Not sure if this is the right place to ask...

[jzm003x]

I'm new to all of this so for those experts out there please remember the time YOU were in my place.

This is my first MP3 player (I have a 32GB Zen which I absolute love and am sorry I didn't buy one before) to which I've loaded about 4,200 mp3 files but do NOT have the ID3 Tags organized correctly. For example the GENRE field is currently blank for all songs and thus my question.

Does the GENRE field have a standard naming convention? By this I mean do I have to select from a predefined list of GENRE types or can I create my own and thus be able to have my ZEN organize that field by what I enter?

Thanks in advance for your time and help.

[CrowdAds]

[marc2003]

you can use whatever you like.

[jzm003x]

Thanks for your reply Marc and yes you're right about Genre naming conventions...

You can create any Genre you want BUT the Zen bunches all those that I assume do not fall into a predefined list as "User Defined". Unless I'm missing something and there is a way to look into the subsets of "User Defined" classification then otherwise this option totally useless.

My next question would be: Where can I find a list of acceptable Genre classifications that my Zen will indeed organize my music by that field?

[qwerty_uk]

User Defined?
No, it will list all of the genres that you have used, even if you make a spelling mistake and put, say, Clalssical, it will appear as an extra category in the list.

[jzm003x]

Yes, "user defined" and no it will NOT list all the genres that I have used.

Here was my test: I used mp3Tag editor, selected five mp3 files, created a different genre for each one and uploaded them into my Zen. I then used Zen Media Explorer to see the genre field of the five files just uploaded and found that in all five the genre field had been set to "user defined". I went back to the original files on my PC, used mp3Tag editor to look at the genre and verified that these had my original input.

Futhermore, via the Zen I selected "genre" as the option to play music and saw that there was a new one named "user defined". I selected that and behold the five songs from my test.

So I seem to be back to my original hypothesis: You can create any Genre you want BUT the Zen bunches all those that do not fall into a predefined list as "User Defined".

If this is true then per my original question: Where can I find a list of acceptable Genre classifications that my Zen will indeed organize my music by that field?

...just in case it crossed someone's mind, I do have the latest firmware installed.

Thanks in advance for any and all help rendered.

[marc2003]

Originally Posted by qwerty_uk

User Defined?
No, it will list all of the genres that you have used, even if you make a spelling mistake and put, say, Clalssical, it will appear as an extra category in the list.

yup. that's what happened when i had my zen 16gb also. i used the genres tag for my single tracks and dj mix sets (imaginatively tagged "tracks" and "mixes") and they both appeared correctly when browsing by genre.

jzm003x, i have no idea why yours isn't working the same way?

[BobbyRS]

They're are no pre-defined "genre" lists that the Zen is looking for within its tags. What ever you place in the genre tag field, that is what should display on the Zen. If it is not doing so, I would double check what version of ID3 tags you are using. I am using all ID3v2.3 tags. Make sure you aren't using ID3v2.4 tags.