Managing Your Media Library

1. Using Ratings

Every music track in your library has a star rating, assigned on a scale of 1 star (lowest) to 5 stars (highest). Auto ratings are assigned by default and appear in the Rating column with a soft blue tint over the stars. Ratings you assign explicitly appear in gold. By default, all new tracks are auto-rated at 3 stars; tracks in WMA format that are listed in the Windows Media database are auto-rated using values from that source. When you first play a track, its auto rating increases to 4 stars. (The rating goes up only if you play all the way through a track; if you click the Next button while a track is playing, Windows Media Player assumes you did so because you didn't like the selection.)

If you choose to do so, you can assign ratings to tracks, one at a time or in groups. You can adjust a rating for one or more tracks by opening an album or playlist and clicking the values under the Rating head. If the playlist is visible, you can drag it to its full width to make ratings visible for all selected tracks. In any view except Now Playing, you can select one or more tracks, right-click and choose Rate, and pick a rating from the menu. As soon as you assign a rating, Windows Media Player stops using auto rating for that track. (To completely remove a rating you've assigned, choose Unrated. In this case, the track will once again pick up a default auto rating.)

2. Managing Metadata and Album Art

If you're connected to the internet and you've accepted the default settings, Windows Media Player automatically downloads information about any disc or media file you play for the first time, including the track name(s), album name, album cover, and information about artists and composers for each track. This information is stored as part of the library when you rip a CD or when you add one or more MP3 or WMA files to your Music folder. If you downloaded the tracks from a music service, some of this metadata (composer names, contributing artists, and so on) might be missing. To retrieve all details for the selected album, right-click the album cover and click Find Album Info; if Windows Media Player believes it has a perfect match for a complete album, it displays a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 1. If you're satisfied that all of the information is correct, click Finish to update any missing information in the selected tracks.

In some cases, the update check is unable to find a match for all of the tracks on an album. In that case, you're given the opportunity to manually match up the tracks from your collection with the downloaded track lineup. The cause of such a mixup might be as simple as a discrepancy between the song name in your saved file and the name listed in the database. If you find a typo in a song listing from the metadata service, or if a detail it provides clashes with your preferences, you can change the listings on the fly. Click the Edit button beneath the album name to manually edit album and track information.

The algorithm that identifies tracks is truly sophisticated. It actually plays back the track, creates a "fingerprint" for it, and then searches the online database based on that identifier. The result is that Windows Media Player is uncannily accurate at finding the correct track. In fact, the fewer details that are available in metadata, the more accurate it's likely to be.

Album art, once retrieved from the internet, is cached on your computer. Thereafter, even if you're no longer online, you can display the album art in Now Playing view, in the Player Library, and in any Windows Explorer view that includes thumbnails.

Regardless of the source of your music files, errors and inconsistencies are bound to creep in to your library. Simple misspellings of track names are probably the most common error, but other problems can occur, too. Variations in the spelling or styling of an artist's name can result in that artist's work being filed in two different places.

You can edit any of the incorrect information directly. You can do this on the Audio CD page (if you're tackling this task before ripping a CD) or from the Player Library view (if you've already added the tracks). Right-click the Album, Album Artist, Genre, or Release Date fields under the Album heading and click Edit to change these details for all tracks. Right-click the Title, Contributing Artist, or Composer fields in the track list and choose Edit (or select the track name and press F2) to edit these details for individual tracks.

Note:

Previous versions of Windows Media Player included a feature called Advanced Tag Editor, which provided a rich editor for viewing and changing all metadata associated with a music track. This feature is not included in Windows Media Player 12. To edit metadata that isn't visible in Windows Media Player, use Windows Explorer or a third-party program.

While you're editing, you can move from column to column by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab, and move from row to row by pressing the Up Arrow or Down Arrow.

If you want to change the Contributing Artist or Composer information for a group of tracks or an entire album, select all of the rows first. (Click the first entry and then Shift+click the last entry, or press Ctrl+A to select all items in the currently visible list.) Then right-click and choose Edit. Move to the column you want to edit by pressing Tab or Shift+Tab, make the edit in one row, and then press Enter to duplicate the edit to the entire column.

Note:

The Rating and Track Number fields cannot be edited until you have actually added the tracks to your library. The Length field is always determined by the file itself and can never be manually edited.