Hi Ian and others,
I installed Media Monkey free edition on my DC (because it's so under-utilised) and let it scan all of the mp3 files and build its database. I'm actually quite impressed and I think I've unconsciously decided that it will be my new jukebox player, displacing WMP. It has an acceptably professional and sensible appearance without the clutter, pestering, gimmicks and skins that are so common these days ... and it's free?! I rated some mp3 files and then looked inside them to see what had happened. MM advertises that it uses the C++ ID3Tag library, and so it must, as I can see that it's added POPM frames to the tag describing my ratings (it adds other frames as well). This means that the ratings metadata is being added to the actual files, not just stored in an external database where they can be disassociated and lost. So overall, I'm impressed with the Monkey and will run with it. It's a shame, as WMP (V9 I think) that I have been using for many years was perfectly adequate for my needs, but in V12 they've gone nuts and done an "office ribbon" job on it and made it too cool (and unfriendly) for its own good. Greg
