Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8001 -- 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;292239 Wrote: I believe most people with classical music collections use Band for storing the orchestra, because there isn't a specific orchestra tag. That's a mis-use of the tag to some degree, but it isn't a mis-use of functionality. Album artist is for grouping, whereas a contributor role is just someone that performs on a song. Actually TPE2 isn't just 'Band', it is The 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame is used for additional information about the performers in the recording. So it is basically subsidiary information to the main performer tag (TPE1). Classical works should be tagged with the main performer (featured soloist perhaps) in TPE1 and the Orchestra in TPE2. For Completeness, conductor would be in TPE3. TPE2 or BAND is very useful on classical albums which often have similar titles. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;292118 Wrote: Hmmm, interesting - it works for me. Eg. A single album by album artist=Alio Die Saffron Wood, has two track artists: Alio Die, Saffron Wood. Alio Die Saffron Wood appears in the browse artists list. I haven't got any other albums by either track artist, so both do not appear in the browse artists list. My relevant Music Library settings are: Band/Orchestra is ticked Group compilation albums together List albums by all artists for that album PhilIt's probably worth adding that in my problem cases, not a single track has the ALBUMARTIST as the TRACKARTIST. For example, the CD with ALBUMARTIST=Lee Perry, but the TRACKARTISTS include The Upsetters, Max Romeo, etc, but never Lee Perry. Is that the case for your album? Also, if I search for Lee Perry, he appears as an artist. It's only in the browse artists that Lee Perry does not appear. My Music Library settings are the same as in your list. -- smc2911 http://www.last.fm/user/smc2911/ smc2911's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
It's probably worth adding that in my problem cases, not a single track has the ALBUMARTIST as the TRACKARTIST. For example, the CD with ALBUMARTIST=Lee Perry, but the TRACKARTISTS include The Upsetters, Max Romeo, etc, but never Lee Perry. Is that the case for your album? Yes. Each song has ALBUMARTIST=Alio Die Saffron Wood, and that artist string doesn't exist anywhere else. Each song has ARTIST=Alio Die and ARTIST=Saffron Wood, so none of the artist names match. I also have ARTISTSORT=Die, Alio and ARTISTSORT=Wood, Saffron, so that the individual performing artists are sorted correctly in my artist list. The only inconvenience I have with this is that the ALBUMARTIST doesn't have a correct sort order, as I have no ARTIST tag to associate an ARTISTSORT with (so it appears under A rather than D). As I said elsewhere, an ALBUMARTISTSORT would be nice. Failing that, a plugin that can correct artist sort data in the database, based on a list of artists and sort names. if I search for Lee Perry, he appears as an artist. It's only in the browse artists that Lee Perry does not appear. If I search for Alio Die, I get two matching artists: Alio Die Saffron Wood Alio Die Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;292541 Wrote: Yes. Each song has ALBUMARTIST=Alio Die Saffron Wood, and that artist string doesn't exist anywhere else. Each song has ARTIST=Alio Die and ARTIST=Saffron Wood, so none of the artist names match.Well, in that case I can't see the difference in our setups. Very strange that it works for you and not me! It's got me stumped. -- smc2911 http://www.last.fm/user/smc2911/ smc2911's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;292239 Wrote: If this is correct, and I assume it is as you have said it, then why are you insisting that using band tag as album artist for the lead band of an album is the wrong way? I am not really saying it is the wrong way, just not the right way for SlimServer/SqueezeCenter, which has never supported it that way (intentionally it appears). I asked a few questions when I first joined this community to get album artist working. I entered the required tags, as required for SlimServer to function as I wanted, and I'd had very little problems since. I've responded to many calls for help in tagging to get SC to work correctly. I have subsequently hacked some of my mp3 albums to copy the album artist in the band tag, just to satisfy iTunes when I need to use that for syncing to an iPod. I guess I'm just a bit frustrated that this keeps coming up. People point blank insist that their tags are right, even when told the reason, etc. They insistn that the really do have album artist set, and that SqueezeCenter is not working because their tags are perfect. Most programs have accepted this as the standard for representing the lead band. No, most programs have misused the TPE2 tag for storing band. Other conformant apps suffer as a result. I believe most people with classical music collections use Band for storing the orchestra, because there isn't a specific orchestra tag. That's a mis-use of the tag to some degree, but it isn't a mis-use of functionality. Album artist is for grouping, whereas a contributor role is just someone that performs on a song. Most programs use it and I surmised that it was the best way to go to be compatible. SqueezeCenter in it's current form is not compatible. I think it's fine to set band to work as album artist for other applications. I also think it's absolutely correct for SC to be updated to support (as an option) this alternative way of working. If an option is added in SC to support it, it would also seem reasonable to then turn off Band as a contributor role in SqueezeCenter (don't report album artist and band, because the album artist would then not be a band). I would like to know why you think yours is the standard for mp3 implementing if there is no standard. There is a standard. TPE2 means Band. If I'm going to change mine I'd like to make sure it's needed and if SB is planning on an option for people like me before I add another tag to everything. I would assume that some good developer folks will find some nice option to get BAND working as ALBUMARTIST. It may take a while, so if you want your library fixed soon, you're best off adding a specific ALBUMARTIST tag. It won't affect how other apps interpret your music collection from your tags. If later you decide to use an SC option to use BAND as ALBUMARTIST, you shouldn't need to do any retagging either. PS: So you consider Mediamonkey and dbpoweramp as rubbish applications? iTunes is definitely rubbish. Unfortunately I still use it, but as little as possible. Not sure I've ever used MediaMonkey, but I've read other forum posts, and it does seem to make assumptions about how tagging should be done. dbPowerAmp is not bad I think. I only use the converter tool, which is quite good. Mp3tag does everything I need from a tagger and more, so I stopped looking for other apps. I also use FooBar for playing music, which is a good app too. To add a Txxx ALBUMARTIST tag in Mp3tag: select some songs, go to Extended Tags dialog, enter field ALBUMARTIST and enter the artist as the value. You can also configure that to come up as a column in the grid, and as a field in the Tag Panel. You can create an action to copy the BAND tag value into ALBUMARTIST. Then select all music and run the action to do your whole collection in one go. So I'm sorry if I've been a bit vocal. I'll back off now and see what happens. I've tried to explain why people's tags don't work, and what to do to get it working really well in SqueezeCenter now, with minimal fuss. Phil Very good post, I think they need to have you write this up and put in the tagging section of the wiki. I'm sorry if I razzed you too much in my post, I'd probably get tired and short with people if I had your smarts and kept getting the same questions. I figured it out in mp3tag by some trial and error and copied my band tags to true albumartist tags and rescanned my library. Everything worked as advertised other than a problem I've having with a few duplicate albums showing up containing 1 to 3 songs. It's getting these from my C: drive which I still have a copy of my library but have moved it to my K: drive (seagate usb drive). I have no idea why it would pick up a few songs from the old library but it does. Thanks for the explanations on band vs album artist. I've learned a lot. I really feel that they need to have an option to accept
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Nonreality;292587 Wrote: Everything worked as advertised other than a problem I've having with a few duplicate albums showing up containing 1 to 3 songs. It's getting these from my C: drive which I still have a copy of my library but have moved it to my K: drive (seagate usb drive). I have no idea why it would pick up a few songs from the old library but it does. Playlists or CUE sheets that point to the old files? Or something like iTunes/MusicIP that point to the old ones? -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf;292588 Wrote: Playlists or CUE sheets that point to the old files? Or something like iTunes/MusicIP that point to the old ones? Just traced it about an hour ago. I renamed my library in explored and did a scan so only the strange albums showed up. It was my playlists. I don't use them much and had made some to experiment with them. When I moved my library the playlists still look at my old library and adds them I guess. Nice job snarlydwarf! -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JimC;291850 Wrote: I'm not sure what prompted the useBandAsAlbumArtist variable to be added, or how it was intended to be used, but the whole issue of normalizing tags is currently being reviewed (there's a LOT to it) and how we will provide additional mapping flexibility has yet to be determined. What I do know is that we have to find a way that doesn't add too much complexity, or break the exisiting tag usage, to provide that functionality. In addition, we're looking at how various artists are consolidated, and how the Compilation tag is/is not used in that process. -= JimThis is good news! I'd love to see this deliver a solution to the problem I posted here (and in the prior closed thread): if I have an album with multiple track artists and a single album artist who doesn't appear on any other album, no amount of option or tag tweaking will get that album artist into the artist list *without* getting the track artists in there as well (I call this the Lee Perry or Larry Levan problem :)). -- smc2911 http://www.last.fm/user/smc2911/ smc2911's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291771 Wrote: So, my solution is to use mp3tag and add ALBUMARTIST where I think it makes sense. That approach actually has some benefits, since it frees tag BAND to be used for other purposes, like Band or Orchestra, and that helps very much for complex tagging. Exactly. That is the correct solution - tag things properly. It doesn't take long to open your whole music collection in mp3tag, and make it copy the content of TPE2 (BAND) into TXXX ALBUMARTIST. Rescan SqueezeCenter. Problem solved. No frigs, no hacking around in the source code. It won't break other rubbish applications that misuse BAND as ALBUMARTIST, so you can continue to use iTunes and WinAmp, but as a bonus SqueezeCenter will work as you expect, and FooBar will too. Phil Man you are one of those again. Anyway where was I? Oh yes a question for you. You said that one of the problems is that there is no standard for albumartist in the mp3 standards. There's just confusion over album artist for mp3 tracks due to a lack of a standard tag for storing it in id3v2.3 tags. Quite a lot of applications use Band, and report it as album artist, which just makes things very confusing for novices that want to use their music across different applications. If this is correct, and I assume it is as you have said it, then why are you insisting that using band tag as album artist for the lead band of an album is the wrong way? Most programs have accepted this as the standard for representing the lead band. And before you look down and talk down to me from your lofty tower of music knowledge, I'd like you to know that I didn't have to read all of this thread to know that I was using band as album artist. I did it on purpose, imagine that. Incorrigible...yes, ignorant...no. Most programs use it and I surmised that it was the best way to go to be compatible. So in my mind my tags are correct, maybe not for you, maybe not for SB but right for most programs. I would like to know why you think yours is the standard for mp3 implementing if there is no standard. If I'm going to change mine I'd like to make sure it's needed and if SB is planning on an option for people like me before I add another tag to everything. Oh one more thing, if you've already answered all this somewhere else, in these forums, in some other forum, a letter to a fan and it would put you out too much to answer here, just don't answer and I'll be fine. It will hurt, but really I'll be fine. PS: So you consider Mediamonkey and dbpoweramp as rubbish applications? You're going to lose me as fan if you keep this up Phil. -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
