Albumwrap Chapter One Helpful I hope
 

To all uploaders and downloaders of Albumwrap(ALBW) which is a single downloadable file similar to an mp3 , but which cannot be played, as is, but must have the smaller files in it "unwrapped", there are a few things that I have noticed and these are so far. these:

1/. Albumwraps cannot be previewed. If you try to preview one and you find you can the album is just a complete album on 1 mp3 and not wrapped.

2/. Check the file size of an ALBW as there are many out there of 4 or 5 megabites, which are either incomplete or tracks off ALBWs that some one has missnamed.

3/. ALBWs can be unwrapped using a free extractor: google to obtain one. If you wish to make albumwraps you must obtain, for a fee, the software Google as above.

4/. There are those who upload complete albums and possibly have seen ALBW on albums and think it includes all single file albums and entitle their upload ALBW (Please don't)

5/. If you are making an ALBW please ensure that each track has, when listed in ALBW, at the very least a different number.
>6/. If you try to extract all the files from an ALBW and all have exactly the same name, the extractor will only extract one track. You then have to move this file or rename it before it is possible to extract another track. The tracks may well appear with the correct tag but in the extractor they can all be titled after the album This takes ages! In a perfect world you can extract all the tracks and whip them into iTunes in under a minute.

I haven't tried to make ALBWs yet so I don't know the features from that point of view.

I don't know if it's possible to put this in the stickies under Albumwrap, as the thread is closed, but I thought it might help others it was in there??

A couple of points. (Hope you don't mind Only A Hobo!) One is you can rename the songs before you extract them if they're all the same name from within the Extractor program (just select & highlight the title & delete & rename.) In my experience, most albumwraps can be played back before extracting but of course it seems like one long mp3.

There's apparently another type of albumwrap that isn't compatible. I need to find out more about this.

People should label & add mp3 tags to their songs before the wrap them as Only A Hobo said. But yes you can also add an id3 tag to the albumwrap after wrapping. Adding title no. is also important to the receivers. There's a song no. option in most mp3 id3 tagger programs.

Having unedited or combined albums as a single track & calling it an albumwrap is an insult to the intelligence of people who use albumwrap.

A couple of points. (Hope you don't mind Only A Hobo!) One is you can rename the songs before you extract them if they're all the same name from within the Extractor program (just select & highlight the title & delete & rename.) But unnamed or titles of all the same name doesn't help anybody.

In my experience, most albumwraps can be played back before extracting but of course it seems like one long mp3.

There's apparently another type of albumwrap that isn't compatible. I need to find out more about this.

People should label & add mp3 tags to their songs before the wrap them as Only A Hobo said. But yes you can also add an id3 tag to the albumwrap after wrapping. Adding title no. is also important to the receivers. There's a song no. option in most mp3 id3 tagger programs.

Having unedited or combined albums as a single track & calling it an albumwrap is an insult to the intelligence of people who use albumwrap.

Lord, I have learned something .... I didn't realise you could change the titles of the tracks in the albumwrap extractor. ... I never even tried!

I have also experimented with all my media players on my Mac OSX to try and play an unwrapped album wrap. I have NOT tried Limewires player, but VLC, Windows Media, ITunes and quick time will not play it BUT Real Player, which I'd forgotten I had, as it seems useless for most things, DOES! As I use iTunes to preview files by default, it is my experience that iTunes will definitely not play an album wrap. If it is able to preview a file, then that file is definitely not an albumwrap.

All a properly tagged mp3 requires when being wrapped is a track number in the Albumwrap list and when unwrapped all the rest of the information will be on the tag.

As you have made clear to this idiot, titles can be changed on the extractor, I assume they can equally easily be changed at the other end.

My post was prompted by, as you might guess, having just unwrapped an album the long way. Between us we might make it easier for the next guy!

Everybody's experience for themselves I guess, but I've found iTunes will play the majority of Albumwraps I've come across. But then, there's also different types of wrapped albums wrapped by programs other than albumwrap. Albaextractor is one such one. Wrapster & some others also might be among the list that Albumwrap Extractor is unable to unwrap. At least this one is multi-platform! ;) :)

Hi LOTR I saw your other post on the alternative wrappers ...seems most are windose only i continue to remain somewhat confused by the whole matter and each time I "discover" something it turns out to be not 100% true the next day!
I also continue to find ALBWs that aren't!!!!!!
I shall further explore your suggestions .... or have another cup of coffee! :confused: :cool: :cool:

For us mac users it is confusing since not all these many wrappers are mac compatible. But you will see an even larger list here: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=34057
I'm sure I'll find more as time goes by as some of these programs are very new (this year.)