will work with anything the MS OSs can deal with.

Shel

Romeo is the format that supports 128 characters, Romeo is supported by NTI CDMaker.

This gets asked more & more lately with ridicules ideas like Zipping the audio files. As evereux said just use Romeo or even better UDF file system with NTI CD Maker or Roxio Easy CD Creator.

I read the rar - zip suggestions... but it would be a lot better if I could >play< the files from the CD.

Nero has an option to use a UDF/ISO template that I thought I read somewhere would do the trick. However since I 1st found the info on setting that up, I lost the link that explained it.

I may give Romeo/NTI a try as evereux suggests... though I went through hell to get Nero working again after installing Roxio ECDC because of a driver conflick that I ended up reinstalling my OS to fix. But I have a good image backup now.

If someone knows how to accomplish this with UDF/ISO in Nero, I'd prefer to use what I've already set up.

Thanks,

Shel