So, to help out with sorting this issue, here is another point. Composer don't show on artist list even if it is ticked off in 'Composer, Band and Orchestra in Artists' setting. It would show for non compilation albums, but not for compilations regardless of wether all tracks are marked with the same composer or not. That is contrary to information for that option that reads: 'Song information about composers, bands and orchestras can be included in the artists list for browsing and search.' K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
... and while I am on it, searching functionality doesn't work with BAND tag. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;292083 Wrote: ... and while I am on it, searching functionality doesn't work with BAND tag. K I've previously set up band to show as Album Artist in mp3tag. What is the proper method to get albumartist to show up in mp3tag. Thought I'd give your technique a shot but I have to test it because I have Mediamonkey and dbpoweramp set up to organize and save music to the current album artist tag. Shouldn't be a problem because I'll just dup the band tag to album artist again but using the new version (for me) -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
if I have an album with multiple track artists and a single album artist who doesn't appear on any other album, no amount of option or tag tweaking will get that album artist into the artist list *without* getting the track artists in there as well (I call this the Lee Perry or Larry Levan problem :)). Hmmm, interesting - it works for me. Eg. A single album by album artist=Alio Die Saffron Wood, has two track artists: Alio Die, Saffron Wood. Alio Die Saffron Wood appears in the browse artists list. I haven't got any other albums by either track artist, so both do not appear in the browse artists list. My relevant Music Library settings are: Band/Orchestra is ticked Group compilation albums together List albums by all artists for that album Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: It is easy for me to believe because the proper place to do that is in the scanner when the db is built (specifically in MP3.pm). That section of code is used only for display, and well after the DB has been loaded. Again, it does not make sense to infer the intent from the current state of the code implementing this preference. All the scanning and db code has been completely rewritten at least once since it was originally implemented. I traced the code back in svn history a bit but at some point I think it was moved to Slim/Schema/Album.pm from another file but svn log just gives me an error probably because I have not fixed my working directories since the svn reorg a while back. Also, as has been pointed out by others, the proper place to do what has been requested is not in the scanner, because you don't want to force a rescan when changing the option. It's possible the implementer thought adding some logic in the display code was sufficient and other bits have been lost in the shuffle. It might even have been prior to the introduction of the TRACKARTIST contributor role which I think changed some things. Anyway, while I do think SC should support the interpretation of TPE2 which some other programs use, I really don't care enough about this anymore to keep tracking this thread, as I will happily use the TXX frames. greg ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Phil Meyer [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: if I have an album with multiple track artists and a single album artist who doesn't appear on any other album, no amount of option or tag tweaking will get that album artist into the artist list *without* getting the track artists in there as well (I call this the Lee Perry or Larry Levan problem :)). Hmmm, interesting - it works for me. Yep, works for me too. The one thing I'm conflicted over is that if I do have another real album by an artist that is a track artist of a single song on an album I'm using an album artist on, that album shows up with the track artist's other albums as an album of one song. Sometimes I think I don't want it to appear at all, but mostly I'd rather it appear as the complete album. I really don't like how SC sometimes will represent a subset of an album as if it were an album. greg ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JimC [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: We're working on the best way to handle all of this. Thank you Jim, I appreciate your efforts to get to the bottom of all this tag interpretation stuff.. greg ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Also, as has been pointed out by others, the proper place to do what has been requested is not in the scanner, because you don't want to force a rescan when changing the option. I think it should be an option appropriate only to the scanner. I believe we are NOT saying that any scanned Band contributor should be considered as an album artist, but only when interpretting ID3v2.3 tags (eg so that TPE2 would mean album artist). Better formats, such as OGG, have support for both band and album artist tags as part of the defined standard. I don't think anyone has seen the need for a contributor role of band to be seen as album artist, but for a band tag to be read as album artist. There's a difference. I don't think it's a big deal that if an option for how the scanner would translate tags were to be changed, that a rescan would be required. I would assume that a user would set the option that they want as a one-off and stick with it forever. eg. I would never want to translate TPE2 to album artist, as I want to see band contributors, and I already have album artist tags. However, other people who are more accustomed to iTunes for example, may never have proper band contributors and use the TPE2 tag for album artist. They are unlikely to change the option for scanning too. I would hope that such a scanner option would be set automatically by the installation wizard, e.g. if the user indicates that he uses iTunes, etc. For existing users, they'd have to choose the right option and rescan - a one-off change that they are unlikely to need to do ever again. There are other benefits; the change to implement within the scanner would be a lot easier than the potential rework to SqueezeCenter to dynamically work out how to group by album artist and what artists to list. Also, performance may be worse if it has to work out album artist groupings dynamically all the time. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
The one thing I'm conflicted over is that if I do have another real album by an artist that is a track artist of a single song on an album I'm using an album artist on, that album shows up with the track artist's other albums as an album of one song. Sometimes I think I don't want it to appear at all, but mostly I'd rather it appear as the complete album. I really don't like how SC sometimes will represent a subset of an album as if it were an album. Yes, I pondered on that myself once. However, I came to the conclusion that the current functionality is the best option. I actually like the fact that when I browse to an artist it shows all albums that the artist has contributed on, and only songs by that artist are listed when I click on an album. I can always see all songs on the album by clicking on the album name. If it were to always show all songs, and I had boxed set compilation album of hundreds of songs, I'd be hunting around for a single song by the artist I'd chosen with no easy way of filtering it down. Also, would you want to chose and artist and hit play all and get all songs by the artist, or all songs on all albums where the artist appears at least once? Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
gregklanderman;292207 Wrote: JimC JimC.37xqhz1208307601 (AT) no-mx (DOT) forums.slimdevices.com writes: We're working on the best way to handle all of this. Thank you JimC, I appreciate your efforts to get to the bottom of all this tag interpretation stuff.. greg I agree with greg and will add the following comments. The most users of computer stored and served music are iPod owners. iTunes allows the entry of Album Artist when ripping and in the iTunes GUI it can be used as a sort item. When an iTunes user fires up SC GUI he/she quickly discovers that the Album Artist column is not available (there have been numerous posts about this), I have only seen one contributor to this thread mentioning the iTunes use of this tag. Many contributors to this forum decry iTunes for a lot of valid and some not so valid reasons, but iTunes users are where Logitech's mass market is. So, JimC, get SC to handle Album Artist in a similar manner to iTunes and you will improve the marketability of SC. -- Wirrunna A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee. Wirrunna's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3225 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
