MP3 files include a mechanism for embedding information about the file. I've heard it called something like "ID3" or "tags".
It turns out that these are important because Zune uses them in organizing your collections.
I had downloaded a huge collection of MP3 files containing Chinese lessons (> 600 files) originally provided as podcasts. Because the ID3 information was only partially there (most didn't have a "Title" or "Track" number field) or was inconsistent (diferent spellings in the "Artist" or "Album" fields), the file ended up as multiple artists and albums, and if the file didn't have a "Title" field, instead of falling back to the file name, it was left blank in the Zune and Zune software. And if there wasn't a "Track No" field, the files were reordered, which is problematic for progressive podcasts.
Also, Zune treats podcasts differently. You can't put podcasts in a playlist. Therefore I had these huge lists of files not in consequetive order.
My fix for this was to use some MP3 tag editing software. The one I tried "MP3Tag" can be found here (it's free):
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
This software was really convenient because it lets you easily select and edit groups of files at once. (I selected all 600+ files and changed the "Artist" field to be consistent, and changed the "Album" field to refer to the lesson level, thus breaking up the files into groups of 60. It also has things they call "filters" which lets you automate setting the fields based on information from the file name or an external text file. Because the files nicely had sequential lesson numbers in the file name in a consistent way, by using this feature I was able to automatically set the "Title" field by specifying part of the file name by means of what they call a "format" string. I also used the lesson number from the file name this way for setting the "Track" number field, which then caused the Zune to sort the files correctly.
And by changing the "Genre" field from "podcast" to "speech", I was able to treat the podcast files like music files, put them in playlists, and so forth.
To do this, you first should probably delete the old files or folders from Zune (not the actual files on the disk, but the Zune representation), edit the tag fields, and then put back the files. I put the files in a disk directory separate from the main music location (so I could experiment more readily), and then using the settings page (via the "settings" link in the upper right corner of the Zune software), I added the directory to the "Monitored Folders" in the "Music" section.
Sure enough (once I got the right tag fields set up), the files showed up in my music collection just the way I wanted, under one Artist, and separate Albums for the lesson levels, and all nicely sorted correctly (though the Track field gets somewhat truncated for three digit track numbers). I also created playlists for the lesson levels, just to make it easier to get to the lessons.
Whereas I was about to chuck my Zune out of frustration, now I'm a happy camper. I hope this helps you too. I was so happy with the MP3Tag software that I sent a donation to Florian Heidenreich, the author, and hope you will too for this great software.
-John
