>and it has nothing to do with the actual scanning process; it would be >a post scan analysis, just as "merge various artists" is now, but if it >were left blank, as you would leave it, it wouldn't happen (be invoked) >at all! its up to you! > It is to do with the scanning process, just not the step that scans tags from files. i.e. if you change the "Various Artists" name, a full rescan would be required to make the change (new/changed files scan wouldn't detect the change).
>SBS uses the simplistic 'any TPE1 mismatch is a comp' behavior. you are all >for that behavior > It's a fallback behaviour for the case when music hasn't been fully tagged; where SOME decision is necessary, or the library will be really messed up. i.e. If there was an AA or a compilation tag, there wouldn't be any decision to make. >and besides, itunes get a CD like Sinatra's Duets wrong, it gives it a >comp tag. its not a comp, its clearly a Sinatra CD which simply has >guests, and should be in the Sinatra section with all his other CDs >which should be done via an AA tag. winamp btw, gets it right. > That's not SBS or iTunes that's making a bad decision, it's the metadata source engine that applied the tags. >> I think it's fairly safe to say that iTunes is one of the major >> marketshare apps. I just stuck a regular CD in my drive, fetched track >> details from gracenote, and the Album Artist was blank. The same >> happens with my ripper of choice, EAC, which is quite popular. > >first of all, itunes uses TPE2 for albumartist. thats a fact. has >since ver 7. > I'm not debating what tag each app uses to store Album Artist. What I am saying is that when I ripped a regular album using iTunes, it DIDN'T set Album Artist as it appears in the app (in this case it didn't store a TPE2 tag in the files, contrary to your belief that most apps always store an album artist). When I ripped a compilation album using iTunes, it DIDN'T set an Album Artist, and DID set a compilation indicator. Importing CD's via iTunes, and scanning into SBS works just fine as it is. If you were to depend on Album Artist=Various Artists to signify a compilation, it wouldn't have any effect, and if you disable compilation detection, SBS would be messed up, as there is nothing to fallback on. >now, i should add that 'ihate' itunes and don't use it much Me too. But it's popular with consumers that don't know any better ;-) >regardless, the main point is that most users will come to SBS with >EITHER TPE2 info, (major apps like WMP, winamp, etc) OR an explicit >comp tag (itunes). > Not that it matters to much in this argument either way, but I disagree. It is not clear that most users will come with Album Artist tags or Compilation tags. I think in many cases there won't be either. >and btw, EAC is by no means "popular" in terms of marketshare > How do you know that? I think it's very popular for people who take their music seriously. >> The only way to achieve a good music library, is to tweak tags. You >> can't assume that an app will have all these special logic checks to >> cope with various deficiencies in metadata sources. > >you mean like TPE1 mismatch checking? > It's only a fallback mechanism for when there's nothing else to go on. Just like grouping/splitting albums based on folder name, to solve "Greatest Hits" problems. >b/c, up until 7.6 apparently, SBS has taken the mere presence of ANY AA >tag to mean that such and such is NOT a comp. Not true - if there is a compilation tag, the presence of an AA has no bearing on the compilation indicator. And now it sounds like in 7.6 the rules are more complex, because depending on what the AA tag is, the album may or may not be classified as a compilation. i.e. AA tag has even more meaning than just the artist name for ownership of album. This logic (if used), could mean further inconsistencies between applications (eg. Foobar won't assume (AA==Various Artists) = Compilation). If it's been added because of many support calls and a enhancement requests, then okay, it's not the end of the world disasterous in itself (although could drive different support calls in the future). But it would be a pity if it has been implement just to satisfy the needs of one or two individuals. >likewise, it has taken >the absence of an AA tag, combined with a TPE1 mismatch, to mean this >IS a comp. neither one of those assumptions is valid! > Who's to say that it's invalid - in the vast majority of cases it is correct. i.e. there are surely more people that have compilation albums than albums with occasional guest artists. >and moreover, since most users will come to SBS with either an explicit >Comp tag (itunes) OR an AA tag (WMP, winamp), its fighting the tide to >begin with. it just isn't smart. > If that were true, there wouldn't be a problem, as the fallback logic wouldn't be used. >ok, so leave my proposed setting blank! u get your way, i get mine, >hooray for options! > I'm all for options. However, the developers don't like adding more options, and there are very few options being introduced for SBS embedded in the Touch player (as there's no web UI). There are other things that would be better to have optional than this. >and can you not see the obvious irony here? you say "the purpose of an >AA tag is just to specify an artist name, it should not assume that >certain names mean comp or not." but yet you have no problem, and in >fact endorse the notion that by doing so, by defining that artist name, >SBS should ALSO take that to mean something is NOT a comp. > Only when there is also no compilation tag set. The presence of an AA tag isn't *making* an album NOT a compilation; by default an album isn't a compilation, but marked as a compilation through other logic. An album is not a compilation, unless it is tagged as such, or there is more than one lead artist on the album. An AA tag defines the lead artist such that there is only one, and the result of that means the album is not a compilation. >am i supposed to know what SBS would do? do you? does anyone? Yes. If you don't have AA or Comp on a varying artist album, you'd get a separate album per artist. i.e. a 20-song compilation album would become 20x 1-song albums. I've seen similar things happen if COMPILATION=0 is set on a compilation album without an AA tag (although behaviour is often different depending on whether it's a full rescan or new/changed files rescan). If it did group songs under one album, who would be reported as the lead artist if browsing albums ordered by artist? i.e. it can go wrong in a multitude of different ways. Phil _______________________________________________ beta mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