If this is correct, and I assume it is as you have said it, then why are you insisting that using band tag as album artist for the lead band of an album is the wrong way? I am not really saying it is the wrong way, just not the right way for SlimServer/SqueezeCenter, which has never supported it that way (intentionally it appears). I asked a few questions when I first joined this community to get album artist working. I entered the required tags, as required for SlimServer to function as I wanted, and I'd had very little problems since. I've responded to many calls for help in tagging to get SC to work correctly. I have subsequently hacked some of my mp3 albums to copy the album artist in the band tag, just to satisfy iTunes when I need to use that for syncing to an iPod. I guess I'm just a bit frustrated that this keeps coming up. People point blank insist that their tags are right, even when told the reason, etc. They insistn that the really do have album artist set, and that SqueezeCenter is not working because their tags are perfect. Most programs have accepted this as the standard for representing the lead band. No, most programs have misused the TPE2 tag for storing band. Other conformant apps suffer as a result. I believe most people with classical music collections use Band for storing the orchestra, because there isn't a specific orchestra tag. That's a mis-use of the tag to some degree, but it isn't a mis-use of functionality. Album artist is for grouping, whereas a contributor role is just someone that performs on a song. Most programs use it and I surmised that it was the best way to go to be compatible. SqueezeCenter in it's current form is not compatible. I think it's fine to set band to work as album artist for other applications. I also think it's absolutely correct for SC to be updated to support (as an option) this alternative way of working. If an option is added in SC to support it, it would also seem reasonable to then turn off Band as a contributor role in SqueezeCenter (don't report album artist and band, because the album artist would then not be a band). I would like to know why you think yours is the standard for mp3 implementing if there is no standard. There is a standard. TPE2 means Band. If I'm going to change mine I'd like to make sure it's needed and if SB is planning on an option for people like me before I add another tag to everything. I would assume that some good developer folks will find some nice option to get BAND working as ALBUMARTIST. It may take a while, so if you want your library fixed soon, you're best off adding a specific ALBUMARTIST tag. It won't affect how other apps interpret your music collection from your tags. If later you decide to use an SC option to use BAND as ALBUMARTIST, you shouldn't need to do any retagging either. PS: So you consider Mediamonkey and dbpoweramp as rubbish applications? iTunes is definitely rubbish. Unfortunately I still use it, but as little as possible. Not sure I've ever used MediaMonkey, but I've read other forum posts, and it does seem to make assumptions about how tagging should be done. dbPowerAmp is not bad I think. I only use the converter tool, which is quite good. Mp3tag does everything I need from a tagger and more, so I stopped looking for other apps. I also use FooBar for playing music, which is a good app too. To add a Txxx ALBUMARTIST tag in Mp3tag: select some songs, go to Extended Tags dialog, enter field ALBUMARTIST and enter the artist as the value. You can also configure that to come up as a column in the grid, and as a field in the Tag Panel. You can create an action to copy the BAND tag value into ALBUMARTIST. Then select all music and run the action to do your whole collection in one go. So I'm sorry if I've been a bit vocal. I'll back off now and see what happens. I've tried to explain why people's tags don't work, and what to do to get it working really well in SqueezeCenter now, with minimal fuss. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291416 Wrote: Not true. It displays as Album by Artist, what SqueezeCenter is much more intelligent and conformant to standards. I dare say that something will be changed to allow it to work in a non-standard way to make it act like iTunes. I'm not sure how intelligent it is to have 10 songs by one artist and one by another and decide to put it as Various Artists. If it's intelligent it sure isn't common sense. -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
I'm not losing my mind over this but I'm telling you it's not a problem with my tags but with the way the Squeeze server deals with it. Oh no, not another one... I bet you it is your tags, and you haven't read the numerous posts in this thread about the differences of album artist and band. I think the presence of an album artist tag should override the compilation setup they now have. It does. Oh and I'm really not sure how you can tell someone it's automatically their fault when you haven't seen their tags. Because its obvious that they are using band, not album artist. Also many other programs allow you to have multiple artists as in an artist and album artist. Some understand delimiters in artist tags, such as Robert Fripp;Brian Eno, so that they read that as being two artists. I believe Media Monkey does that. They don't generally allow multiple artist tags to be set. Although many tagging applications report album artist, this is usually storing in the band tag. A quick google suggests that this is the case with Media Monkey, so suprise suprise you haven't got album artist tags at all, and SqueezeCenter reads your songs as having a band. You can confirm this by browsing to a song, and seeing if it reports an album artist or a band contributor in the song information panel. Mediamonkey automatically move and keep all my music by album artist. Db poweramp rips to my collection by album artist Actually they are ripping into the band tag... A quick google for dbPowerAmp album artist band found a hit: I can confirm that dBpoweramp uses the BAND tag for album artist information when ripping to mp3 (and uses ALBUM ARTIST for Ogg as stated previously). It just makes sense to organize this way, it keeps your albums in the right folder and shows the current performer on playback. Yes, it makes perfect sense to organise music to have album artist tags, and SqueezeCenter is working exactly as it was intended. There's just confusion over album artist for mp3 tracks due to a lack of a standard tag for storing it in id3v2.3 tags. Quite a lot of applications use Band, and report it as album artist, which just makes things very confusing for novices that want to use their music across different applications. I'm not losing my mind over this, but it would be nice to have it all laid out so a person can try to adapt if possible. I think as a minimum, the content of this thread should be summised and fed back into some official documentation. There should also be a new option to allow SqueezeCenter to interpret ID3 TPE2 (Band) as Album Artist, for compatibility with other non-standard apps. This has been said many times now... Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291396 Wrote: Look, that has been beaten up in this thread already. It is now in SD hands to do something about it. Will they - I don't know. With all the speed of addressing List by Band confusion? I won't hold my breathe. slimkid;291396 Wrote: The question is, whether you are going to do something about it for yourself, or you intend to sit there and cry with 99.9% of the world. If former, I'm offering you a solution. If not, well ... Well I have a hack that's a solution that works for me. You offered me a solution to a different problem, and you're surprised I declined it. I wonder if you ever really understood the problem? slimkid;291396 Wrote: And as far as Mrs bullgod is concerned (respect), something tells me that she might be even happier if you took tagging fine tuning completely out of her hands and did it for her. K No, surprisingly, she expects to rip a cd using iTunes, and it appear in on Slimserver in what she believes to be Album Artist, and as justification she might point to Slimserver's ticked I use iTunes option. Philip Meyer;291604 Wrote: I'm not losing my mind over this but I'm telling you it's not a problem with my tags but with the way the Squeeze server deals with it. Oh no, not another one... Yes another one, and I suspect one of many who find your but you're not doing it properly argument unsatisfying. Philip Meyer;291604 Wrote: Yes, it makes perfect sense to organise music to have album artist tags, and SqueezeCenter is working exactly as it was intended Yes, but when as intended is does not coincide with the users' expectations it's not a defence. Especially when the only documentation I find for what as intended means http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?VariousArtistsLogic is sketchy and is incomplete. Hiding behind such a defence usually relies on a bigger fig leaf. This has been dragging on for so long now, and shows little sign of resolution. Bug 4624, for example was opened in end 2006, this is why I don't share slimkid's optimism. Perhaps what is required is a little bit more pragmatic understanding of how user actually uses the product and I little less blind standard conformance. If this does show any sign of being addressed, I'll be happy to do beta testing, you you where I am. Until then I'll live with my own hack. If anyone is interested, you can contact me, it's simple enough to replicate and appears to give a much better browsing experience with a straight forward iTunes/SC setup, listing multiple artist albums under Itunes's Album Artist, and doesn't appear to have broken anything else, but YMMV. Thank you to those that have shown understanding. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291679 Wrote: ...You offered me a solution to a different problem, and you're surprised I declined it. I wonder if you ever really understood the problem? ... Nice, flashy sentence. Care to elaborate? With arguments, perhaps? Show that you understood the solution I offered? K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291690 Wrote: Nice, flashy sentence. Care to elaborate? With arguments, perhaps? Show that you understood the solution I offered? K Because your solution is already in place (viz. all tracks in the the album in question have Compilation = 0) and this does not have the desired effect. If this isn't your solution, or I have misunderstood it in some way then I apologise unreservedly. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291720 Wrote: Because your solution is already in place (viz. all tracks in the the album in question have Compilation = 0) and this does not have the desired effect. If this isn't your solution, or I have misunderstood it in some way then I apologise unreservedly. It doesn't have an effect because it is only half of the solution. The other half, which you might missed, is that you have to have tag ALBUMARTIST explicitly set. You think you do, but you don't. What you do have is tag BAND that you see in iTunes or Winamp as 'Album Artist'. We have already established that SC scanner doesn't convert more universally accepted BAND to ALBUMARTIST internaly. We also established that it would make sense and it would be nice to make it do it, since 99.9 % of the world rightfuly expects to see their iTunes/Winamp 'Album Artist' behave the same in SC. :) Now, as said earlier, I'm not holding my breath waiting for SD to do something about it (contrary to the fact you believe I'm an optimist), so I'm working on my solution (just like you). I also don't use iTunes and I always review tags in newly ripped tracks. So, my solution is to use mp3tag and add ALBUMARTIST where I think it makes sense. That approach actually has some benefits, since it frees tag BAND to be used for other purposes, like Band or Orchestra, and that helps very much for complex tagging. If you think you problem is complex - think for example Opera Gala. There is an orchestra, conductor, composers, let's say four singers who might sing solo, duets, tercets, or quartet on some tracks. Not all tracks have composers, one might not care for all composers or performers (don't want to see them in artist listings, but still want to be able to search for them and to be able to drill down on their names) ... you get the idea. Took me a year to figure out how to go about stuff like that, and there are still ways to go. My grudge with SD is that most of those things are not documented, or even worse, the existing docs are poor and missleading. For example, I only learned about ALBUMARTIST internal tag and its importance in prior discussion with Snarly. Now, I'm even afraid they will change things to meet BAND with ALBUMARTIST and break what I already have (pesimist, you see):) regards, K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
