(please, if i mis-state the facts below, just correct me. this is just a question with a POV, if i'm wrong i'm more than happy to see it. no pyrotechnics)
the relevant option under music library is: List compilation albums under each artist or Group compilation albums together you have to pick one or the other. now, if you DON'T use comp tags: if you pick the first one, your one album is listed multiple times under every artist on the one album. so choosing this means VA logic is moot at least insofar as sorting the album, b/c the album is listed all over the place. if you pick the second one, any one album with differing ARTIST fields on even one track, gets called a VA album. so while it often does correctly identify a VA album, it seemingly just as often mis-identifies a VA album. many users then as a result also set a compilation tag as 0 or 1 ...sometimes just to over-ride the VA logic. so the option isn't really in question, its the VA logic thats in question, or rather, its usefulness. furthermore: most users use their tags in their files to group/sort/organize/arrange/order/list their collections. currently, if you have a tag that populates the internal SC7 ALBUMARTIST field, it will override the VA logic. (that is correct, yes?) there are also other tags that one can use to sort. SO... what i want to know is who is using the VA logic, and why? the VA logic is described here on the wiki in a somewhat dated article: http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/VariousArtistsLogic as far as i can tell, the VA logic is only useful if your files don't have tags to populate the internal ALBUMARTIST field, or other sorting fields in SC7. and most users then use the comp tag to say if an album is comp or not, since the VA logic is so unreliable as to it accurately reflecting a VA album or not. what am i missing? when is the VA logic useful? wouldn't it be better to retire this function by turning it off by default, and only having users turn it on by opt in if they feel they need it? ps. my personal situation is such that i have neither comp tags, nor tags that specifically are designed to populate ALBUMARTIST, (nor any sort type tags). what happens for me, (mp3s) is that my TPE1 tags, or "artist" tags are used to populate the internal ARTIST field for SC7, and these then in turn fill in the ALBUMARTIST field for SC7, unless the VA logic steps in and tells SC7 a given album should be a VA album, in which case SC7 then puts "Various Artists" in the internal ALBUMARTIST field. the thing is, this is not useful, b/c any differing TPE1 info on an album results in the VA designation. so some are correctly classified, but most others are not. its basically a useless function. now granted, i am trying to optionally get TPE2 to be recognized by SC7 to over-ride all this, much as 'Txxx album artist' tags do now. but i still don't see where the logic would be useful for me or anyone. there is a question as to how SC7 would distinguish compilation albums at all in my case, if it didn't have VA logic or comp tags, but i think that should be done by recognizing certain terms in my tags. for instance, if i had the words "Various Artists" in my TPE tags, SC7 could annotate that internally as a compilation album, b/c it knows thats what that term means. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / SBC - w/SC 7.0.1beta - Win XP Pro SP2 - 3.2ghz / 2gig ram - D-Link DIR-655 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=47297 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
