Todd Larason wrote:
Can you point me to documentation for the Vorbis metadata? I've scanned vorbis.com and xiph.org, and I'm just not finding it.
Start here:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html
I decided on Vorbis for my meta data partly because I have a large collection of classical CDs, and whoever defined the MP3 ID tags obviously just wasn't thinking about classical music. The Vorbis comment conventions aren't complete, but they're a big improvement over MP3 tags, and more importantly they're free-format and extensible. E.g., when ripping piano and violin concertos I easily added "SOLOIST" tags even though no software currently pays attention to them. I figure they're not that important right now, and support for it can always be added later.
The other convention I strongly recommend when tagging classical music is to make sure each TITLE tag is self contained. If a work spans several tracks, I'll include the name of the work in each TITLE comment. For example, if a CD contains Beethoven's 9th symphony in 4 tracks, then I'll use TITLE tags that look like this:
TITLE=Symphony 9 - I. Allegro ma non troppo un poco maestoso TITLE=Symphony 9 - II.Scherzo, Molto vivace TITLE=Symphony 9 - III. Adagio molto e cantabile TITLE=Symphony 9 - IV. Presto, Allegro assai
This is important because many classical CDs contain several unrelated symphonies or concertos, sometimes by multiple composers. You can't use the ALBUM comment for this purpose, because it really ought to be the same for every track on the same CD, even if it contains more than one work. iTunes has a "GROUP" tag that seems to be designed for this exact purpose, but it's not in the Vorbis comment conventions, no software supports it, and it's important enough that I wanted something that would be displayed by existing software like the Slimserver.
Because there's already a Vorbis COMPOSER comment, there's no need to include the composer's name in the title tags. I use it to contain the composer's complete name, e.g., "Ludwig van Beethoven". The ARTIST tag contains just the composer's last name, which I also use to name the actual directories. (I make exceptions for names like Bach and Strauss, where there's more than one composer with the same surname.)
The name of the orchestra goes into the PERFORMER tag, the conductor into the CONDUCTOR tag, and so on. The existing Slimserver software seems to deal reasonably well with all this except for my nonstandard SOLOIST tags, which aren't all that urgent anyway.
The iTunes practice isn't that simple. For mp3 files, for most things, the definitive metadata is stored in ID3 tags in the file; the information is cached in a binary file and reflected in an exported XML file. The definitive volume adjustment, equalizer, star rating, and start and stop time information is stored in the binrary file and relfected in the exported XML file. The "part of a compilation" field is confusing: as nearly as I can make out, it is initialized from the nonstandard TCMP ID3 tag, and when changed through iTunes the TCMP tag is updated; unlike all the other ID3 tags, though, changes made outside iTunes post-import are never reflected inside iTunes.
Thanks for this description! I've looked at the XML files on occasion, and I've wondered which files iTunes reads and which it writes. I have noticed that I can delete the binary database file and force iTunes to rebuild it from the XML file. You can also blow away the database entirely and re-import it from an imported XML file. I've done this a few times after making manual edits to the XML file for various reasons.
--Phil _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