So, my solution is to use mp3tag and add ALBUMARTIST where I think it makes sense. That approach actually has some benefits, since it frees tag BAND to be used for other purposes, like Band or Orchestra, and that helps very much for complex tagging. Exactly. That is the correct solution - tag things properly. It doesn't take long to open your whole music collection in mp3tag, and make it copy the content of TPE2 (BAND) into TXXX ALBUMARTIST. Rescan SqueezeCenter. Problem solved. No frigs, no hacking around in the source code. It won't break other rubbish applications that misuse BAND as ALBUMARTIST, so you can continue to use iTunes and WinAmp, but as a bonus SqueezeCenter will work as you expect, and FooBar will too. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291760 Wrote: My grudge with SD is that most of those things are not documented, or even worse, the existing docs are poor and missleading. For example, I only learned about ALBUMARTIST internal tag and its importance in prior discussion with Snarly. Now, I'm even afraid they will change things to meet BAND with ALBUMARTIST and break what I already have (pesimist, you see):) I don't worry about that... enough hardcore SC users have very spammy tags (yes, I add Lyrics when bored) and I doubt they would remove support for them. (If anything, the future would be to integrate more tags, ala CustomScan/CustomBrowse to allow even more complex setups.) -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
kdf [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: i don't think it has ANYTHING to do with mapping. TPE2 is SC7 internal tag BAND period. and no current option affects that. it currents only affects how things are denoted when displayed. correct. The pref, 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' is only used in one place in the code. When the $album-artists are requested, setting this option means you get the BAND in the album listing ThisAlbum by BAND (20xx). It has no other internal use aside from being in the list of contributors. If you want BAND to have a different purpose, such as the ALBUMARTIST you could add it to the %tagMapping in Formats::MP3. I don't personally use BAND tags, but based on that pref's use in the code, it works as advertised. Why would you infer the intended semantics from the current code? How do you know someone else that didn't understand what the option was supposed to do hasn't changed the code implementing it? Or that several major rounds of changes to the scanning and db schema haven't invalidated assumptions that the original implementation of this preference was relying on? Or that the original implementation was complete? It is *very* hard for me to believe with an internal name as clear as 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' that the preference was not intended to cause any BAND(TPE2) tags to be treated as though they were ALBUMARTIST tags, for exactly the reason MrSinatra wants. JimC, if the resolution is to create a new preference to resolve MrSinatra's request, please change the internal name of 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' to more clearly reflect its semantics and intended use, in addition to clarifying the description on the preferences page. thanks, Greg ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
The description needs clarification no matter how you slice it. From what I've read in this thread, the current implementation, which does nothing more than use BAND as a display substitute for an album's byline, is being used as a kludge for SqueezeCenter's complete lack of support for cataloging classical music. While I wouldn't necessarily want to see this broken, it's a weak argument for continuing this odd behavior in the exclusion of all others. The argument that TPE2 is spec'd to mean only BAND, and therefore should never be used for anything else, is equally absurd. _Many_ other applications have made this interpretation a de facto standard. SqueezeCenter has had a history of working well with other applications, so saying that it's best to to conform to some nine year old, poorly thought out scheme (that virtually everyone has augmented or outright abandoned) is an about face from the direction that the software has moved since its inception. And again, when presented as an _option_, it shouldn't matter to anyone. -- JJZolx Jim JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
gregklanderman;291832 Wrote: It is *very* hard for me to believe with an internal name as clear as 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' that the preference was not intended to cause any BAND(TPE2) tags to be treated as though they were ALBUMARTIST tags, for exactly the reason MrSinatra wants. It is easy for me to believe because the proper place to do that is in the scanner when the db is built (specifically in MP3.pm). That section of code is used only for display, and well after the DB has been loaded. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
gregklanderman;291832 Wrote: kdf slim-mail (AT) deane-freeman (DOT) com writes: i don't think it has ANYTHING to do with mapping. TPE2 is SC7 internal tag BAND period. and no current option affects that. it currents only affects how things are denoted when displayed. correct. The pref, 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' is only used in one place in the code. When the $album-artists are requested, setting this option means you get the BAND in the album listing ThisAlbum by BAND (20xx). It has no other internal use aside from being in the list of contributors. If you want BAND to have a different purpose, such as the ALBUMARTIST you could add it to the %tagMapping in Formats::MP3. I don't personally use BAND tags, but based on that pref's use in the code, it works as advertised. Why would you infer the intended semantics from the current code? How do you know someone else that didn't understand what the option was supposed to do hasn't changed the code implementing it? Or that several major rounds of changes to the scanning and db schema haven't invalidated assumptions that the original implementation of this preference was relying on? Or that the original implementation was complete? It is *very* hard for me to believe with an internal name as clear as 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' that the preference was not intended to cause any BAND(TPE2) tags to be treated as though they were ALBUMARTIST tags, for exactly the reason MrSinatra wants. JimC, if the resolution is to create a new preference to resolve MrSinatra's request, please change the internal name of 'useBandAsAlbumArtist' to more clearly reflect its semantics and intended use, in addition to clarifying the description on the preferences page. thanks, Greg We're working on the best way to handle all of this. I think I remember seeing your name on the check-in of code for at least one of the bugs as I was researching this issue, so I know you're aware of what's going on internally to the scanner code. I'm not sure what prompted the useBandAsAlbumArtist variable to be added, or how it was intended to be used, but the whole issue of normalizing tags is currently being reviewed (there's a LOT to it) and how we will provide additional mapping flexibility has yet to be determined. What I do know is that we have to find a way that doesn't add too much complexity, or break the exisiting tag usage, to provide that functionality. In addition, we're looking at how various artists are consolidated, and how the Compilation tag is/is not used in that process. -= Jim -- JimC well, she wasn't all of that, but she sure was some of that. -- BKlaas' college buddy JimC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
No it isn't good enough. Quite contrary. The most advertised tagging program here, mp3tag, allows not to change a file update date (preserves it, to be exact) I predominantly use mp3tag, which is configured to update the timestamp. You should untick Mp3Tag Options Tags Preserve file modification Time when saving tags. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
It works fine for not showing artists in the artist list if that is their only performance. However, it also doesn't allow you to go (following artist link, drilling down by tag) to other albums of that artist if there are any. You're right. That seems undesirable to me - it only shows other albums that the track artist has performed as a track artist. It should display the same list as navigating to that artist. I had a look at the link, (eg. http://localhost:9000/Default/browsedb.html?hierarchy=contributor,album,tracklevel=1contributor.id=703contributor.role=TRACKARTISTplayer=00%3A04%3A20%3A06%3A38%3A3c) I can see contributor.role=TRACKARTIST. Similarly, the album artist link has (contributor.role=ALBUMARTIST) in the link. If you remove that part of the link (eg. so it becomes http://localhost:9000/Default/browsedb.html?hierarchy=contributor,album,tracklevel=1contributor.id=703player=00%3A04%3A20%3A06%3A38%3A3c), then you'll see all albums that the artist has performed on (whether as an album artist, band, track artist, composer, etc). I see no reason for filtering the link to a specific contributor role. I think that's a bug. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Perhaps, but is this thread not the continuation of a thread that I began? I'm sorry, I never saw the original thread. This one was pointed out to me from a bug that was hijacked. I don't read much in the discuss mailing list, because it's full of unnecessary chaff. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
iTunes. I'm not talking about multiple artist tags, just multiple artist in one tags. Nonetheless, iTune is still bright enough to list and sort by Album Artist. No it's not. It displays as Band. And it's far from intelligent. Quite awful in fact. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
If I understand correctly, it sounds to me as though bullgod's requirements could be met with the following additional logic: If every track has TRACKARTIST=Artist X (even if some tracks have multiple TRACKARTIST tags) and ALBUMARTIST is not already set, then set ALBUMARTIST=Artist X. No, what he's asking for is not possible, because he has used a single artist name, not multiple artists. It works in iTunes because they have used the frig of using Band to mean album artist, and he's got a single string literal in the band tag for each song (which may contain several artist names in the one band name). The scanner would have to cope with looking for sub-string matches in the artist tags. It would then have to decide that as a substring of each artist string matches for every song, set the album artist to that substring. It would also have to guess when that sub-string is not actually an artist, etc. Eg. an album with songs by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, should not be known as album artist = The . There is no problem to solve in this example. The tags aren't set right. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
