Redirecting itunes

[squeeam]

When I bought my first ipod 8 years ago it was a 60gb. My computer was 20 gb with a 100gb external hard drive which my library lived on. All tracks were imported at 128kbp.
I now have a 160gb ipod with 750gb laptop.
What I would like to do is rip my CD's again at higher quality, 320kbp, and direct itunes to those folders in my library. However I would like to keep all the playcount information and other info as much as possible. I would then delete the lower quality tracks.
Is this possible?

[cjmnews]

Sort of.

When I put in a CD that I had ripped before, about 75% of the time iTunes will ask if I want to replace the existing tracks with the new tracks. I answer yes and I get what you described.

The other 25% of the time I get duplicate tracks. Then I use the Show in Windows Explorer option, sort by date and delete the old tracks in Windows Explorer. I go back to iTunes and delete the NEW tracks from iTunes (KEEP THE FILES) and then play the old tracks, get the error about the song file being missing, then point it to the new rip.

Both ways keep your playcounts.

[ScoobZ]

Originally Posted by cjmnews

Sort of.

When I put in a CD that I had ripped before, about 75% of the time iTunes will ask if I want to replace the existing tracks with the new tracks. I answer yes and I get what you described.

The other 25% of the time I get duplicate tracks.

Yep, it's usually just because there is a tag issue.* I check the pertinent tags on the CD against the tags on my already existing files and correct the CD accordingly. I find this much easier than going through the de-duping process you describe.

*For example, with a live album sometimes the Gracenote (I think that's where iTunes gets the info) info will have (live) after every track name. Yeah, no ish, it's a live album, of course the tracks are live. I don't muddy my track names with stuff like that. A quick edit of the CD tags and I'm good to go.

I've been slowly going through this process recently. iTunes Match is inconsistent with a lot of my albums and it bugs me (irrational, I know) that some of my albums are now 256kbps while others are still 128kbps. If iTunes Match comes back with with a match for every track on an album I download it, but when it only matches some, I'm re-ripping the CD.

[squeeam]

Originally Posted by cjmnews

Sort of.

When I put in a CD that I had ripped before, about 75% of the time iTunes will ask if I want to replace the existing tracks with the new tracks. I answer yes and I get what you described.

The other 25% of the time I get duplicate tracks. Then I use the Show in Windows Explorer option, sort by date and delete the old tracks in Windows Explorer. I go back to iTunes and delete the NEW tracks from iTunes (KEEP THE FILES) and then play the old tracks, get the error about the song file being missing, then point it to the new rip.

Both ways keep your playcounts.

Of course. I forgot that itunes asks this as it has happened to me before (although I can't remember why I was attempting to rip the same CD twice).

Each time I rip a CDI will just check in the music folder and see if there are duplicates.

Getting rid of my duplicates is something I'm doing at the moment and is so time consuming.

Thanks for responding.