Creative Zen V - albums only playing alphabetically

[Teo]

Great forum and I hope that someone will be able to help me.
I've just purchased a zen v which I'm enjoying, however, with the majority of the albums which I have transferred from my windows xp pc, the tracks will only play alphabetically rather than the original album order, which is incredibly frastrating! Up to now I've been transferring the album's using the Browse Media funtion on Creative's Media Explorer. Can anyone please advise on how I can get the zen v to playback the tracks as they appear on the album rather than alphabetically?
Thanks

[drusstw]

u need to tag ur mp3's properly....google "mp3tag" and download the free software. ur mp3's are probably only tagged with the mp3 titles,not track numbers

[Teo]

Thanks for your reply drusstw. I was hoping to avoid downloading yet more software onto my pc to have my album tracks listed in correct order! It's puzzling, as a few of the albums have been copied over to my zen v in correct cd track order. I've also descovered on the zen media explorer software that I can amend/add the necessary track numbers in correct order to individual albums but when you need to do this for some 40 albums it's far from ideal! I just wish that there was a change I could make to the set-up settings to ensure that the album tracks list on my zen v in the original cd order rather than alphabetically!
Thanks again, guess it's a case of finding the appropriate software to download!

[drusstw]

well,here is the latest version of mp3tag and the nice thing about this software is,its free!
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html
the easiest thing to do is,tagging ur songs using notepad.its reali quick and simple

[Teo]

Thanks for the software link drusstw, I'll give it a go! It won't interfere with any of my pc's other software will it, in particular when I rip cd's on to WMP11 and Media Centre (I have Windows XP Media Centre 2005 OS)?
Thanks again for your recommedations and info!

[drusstw]

its a pleasure~
no the software won't interfere any other software at all...
here are a few tips:
when tagging songs in the same album-
-in note pad,type the track number and title of song ie "01 abc" (there has to be a space)
-in mp3tag,select all the tracks and click on the "text to tag" button
-in format string type "%track% %title%"
and ur songs should be tagged correctly, if they are already in the correct track order
then: to tag artist and album name
-select all tracks
-click on the "star" button (its called add tag i think)
-in the "type" bar type,album. then in the bigger block, type the name of album
-do the same for artist
and ur tracks should be fully tagged!
u could also tag an album art to the tracks.on the right of the tag window,theres a white block and a "star" button next to it.click it and select ur picture
the zen v plus supports album art (it shows it in the Now Playing screen) if u have the latest firmware *1.32 i think*

[drusstw]

oh,sorry i missed a step. after selecting all the tracks,u need to press alt+t to get into the tagging window

[Teo]

... I'm a simple man with simple needs, but in this case I will definitely try out your recommendations and step by step guide, the next time I clear out some of the current sounds on my zen v! It fills up far too quickly, perhaps I need to consider purchasing the 4gb or even the 8gb!? Yes, I also had problems with album art work not showing on my zen, but quickly fixed this by downloading the necessary patch from creative website...
Thanks again drusstw

[Teo]

At last all the album tracks on my zen v playback in their original album order and not alphabetically! Thanks again for the mp3tag download link and your advise drusstw! Do you know if their is a quick way of searching for a specific album or artist on the player, such as being able to access an alphabetical list feature which allows you to quickly jump to a selected letter rather than having to continously scroll down (or up)? With over 50 albums and even more artists on the player using the joystick scroll feature can take forever to find a specific album or artist no matter how fast my little fingers work!

[drusstw]

yea there is! its one of the main features of the zen v+... in the artist,album etc list,u hold down the return button and theres a option there for searching by alphabet,or searching by full name

[Teo]

Thanks for the handy tip, you've saved the day yet again!!! It makes finding a specific album or artists so much easier and quiker and my enjoyment of the ZV+ more complete...