smc2911;291050 Wrote: If I understand correctly, it sounds to me as though bullgod's requirements could be met with the following additional logic: If every track has TRACKARTIST=Artist X (even if some tracks have multiple TRACKARTIST tags) and ALBUMARTIST is not already set, then set ALBUMARTIST=Artist X. You'd want to exclude the extreme cases where there is more than one artist that every track is tagged with. No. I don't think it will. Because I have ALBUM ARTIST set, and that's what I want SC to key on. Most of my desired functionality will be achieved by turning off, or overriding, the logic that says: Albums with tracks where artists aren't all the same, implies an compilation. You're trying to second guess, where there is no need. I've said where I want this album to appear by either setting Album Artist or Compilation explicitly. The logic I want is: if there is a consistent Album Artist = not a compilation and this overrides the current rule multiple artists = Compilation. I've hacked the code to remove the multiple artists = Compilation and it worked fine (for me) - where there is a album artist, it gets listed there. When I've said it's a compilation it's under Various Artists. The only down side is that every track artist gets displayed in the Artist List which others might dislike. So probably what's really needed is Home-Album Artist listing, but that's another story. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291157 Wrote: iTunes. I'm not talking about multiple artist tags, just multiple artist in one tags. Nonetheless, iTune is still bright enough to list and sort by Album Artist. No it's not. It displays as Band. And it's far from intelligent. Quite awful in fact. Not true. It displays as Album by Artist, what the internal representation of this is I don't care. +---+ |Filename: itune.jpg| |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=4825| +---+ -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291160 Wrote: If I understand correctly, it sounds to me as though bullgod's requirements could be met with the following additional logic: If every track has TRACKARTIST=Artist X (even if some tracks have multiple TRACKARTIST tags) and ALBUMARTIST is not already set, then set ALBUMARTIST=Artist X. No, what he's asking for is not possible, because he has used a single artist name, not multiple artists. It works in iTunes because they have used the frig of using Band to mean album artist, and he's got a single string literal in the band tag for each song (which may contain several artist names in the one band name). The scanner would have to cope with looking for sub-string matches in the artist tags. It would then have to decide that as a substring of each artist string matches for every song, set the album artist to that substring. It would also have to guess when that sub-string is not actually an artist, etc. Eg. an album with songs by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, should not be known as album artist = The . There is no problem to solve in this example. The tags aren't set right. Phil No, it wouldn't. It's already worked who the Album is by. For example in my previous post, the image shows an Album by Frank Sinatra list under Home-Artist-Various Artist there is nothing stopping this Album being listed under HOME-Artist-Frank Sinatra. The scanner does not need to go through the sub string album tags, to find the Album artist. It can use the one explicitly given in the tags. The scanner is demonstrably already determining the correct Album Artist, it's just I question of listing it in the appropriate place. Your example is inappropriate, in that case there is unlikely be an explicit Album Artist, in which case SC can fall back on Various Artists. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JJZolx;291115 Wrote: pfarrell;291088 Wrote: JJZolx wrote: No. There's nothing in the database right now that can't be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch with a library scan. You are correct that the current implementation relies on destroying the database with every scan. This does not mean its a good idea. Its just the current idea. To support the proper handling of complex data structures requires a change in the philosophy of the database. It requires that the database not be treated glibly as ephemeral, but rather its the source of all knowledge, some comes from the tags, some from other sources. I proposed how to do this back in the 5.4 time frame, but the others did not see the need. I believe that the need was there then, and is there now. Technically its not a major code change, but it takes a different mind set. -- pfarrell Pat http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/slimsoftware.html pfarrell's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=200 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291154...You should untick Mp3Tag Options Tags Preserve file modification Time when saving tags.[/QUOTE Wrote: Well, I know that. But I want to be able to use it as it serves good purpose. @snarly jjZolx too. I know that about the allocated tag space also. Point of my post is, there are ways to recognize that the file has changed and re-scan it beyond checking the change date. No need to check all tags either (ZZolx). And the current solution is only half baked. As I said, check how it's done in incremental backup programs. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291228 Wrote: No. I don't think it will. Because I have ALBUM ARTIST set, and that's what I want SC to key on. Most of my desired functionality will be achieved by turning off, or overriding, the logic that says: Albums with tracks where artists aren't all the same, implies an compilation. You're trying to second guess, where there is no need. I've said where I want this album to appear by either setting Album Artist or Compilation explicitly. The logic I want is: if there is a consistent Album Artist = not a compilation and this overrides the current rule multiple artists = Compilation. I've hacked the code to remove the multiple artists = Compilation and it worked fine (for me) - where there is a album artist, it gets listed there. When I've said it's a compilation it's under Various Artists. The only down side is that every track artist gets displayed in the Artist List which others might dislike. So probably what's really needed is Home-Album Artist listing, but that's another story. In order to achieve what you want, just set COMPILATION tag to 0 for every track that contains the artist you DO wish to show on the artist list. I don't like this solution because it is undocumented and it is internal and can change with the next change to scaner code. But still cleaner than changing a code itself. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf wrote: That depends on the program. It can be last-modified-time, size, md4 or some other hash. MD4 is way obsolete. Use at least a SHA1. Computing md4 on every file would be rather time consuming for a fast scan: it should not be the default. I agree it has to be a user control option. But for some folks who care about the database, you have to be able to control, and tell if the song has changed. There is another philosophical question: do you SHA the whole file or just the music parts? -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
pfarrell;291350 Wrote: snarlydwarf wrote: That depends on the program. It can be last-modified-time, size, md4 or some other hash. MD4 is way obsolete. Use at least a SHA1. Computing md4 on every file would be rather time consuming for a fast scan: it should not be the default. I agree it has to be a user control option. But for some folks who care about the database, you have to be able to control, and tell if the song has changed. There is another philosophical question: do you SHA the whole file or just the music parts? -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ I don't know if checksum would be viable option here since it would be faster to do a full clean rescan. However, there are other ways. If I was to design to solution I'd make it user cofigurable: tick whether you want it checked by date, or/and by size and/or by archive attribute and do you want to reset the attribute afterwards and/or buy checksum (but that's going to cost you some time). BTW, mp3tag sets the archive attribute after change to the file has beeen made. I mean, no need to rediscover hot water - those things have been resolved. Just implement them right. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291329 Wrote: @snarly jjZolx too. I know that about the allocated tag space also. Point of my post is, there are ways to recognize that the file has changed and re-scan it beyond checking the change date. No need to check all tags either (ZZolx). And the current solution is only half baked. As I said, check how it's done in incremental backup programs. That depends on the program. It can be last-modified-time, size, md4 or some other hash. Computing md4 on every file would be rather time consuming for a fast scan: it should not be the default. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291332 Wrote: In order to achieve what you want, just set COMPILATION tag to 0 for every track that contains the artist you DO wish to show on the artist list. I don't like this solution because it is undocumented and it is internal and can change with the next change to scaner code. But still cleaner than changing a code itself. K You, too, have missed the point. The point is not that artist fail to appear in the Artist list. The point is to get albums with tracks from different artists to appear under Home-Artist-Album Artist. I already have Compilation = 0 on all these tracks. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
pfarrell;291350 MD4 is way obsolete. Use at least a SHA1. [/QUOTE Wrote: I didn't say that is what I would use. I said that is what programs use in order to do incremental backups when they cannot rely on filesize or modification time. Specifically, rsync uses md4: whether you believe SHA1 is better or not does not change the fact that rsync does incremental backups quite nicely and uses md4 to determine if files are changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync Wrote: The recipient splits its copy of the file into fixed-size non-overlapping chunks, of size S, and computes two checksums for each chunk: the MD4 hash, and a weaker 'rolling checksum'. It sends these checksums to the sender. I agree it has to be a user control option. But for some folks who care about the database, you have to be able to control, and tell if the song has changed. There is another philosophical question: do you SHA the whole file or just the music parts? You should include the tags otherwise we are back where we started. (How come when I use XYZTagger, the changes aren't picked up?). Therfore you must check the entire file. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291362 Wrote: You, too, have missed the point. The point is not that artist fail to appear in the Artist list. The point is to get albums with tracks from different artists to appear under Home-Artist-Album Artist. I already have Compilation = 0 on all these tracks. Then you don't have the album artist set. Perhaps you mean I set what iTunes/Winamp/whatever calls Album Artist, but is really the id3 tag called 'TPE2', and I would like SC to be able to treat TPE2 as Album Artist because I don't want to use another tagger to correct this. Again, there is a ton of confusion here when people refer to 'Album Artist': it is -not- (at present anyway) the same as what Winamp or iTunes uses. Setting it in those programs does not mean SC is using it as such. It -does- work if you set the FLAC tag ALBUMARTIST or TXXX ALBUMARTIST or TXXX MusicBrainz Album Artist... But we keep going around in circles when you say I am setting album artist when really you are not (at least according to id3 specs and SC). -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291362 Wrote: You, too, have missed the point. The point is not that artist fail to appear in the Artist list. The point is to get albums with tracks from different artists to appear under Home-Artist-Album Artist. I already have Compilation = 0 on all these tracks. But they should. Are you sure you are using ALBUMARTIST tag and not BAND tag? Can you check in some specialised software like mp3tag? K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291376 Wrote: But they should. Are you sure you are using ALBUMARTIST tag and not BAND tag? Can you check in some specialised software like mp3tag? K If you look at the picture I posted on page 10 of this thread you will see that irrespective of whatever or wherever the internal representation of the Album Artist is stored SC is reading it and displaying it. So why can't I navigate by it? Look it might be Band it might be something else. I might be persuaded to use some other tool, but Mrs bullgod won't be, neither will 99.9% of the world. The tags are good enough this is proved by SC already knows that 20 Golden Greats is by Frank Sinatra whether this is by band or artist tag doesn't matter, because whichever it is, SC has read it, and is already using that tag. To say that I have to know to navigate to Various Artists in order to play this album, just because Shirley MacLaine sang on one track, is utter madness. And that's all that requires going: (optionally) removing the test that makes this album a compilation, would fix my world. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
