Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Need a program to print Creative Media Source Music Library

May 10, 2006 3:01PM PDT

I am unable to print my music library listing. creative.com/support tells me that I might need a third party software to do this since their Media Source cannot. They suggested I Might find it at download.com I have a 39GB music library consisting of 8,715 cd tracks converted to MP3 format.

My op system is Xp-home, Pentium 4 and 512MB of RAm with a 200GB hard drive.

Please let me know if you can provide such a software and the price you are asking AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

larryglick@dc.rr.com

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
With alot of free time...
May 18, 2006 6:02PM PDT

I recently ran into the same trouble. I made a full backup of Creative Media Source and at several G's thought it would be nice to have a printed copy of all my music. Unfortunately, the only way I found to do it was long and arduous.
I opened CMS and expanded the Library view so that I could see album, artist, track, and track length. I hit [Print Scrn], opened MS Paint then pasted the screenshot in [Ctrl V]. The computer will beep and ask if you want to expand the viewing area- just hit enter. I clicked on the box selection tool and then dragged it to include all the info I wanted. I hit copy [Cntrl-C], new file [Cntrl-N], "beep"- Save Untitled? hit [enter], which closes the file without saving, then hit Paste [Cntrl-V] "beep"-Expand? [Enter], then save [Cntrl-S]. I flipped back to Media Source and highlighted the last track on the page, so that I could keep track of which ones I already had. It is pretty time-consuming at first, but it gets faster as your shortcuts become automatic. The second day was much faster for me.
I ended up saving them all with intricate names, like "BkUp 5 06 D1 A" for "Backup of May 2006 Disk one, first screenshot" and kept it in the file where I had saved the backup DVD project (to keep from mixing them up). I saved in high quality JPEG, 300X300 dpi, which was probably an overkill. Also, when I began making screenshots, it took me awhile to figure out that MS Paint automatically tries to save where it last opened a file. Close paint and reopen after your first screenshot in a series, or you will have to keep browsing to find the directory where you want to keep your files.
After I got all the screenshots in a series, made a new file which I called a Tracklist, based on the width of the screenshots (my screen is 1280 X 1024) 3.1 inches by around 50 inches tall - the height of the screenshots for one backup disk.
I opened the Tracklist on the right side of my desktop and the screenshot on the left. I right clicked and copied the screenshot. I right-clicked the Tracklist and pasted to it, and made sure to line up the columns as I pasted each consecutive screenshot. Remember, you don't have to see the entire width of the file- just line up the first few columns.
I then used Gimp (an open source paint program) to filter out the gray lines. I was hoping to be able to use Optical Text Recognition software to get me into a Database, but no such luck. The good part about getting the gray out was that my file could be black and white, and I compressed it without losing any legibility. They ended up at around 400K as GIFs. I put the resultant tracklist screenshots on each individual backup dvd, sent a copy to my desktop, and called it good enough.
This was alot of work, but for the amount of music I have, it is worth it to know what I have. I leave the small files on my desktop and scroll it with my Firefox
browser.
I'm currently testing a database software (free 60 day trial) of software called mp3Boss, but it will only work with WinAmp, so that requires two more installations.
A friend of mine, who is much more CoSi savvy, said he wrote a small subroutine in Pearl, but I have neither Pearl, nor the neccessary cerebrum to handle that.
Hope this helps...

- Collapse -
Printing a Creative Media Source Music Library
May 30, 2006 5:02AM PDT

Thanx, Escape, for your description of your "fix" for our mutual problem. I'm afraid that I don't have (as you so aptly put it) "the cerebrum" or the guts and time and patience to futs around with my computer. I did try one experiment which I think may solve my problem, though.

1. I loaded my digital camera with a 512MB Media Stick-turned on the camera-set it on widest angle.
2. I clicked on CMS-clicked on the left pane to bring up the "genre" listings.
3. Yes you guessed right, I took pictures of every music listing (by genre) in my music library. It took under 200 photo exposures to get it all. Now all I need do is to put them into MY PICTURES and print them. I do, however appreciate your efforts, though,
and i'll let you know how it all comes out.
Larry

- Collapse -
I have Windows Media Player
May 19, 2006 12:23AM PDT

I don't know if this will help, but I have my music on WMP, 10 Gigs, and was able to use the following to make a list of my music:http://www.avsoft.nl/download/other/SetupPlaylistCopier.msi This is a direct download. It was very easy, I believe you might also need .Netframwork from microsoft. I don't know anything about Creative but maybe you can import the music to wmp, make a list, then delete wmp.
Eddie