Import from Virtual DJ then Export Back to Virtual DJ?

Gino started this chat 2 years ago

Hey there,

Just signed up for Mixo "Gold" and going slowly so I don't mess anything up! So far, so good.

A couple observations, then some questions!

I've imported a bunch of playlists from VDJ into Mixo and have done some basic cleanup of Metadata, Fixed a bunch of file names, just general "cleanup" type stuff.

Some of the files did NOT import successfully from VDJ (They showed up in Mixo, inside the original VDJ playlist, but the file could not be found). These files play just fine in VDJ. Why are some files being ignored even though I can see them in Mixo, but can't play them? (these are MP3s in most cases, so I don't think it's a file problem)

Now that I've done some cleanup...I want to bring those changes BACK into VDJ. But I already have the same playlists in VDJ (because I exported from VDJ in the first place).

So, when I hit the "export" button, it places an XML file into a directory, and then places the playlists in a subfolder a bunch of .m3u files.

My questions:

Why aren't some files able to be found upon import into Mixo when I import the playlists from VDJ?

After I export the new xml file and new playlists, the directions say I should REPLACE my database.xml with the newly generated one. Will that update my VDJ library with all the changes I just made in Mixo (renaming files, etc).

And in my "native" VDJ directory, the folder called "MyLists" are all named "*.vdjfolder" not "*.m3u". If I drop the .m3u files into the same folder as the ".vdjfolder" files, am I going to see duplicates of the playlists? I believe VDJ has switched to the "vdjfolder" and moved away from the ".m3u" structure for playlists.

I'm not in a position to test some of this in fear making some major work for myself if this screws up my playlist structure.

See screenshots for my "native" VDJ folder and then the playlist folder that Mixo creates, which is comprised of .m3u playlist format. Hope this makes sense! Lots of questions as a new user.

Replies (9)
G
Hey there,

Just signed up for Mixo "Gold" and going slowly so I don't mess anything up! So far, so good.

A couple observations, then some questions!

I've imported a bunch of playlists from VDJ into Mixo and have done some basic cleanup of Metadata, Fixed a bunch of file names, just general "cleanup" type stuff.

Some of the files did NOT import successfully from VDJ (They showed up in Mixo, inside the original VDJ playlist, but the file could not be found). These files play just fine in VDJ. Why are some files being ignored even though I can see them in Mixo, but can't play them? (these are MP3s in most cases, so I don't think it's a file problem)

Now that I've done some cleanup...I want to bring those changes BACK into VDJ. But I already have the same playlists in VDJ (because I exported from VDJ in the first place).

So, when I hit the "export" button, it places an XML file into a directory, and then places the playlists in a subfolder a bunch of .m3u files.

My questions:

Why aren't some files able to be found upon import into Mixo when I import the playlists from VDJ?

After I export the new xml file and new playlists, the directions say I should REPLACE my database.xml with the newly generated one. Will that update my VDJ library with all the changes I just made in Mixo (renaming files, etc).

And in my "native" VDJ directory, the folder called "MyLists" are all named "*.vdjfolder" not "*.m3u". If I drop the .m3u files into the same folder as the ".vdjfolder" files, am I going to see duplicates of the playlists? I believe VDJ has switched to the "vdjfolder" and moved away from the ".m3u" structure for playlists.

I'm not in a position to test some of this in fear making some major work for myself if this screws up my playlist structure.

See screenshots for my "native" VDJ folder and then the playlist folder that Mixo creates, which is comprised of .m3u playlist format. Hope this makes sense! Lots of questions as a new user.
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R
Hi Gino,

Thanks for getting in touch. Firstly, VDJ is a very difficult system to work with!

If you've imported from VDJ and want to export back to VDJ, things aren't going to be the same.

This is because VDJ saves playlists as M3U files to the Playlists folder. All good, we like this.

However, Virtual Folders can be saved to several different folders within the Virtual DJ system folder, so MIXO has to go looking for them everywhere.

Then you have the database.xml. This can contain anything you've ever imported, including files you've simply played when browsing the Local Music folder.

Also, if you have tracks on other drives, VDJ saves an additional database.xml on each drive, so MIXO has to amalgamate them all during parsing/importing.

In summary, the only way MIXO can export to VDJ in a sensible manner is to export M3U files to the Playlists folder.

As for the missing tracks, the chances are there are multiples of the same track in your XML files, where one is no longer at that path. I've seen this too!

One thing you could do to get a better understanding of why some tracks are missing, is to add the 'FilePath' column in MIXO and see where the track is supposed to be. This might give you some indication about that's going on there!

Saying this, it does seem that in the latest version of VDJ the Playlists option has been removed and it's only possible to create 'folders' in a section called "My Lists". It looks like on launch it converts any M3U files in the Playlists folder to vdjfolder files in the MyLists folder.

With this in mind, the current MIXO export should still work.

However, when exporting, you would need to export everything, since you'd be replacing your database.xml file.

My advice is create a backup of your XML first, which you can restore from if required:





Remko
MIXO team
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G
This sounds terrifying LOL! I'll do a couple of "small" experiments. Yes, VDJ has gone away from "Playlists" and moved towards "MyLists" instead. The file type inside "MyLists" is ".vdjfolder." I'll test if VDJ "converts" the m3u to vdjfolder. So, do I add the m3u files to the "Playlists" folder or put them directly in the "MyLists" folder? I also assume I need to update the database.xml file for VDJ to "see" the new playlists? Let's do this step by step!

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R
I know, it really is terrifying. But actually hope is on the horizon because the new consolidated method of using a single "MyLists' folder and converting old playlists here, will make things really smooth and easy.

The only question I have is how it manages old virtual folders that were scattered around other folders... any idea? I seem to have lost mine during testing at some stage.

If it also moves them all into the new MyLists folder we're looking good.

If you (or anyone reading this) have any ideas, please let me know!



Remko
MIXO team

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G
Not entirely sure. I started with a fresh VDJ install and created my "Virtual Folders" on an external drive (so, to your point, I have a Virtual DJ folder on my actual laptop, but the Virtual Playlists are coming off of the external drive). There is absolutely NOTHING in the "Playlists" or my "MyLists" folders on the actual VDJ directly on my harddrive. Everything is on the attached drive. The database.xml fie on my internal Mac hard drive is 1.3 megabytes. The database.xml file on my external hard drive is 43 megabytes. So, my entire library is being managed on the external drive (which also happens to be where all the media files are). That's why I'm trying to figure out how to manage my external hard drive library and get the benefit of Mixo's ability to clean up file names, etc, and "restore" those changes to the original, external playlists from which the original import took place.

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R
So when you parse your data on the Import VDJ screen in MIXO, do you see everything you expected in the MyLists folder?

Like this (in my case I have nothing in Virtual Folders since this was for older versions, and the Playlists are duplicated in the MyLists folder so i don't need those):





Remko
MIXO team
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G
Yes, every single Playlist from "MyLists" in VDJ is available (Mixo sees two .xml files, one on my hard drive, and the other on the external harddrive). I simply uncheck the internal drive and retain the external. Every "Virtual Folder" i have in VDJ is available for import.
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R
Well that's great news!

So going for a clean import into MIXO again, but only selecting the MyLists folder might result in less duplicates and should be easier to work with when exporting back to VDJ.

Good luck!



Remko
MIXO team

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G
Also, I have no "Playlists" folder in Mixo (because I have no "Playlists" folder on my external hard drive. All I have on my external hard drive is a "MyLists" folder. See screenshot.
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