FYI, to possibly add to the confusion. :D Mp3tag, a leading tagging tool, maps what is calls BAND to MP3 IDv2.3 TPE2. This is fairly normal. It also directly maps it's BAND variable to WM/AlbumArtist for WMA content, and to the aART atom for M4A content. (These two are real Album Artist tags.) So, at least for 3 media formats with non-'free-form tagging (MP3, WMA M4A)... in Mp3tag, what it calls BAND is really Album Artist based on the cross-mapping. Anyway, like it or not, TPE2 is a popular de facto standard for Album Aritst for MP3. iTunes, WinAmp, Mp3Tag, MediaMonkey, Sonos, Rockbox, Explorer shell, WMP 10/11, etc. It's a shame ID3v2 was half-baked at design, but we're stuck with it. Slim should offer a simple setting to treat TPE2 MP3 as Album Artist as much as WMA WM/AlbumArtist and M4A aART. -- grommet grommet's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5959 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
bullgod;291385 Wrote: ...Look it might be Band it might be something else. I might be persuaded to use some other tool, but Mrs bullgod won't be, neither will 99.9% of the world. ... Look, that has been beaten up in this thread already. It is now in SD hands to do something about it. Will they - I don't know. The question is, whether you are going to do something about it for yourself, or you intend to sit there and cry with 99.9% of the world. If former, I'm offering you a solution. If not, well ... And as far as Mrs bullgod is concerned (respect), something tells me that she might be even happier if you took tagging fine tuning completely out of her hands and did it for her. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Not true. It displays as Album by Artist, what the internal representation of this is I don't care. That image is a picture of iTunes - what relevance has that to the content of your SqueezeCenter library? Out of curiosity, what version of iTunes do you use? I have v7.6.2.9 which allows the user to show Artist, Album Artist and/or Sort Album Artist. I can't see an Album by Artist column like yours. Either way, whenever you see album artist in iTunes, for mp3 files it's actually the Band tag that it is stored in, due to it mis-using that tag. Album Artist is the column title that you can see in the grid, and it groups songs in the list by that when in album view display mode, but that's about all that iTunes will do with it. eg. if you set an album artist, it won't appear in the artist filter. Only the content of artists appears in the list, and you get all artists even if they only appear on one song in a compilation. So in iTunes if you have an album with songs by different artists, and set it as not a compilation album and set an album artist (really this is band), then that band will not appear in the list of artists. SqueezeCenter is much more intelligent and conformant to standards. I dare say that something will be changed to allow it to work in a non-standard way to make it act like iTunes. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291416 Wrote: Out of curiosity, what version of iTunes do you use? I have v7.6.2.9 which allows the user to show Artist, Album Artist and/or Sort Album Artist. I can't see an Album by Artist column like yours.Album by Artist is a sort view. Click on the Album column header and it'll swap between Album, Album by Artist Album By Fear as you click. Album Artist is the column title that you can see in the grid, and it groups songs in the list by that when in album view display mode, but that's about all that iTunes will do with it. eg. if you set an album artist, it won't appear in the artist filter. Only the content of artists appears in the list, and you get all artists even if they only appear on one song in a compilation. So in iTunes if you have an album with songs by different artists, and set it as not a compilation album and set an album artist (really this is band), then that band will not appear in the list of artists.Regretably, Album Artist is barely used in the UI. It's completely ignored in the retro Quick View, too. The Cover Flow view, however, depends and uses it. -- grommet grommet's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5959 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
I don't know if checksum would be viable option here since it would be faster to do a full clean rescan. However, there are other ways. If I was to design to solution I'd make it user cofigurable: tick whether you want it checked by date, or/and by size and/or by archive attribute and do you want to reset the attribute afterwards and/or buy checksum (but that's going to cost you some time). BTW, mp3tag sets the archive attribute after change to the file has beeen made. I mean, no need to rediscover hot water - those things have been resolved. Just implement them right. Yes, you could calculate a checksum, read it from the database, and if different read the file content again. Pretty pointless - a full rescan would be faster! Yes, you could check archive bits, and providing you are on windows, and you have a tagger tool that sets it, that would work. It's not cross platform, and if you rip a new CD and don't need to check tags, you'll also need a ripper that sets the archive bit correctly. If you do backups that mess with the archive bit, that will also affect your next rescan. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Album by Artist is a sort view. Click on the Album column header and it'll swap between Album, Album by Artist Album By Fear as you click. Ah, thanks! It's another dodgy iTunes hack. It's only possible to sort by clicking on one column header, so when you want to sort by artist and then by album, you click on the album column twice to filter by album artist and then by album. It's not possible to sort descending. Sorting by Album By Fear sounds interesting. Does it put the scariest albums at the top or bottom :-) Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Phil Meyer wrote: I don't know if checksum would be viable option here since it would be faster to do a full clean rescan. Yes, you could calculate a checksum, read it from the database, and if different read the file content again. Pretty pointless - a full rescan would be faster! Its not about the speed, or just about the speed. The concept of 'just do a rescan' is very limiting. To move past it, you have to consider other data sources than the tags. Yes, you could check archive bits, and providing you are on windows, and you have a tagger tool that sets it, that would work. It's not cross platform And its not really robust. It will get the naive users in trouble, which is exactly what you don't want to do with something as important and complex as proper library management. Pat ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;291506 Wrote: Sorting by Album By Fear sounds interesting. Does it put the scariest albums at the top or bottom :-)Yeah, I fixed that. :) Though that might be handy in a future release... ;-) It's not possible to sort descending.Get ready for this one: You click on the little arrow at the end of column header to switch between ascend and descend. -- grommet grommet's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=5959 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Get ready for this one: You click on the little arrow at the end of column header to switch between ascend and descend. How about that, you learn something new each day. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: Please, please, please can the issue of which tags, which version of tags etc but put aside for one thread. I'm afraid not - it's kind of fundamental. Whilst a user may not want to care about tags, if music doesn't have tags, they can't really hope for songs to appear in the library 100% how they expect. If some tags are set (automatically when you rip them), music may appear reasonably well in a library, but may need some tailoring to be perfect for how *you* want them to appear. This is likely to be the case for your problem. It's likely that you Can you please consider the users' perspective we don't care if the tag is Band, AlbumArtist or what ever. From a users' perspective, you must appreciate that you need to set something in your tags for it to look correct in your library. If you don't then you shouldn't care if it doesn't work 100% how you want it. The fact remains that stated way of working: -if the album is natural compilation multiple authors and there is album artist it is listed under album artist. I don't quite understand what you mean in that sentence. The album is deemed to be a compilation album if not all of the artists on all songs are the same, and thus will appear as album artist=Various Artists. Irrespective of whether this is Band tag, ALBUMARTIST it doesn't matter, because this functionality is still broken! Don't understand what you mean. Such an Album is still found under: Home-Artists-Various Artists (albeit listed as by the album artist). If you are looking in Home Artists Various Artists, all albums listed in there are by album artist = Various Artists. You won't see any album artists within Various Artists. And it is not listed under Home-Artists-album artist. Where it is wanted. Then fix your tags! No other music library software that I have used will interpret this correctly either. In fact, most other software wouldn't let you have multiple artists. You must have tagged that song specifically to have two performing artists, so you must already know something about tagging. If you'd not set the guest artist, the album would have been detected with album artist = My Favourite Band. Actually, I suspect that you haven't actually defined two artists on the song, but one artist called something like My Favourite Band and Guest Artist. For example: My Favourite Band, creates an album called Debut, all tracks are by My Favourite Band, the album by My Favourite Band, but the last track they are joined by Guest Artist That last track makes the software think that the album is a compilation album, because the last song isn't by the same artists as all of the other songs. That is why you need to set an albumartist tag. The scanner doesn't second-guess how you want that album to appear. This is the real problem, not the internal representation of the band's name. This is your problem, caused by the information in your song tags. Phil Mine work the same as his does. I always us albumartist and I leave the artist as the actual performer. I like this because in most programs this will show who is actually performing in the now playing list. But in Squeeze db a few of them or put in the Various Artist section because of one or two guest artists. There is no compilation tag set and the Albumartist is not set as Various Artist but as the Performer who's album it is. I do actually tag albums that are all various artists as Various Artist in the albumartist tag, but with others it makes no sense to call the artist Various Artist because of a song or two by a guest. I'd like to have the album grouped with the main artists albums. I'm not losing my mind over this but I'm telling you it's not a problem with my tags but with the way the Squeeze server deals with it. I think the presence of an album artist tag should override the compilation setup they now have. If there isn't a albumartist tag use the current method , if there is use the tag. Oh and I'm really not sure how you can tell someone it's automatically their fault when you haven't seen their tags. Also many other programs allow you to have multiple artists as in an artist and album artist. I have Mediamonkey automatically move and keep all my music by album artist. Db poweramp rips to my collection by album artist and in all my players the artist tag shows who is performing in any givin song. It just makes sense to organize this way, it keeps your albums in the right folder and shows the current performer on playback. But I also know it's very confusing as to standards and individual programs interpretations. I'm not losing my mind over this, but it would be nice to have it all laid out so a person can try to adapt if possible. -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-*
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
The discussion of tags and their interpretation is entirely different to the main problem, there are too many developers here who are missing the other, and more important problem: usability. Please, please, please can the issue of which tags, which version of tags etc but put aside for one thread. Can you please consider the users' perspective we don't care if the tag is Band, AlbumArtist or what ever. That is the angels on a pinhead issue. You are missing the mote in your eye: The fact remains that stated way of working: -if the album is natural compilation multiple authors and there is album artist it is listed under album artist. Irrespective of whether this is Band tag, ALBUMARTIST it doesn't matter, because this functionality is still broken! Such an Album is still found under: Home-Artists-Various Artists (albeit listed as by the album artist). And it is not listed under Home-Artists-album artist. Where it is wanted. For example: My Favourite Band, creates an album called Debut, all tracks are by My Favourite Band, the album by My Favourite Band, but the last track they are joined by Guest Artist Currently album Debut is listed as being by My Favourite Band. But because of the last track this album is found under Home-Artists-Various Artists - it's listed as Debut by My Favourite Band - but it's in the wrong place. If I navigate to Home-Artists-My Favourite Band album Debut is not there. This is the real problem, not the internal representation of the band's name. -- bullgod bullgod's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9916 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
The discussion of tags and their interpretation is entirely different to the main problem, there are too many developers here who are missing the other, and more important problem: usability. I'm sorry, but I disagree. I believe developers are very conscious of usability, and do a good job of catering for all people. I don't believe there is a big problem with usability. Whilst I sympathise with you about your problem (I'll try to help), it is a different problem to the one discussed in this thread. Please, please, please can the issue of which tags, which version of tags etc but put aside for one thread. I'm afraid not - it's kind of fundamental. Whilst a user may not want to care about tags, if music doesn't have tags, they can't really hope for songs to appear in the library 100% how they expect. If some tags are set (automatically when you rip them), music may appear reasonably well in a library, but may need some tailoring to be perfect for how *you* want them to appear. This is likely to be the case for your problem. It's likely that you Can you please consider the users' perspective we don't care if the tag is Band, AlbumArtist or what ever. From a users' perspective, you must appreciate that you need to set something in your tags for it to look correct in your library. If you don't then you shouldn't care if it doesn't work 100% how you want it. The fact remains that stated way of working: -if the album is natural compilation multiple authors and there is album artist it is listed under album artist. I don't quite understand what you mean in that sentence. The album is deemed to be a compilation album if not all of the artists on all songs are the same, and thus will appear as album artist=Various Artists. Irrespective of whether this is Band tag, ALBUMARTIST it doesn't matter, because this functionality is still broken! Don't understand what you mean. Such an Album is still found under: Home-Artists-Various Artists (albeit listed as by the album artist). If you are looking in Home Artists Various Artists, all albums listed in there are by album artist = Various Artists. You won't see any album artists within Various Artists. And it is not listed under Home-Artists-album artist. Where it is wanted. Then fix your tags! No other music library software that I have used will interpret this correctly either. In fact, most other software wouldn't let you have multiple artists. You must have tagged that song specifically to have two performing artists, so you must already know something about tagging. If you'd not set the guest artist, the album would have been detected with album artist = My Favourite Band. Actually, I suspect that you haven't actually defined two artists on the song, but one artist called something like My Favourite Band and Guest Artist. For example: My Favourite Band, creates an album called Debut, all tracks are by My Favourite Band, the album by My Favourite Band, but the last track they are joined by Guest Artist That last track makes the software think that the album is a compilation album, because the last song isn't by the same artists as all of the other songs. That is why you need to set an albumartist tag. The scanner doesn't second-guess how you want that album to appear. This is the real problem, not the internal representation of the band's name. This is your problem, caused by the information in your song tags. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: The discussion of tags and their interpretation is entirely different to the main problem, there are too many developers here who are missing the other, and more important problem: usability. I'm sorry, but I disagree. I believe developers are very conscious of usability, and do a good job of catering for all people. I don't believe there is a big problem with usability. Whilst I sympathise with you about your problem (I'll try to help), it is a different problem to the one discussed in this thread. ... Hi Philip. It does indeed look like this thread is becoming too broad to be effective, and that there are a lot of various issues with tagging that concern a customer. I'm deliberately not going to use a term 'average', 'typical' 'advanced' e.t.c., just a customer - person who doesn't need to concern themselves with the internal workings of SC. However, I'm assuming here that anybody with complex tagging needs would be willing to separate tagging as a step in 'music obtaining process', use dedicated tagging program and do some custom tagging. While I'm sure that developers do their best to make very usable code, they will do it within the bounds of their musical interests, experiences and musical collections, probably do the testing the same way and slowly drift off. Surely, there are people in SC's customer base who's needs (or wants) are more complex than what the developers could imagine. So, how about creating some form of case study - a separate thread (best in 'ripping/tagging' forum) that would discuss various tagging scenarios and provide solution(s) to the best approach? Ideally, make it a sticky and set up some rules how to present a scenario and how to suggest a solution. Maybe make somebody powerful enough to go in there from time to time and swipe the noise. If we find some scenario that doesnt' have good solution, then raise a ticket or enhancement request. I wouldn't mind making serious contribution there as I have a library of a couple of thousands meticulously tagged classical tracks and there I have encountered most of the real world scenarios one is likely to hit. Now, back to the internals of the code. There are two things that are purely developers prospective/error (IMO) here that I could see going through the code: - scanner. Last time I mentioned that its functionality to recognize changed tracks isn't good enough - does it solely based on file update date vs last scan date. I suggested doing it also based on size, archive attribute or checksum. Well, going through the code, surprise, surprise - there's a comment there that states: # When rescanning: we need to find files: # # * That are new - not in the db # * That have changed - are in the db, but timestamp or size is different. A code following it handles timestamp but not size. So they even knew that there was a problem but for some reason choose not to solve it. - concept and handling of 'track artist' contributor type. Basically, if there is ALBUMARTIST defined for the album, then all ARTISTs become trackartists. There is no connection between the guy who is ARTIST on one and trackartist on another album. It is not possible to flow (or drill down) in SB menu system from trackartist to artist. Now, that might be how the code works, but from real world prospective makes little sense. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
- scanner. Last time I mentioned that its functionality to recognize changed tracks isn't good enough - does it solely based on file update date vs last scan date. Is that not good enough? If tags or actual song data change, most tools that write the content back will cause the last changed timestamp to be updated. - concept and handling of 'track artist' contributor type. Basically, if there is ALBUMARTIST defined for the album, then all ARTISTs become trackartists. There is no connection between the guy who is ARTIST on one and trackartist on another album. It is not possible to flow (or drill down) in SB menu system from trackartist to artist. Now, that might be how the code works, but from real world prospective makes little sense. I always thought that the track artist contributor type was a little strange, or at least that artists performing on a song when there is no album artist should also be called track artists. Not sure why there is a distinction, but I'm guessing it is to do with whether a user wants to show all track artists in the browse by artist list, or to only show album artists. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: The discussion of tags and their interpretation is entirely different to the main problem, there are too many developers here who are missing the other, and more important problem: usability. I'm sorry, but I disagree. I believe developers are very conscious of usability, and do a good job of catering for all people. I don't believe there is a big problem with usability. Whilst I sympathise with you about your problem (I'll try to help), it is a different problem to the one discussed in this thread. Perhaps, but is this thread not the continuation of a thread that I began? Do you want me to start an other thread? As each time I do it get hijacked by discussion of internal representation. Look I believe there is a major problem of usability. It has nothing to do with the internal representation of the band or album artist, and every time I try to bring it up, the discussion misses the point, and goes off on the matter of tags. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: Please, please, please can the issue of which tags, which version of tags etc but put aside for one thread. I'm afraid not - it's kind of fundamental. Whilst a user may not want to care about tags, if music doesn't have tags, they can't really hope for songs to appear in the library 100% how they expect. If some tags are set (automatically when you rip them), music may appear reasonably well in a library, but may need some tailoring to be perfect for how *you* want them to appear. This is likely to be the case for your problem. OK. I will try to clarify, again. If it turns about to be a problem with my tags I will accept that. However I strongly, not very strongly believe that tags are not the problem. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: Can you please consider the users' perspective we don't care if the tag is Band, AlbumArtist or what ever. From a users' perspective, you must appreciate that you need to set something in your tags for it to look correct in your library. If you don't then you shouldn't care if it doesn't work 100% how you want it. Yes, tags should be correct. Garbage in, Garbage out. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: The fact remains that stated way of working: -if the album is natural compilation multiple authors and there is album artist it is listed under album artist. I don't quite understand what you mean in that sentence. I was paraphrasing a previous post where it was stated that: if not all of the artists on all songs are the same, and thus will appear as album artist. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: The album is deemed to be a compilation album if not all of the artists on all songs are the same, and thus will appear as album artist=Various Artists. I know this is what it currently does. Where is that specified and what is the mechanism for changing it? What I'm asking for is for something different because this is SO broken I don't know where to start, but I'll try. It's also open to interpretation: then album might appear under Home-Artist-Various Artists, but there it is listed as being by the Album Artist. And if such an album is listed as by Album Artist, would not a more sensible place for it to appear be under Home-Artist-Album Artist ? Snip Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: Such an Album is still found under: Home-Artists-Various Artists (albeit listed as by the album artist). If you are looking in Home - Artists - Various Artists, all albums listed in there are by album artist = Various Artists. You won't see any album artists within Various Artists. Not True. See attached image. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: And it is not listed under Home-Artists-album artist. Where it is wanted. Then fix your tags! No other music library software that I have used will interpret this correctly either. In fact, most other software wouldn't let you have multiple artists. iTunes. I'm not talking about multiple artist tags, just multiple artist in one tags. Nonetheless, iTune is still bright enough to list and sort by Album Artist. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: You must have tagged that song specifically to have two performing artists, so you must already know something about tagging. If you'd not set the guest artist, the album would have been detected with album artist = My Favourite Band. Actually, I suspect that you haven't actually defined two artists on the song, but one artist called something like My Favourite Band and Guest Artist. Yes! So? this is perfectly valid. But here's the problem. Doing so makes the Album Artist almost entirely pointless. And makes the album a Compilation. This is broken. Philip Meyer;290932 Wrote: bullgod;290899 Wrote: For example: My
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
If I understand correctly, it sounds to me as though bullgod's requirements could be met with the following additional logic: If every track has TRACKARTIST=Artist X (even if some tracks have multiple TRACKARTIST tags) and ALBUMARTIST is not already set, then set ALBUMARTIST=Artist X. You'd want to exclude the extreme cases where there is more than one artist that every track is tagged with. -- smc2911 http://www.last.fm/user/smc2911/ smc2911's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
I've been using album artist to keep albums together and artist so that I could see who is on the track. I started with Itunes, then went to Media Monkey and I use mp3tag to correct everything. It was with mp3tag that I discovered that I had to use band to see album artist. I didn't know about mp3 standards, just didn't know that it was my job to find out that my programs didn't use standards correctly. Now after wondering why some of my albums end up as Various Artists and trying to fix, I find out that one different track artist will make that happen no matter what you have in album artist. Someone earlier had said: As stated earlier, give as clear set of rules and I'll adjust. No problem - SC is my most important application and I'll adjust mu use of tags to it. Just don't make me change it again and again and force me to numerous recans just to try to figure out how it works using try and miss method. This would have been nice and maybe it's there somewhere, but I can only read and search so much. I think an option to have squeezebox scan differently would be a good thing. I don't use Itunes anymore so I don't use that switch but I think a lot of people organize by Album Artist so they can keep the artist tag accurate to the song. Anyway I'll adapt, but just need to know how to adapt the right way. -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Hey I just became a member instead of a junior member! Pops cork! OK I'll leave now. :) -- Nonreality *-If the rule you followed brought you to this, what good is the rule.-* Nonreality's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=15723 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290980 Wrote: - scanner. Last time I mentioned that its functionality to recognize changed tracks isn't good enough - does it solely based on file update date vs last scan date. Is that not good enough? If tags or actual song data change, most tools that write the content back will cause the last changed timestamp to be updated. No it isn't good enough. Quite contrary. The most advertised tagging program here, mp3tag, allows not to change a file update date (preserves it, to be exact) when changing tags. Purpose of this would be that, when using New Music option (one very useful and well though of feature), album doesn't get to be included just because I changed a tag; New Music playlist remains filled in chronological order of ripping and adding to library. Even file size wouldn't cut it as it looks (at least in flac) that some tagging space is already allocated, so that file size isn't going to change with updating tags. Philip Meyer;290980 Wrote: - concept and handling of 'track artist' contributor type. Basically, if there is ALBUMARTIST defined for the album, then all ARTISTs become trackartists. There is no connection between the guy who is ARTIST on one and trackartist on another album. It is not possible to flow (or drill down) in SB menu system from trackartist to artist. Now, that might be how the code works, but from real world prospective makes little sense. I always thought that the track artist contributor type was a little strange, or at least that artists performing on a song when there is no album artist should also be called track artists. Not sure why there is a distinction, but I'm guessing it is to do with whether a user wants to show all track artists in the browse by artist list, or to only show album artists. Phil It works fine for not showing artists in the artist list if that is their only performance. However, it also doesn't allow you to go (following artist link, drilling down by tag) to other albums of that artist if there are any. For example (I'm repeating myself, but this was obviously missed before, and it clearly shows that the concept is incomplete): Album 'Genius Loves Company' by Ray Charles. Every track is performed as duet with some other (fairly known artist). So, there is a track with Diana Krall. Now, I tagged it with Ray Charles as ALBUMARTIST for every track (the whole album) and ARTIST on each track being the other performer. During the scan, those artists are converted (assigned role) to trackartist (that is not a tag per se, but a role and a literal in browser and in SB menu). Album will be listed by Ray Charles (fine), maybe under various artists too (fine), and none of the artists won't show in browse by artist listing (that's also fine). However, I have a couple more albums where Diana Krall is the artist (the only one, so albums are listed by Diana Krall). Problem is that Diana Krall from Ray Charles' album doesn't see her other albums if I browse by tag artist (trackartist, that is) while listening to that track. Interestingly enough, if I had another album where Diana is also a guest artist, those two albums would see each other (and still none of big albums by Diana). Now, there is solution to this problem, but not suggested on this site and not suggested in user documentation. I got to it analyzing the code, so it doesn't qualify as targeted to the end user. K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;291079 Wrote: No it isn't good enough. Quite contrary. The most advertised tagging program here, mp3tag, allows not to change a file update date (preserves it, to be exact) when changing tags. Purpose of this would be that, when using New Music option (one very useful and well though of feature), album doesn't get to be included just because I changed a tag; New Music playlist remains filled in chronological order of ripping and adding to library. Even file size wouldn't cut it as it looks (at least in flac) that some tagging space is already allocated, so that file size isn't going to change with updating tags. No way that's going to happen. There's no way to do it without examining the tags in every file. Who wants a scan for new music to take as long as a full scan, which is what would happen if every file is examined in detail? Just do a clear/rescan if you're in the habit of changing files without updating their mtime. If SqueezeCenter ever gets to the point where clearing the database (which takes just a split second) is undesirable or unnecessary then add a third scan option to do a full scan without first clearing the database. -- JJZolx Jim JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290980 Wrote: - concept and handling of 'track artist' contributor type. Basically, if there is ALBUMARTIST defined for the album, then all ARTISTs become trackartists. There is no connection between the guy who is ARTIST on one and trackartist on another album. It is not possible to flow (or drill down) in SB menu system from trackartist to artist. Now, that might be how the code works, but from real world prospective makes little sense. I always thought that the track artist contributor type was a little strange, or at least that artists performing on a song when there is no album artist should also be called track artists. Not sure why there is a distinction, but I'm guessing it is to do with whether a user wants to show all track artists in the browse by artist list, or to only show album artists. Strange. Inconsistent. Unnecessary. Take your pick. -- JJZolx Jim JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JJZolx wrote: If SqueezeCenter ever gets to the point where clearing the database (which takes just a split second) is undesirable or unnecessary then add a third scan option to do a full scan without first clearing the database. Clearly the database is already undesirable. We just haven't gotten folks to accept that. The database should be the repository of data, some from the tags, some from other sources. There is no possible way to handle the rich data needs of a complex library, especially for genres other than pop/rock/country with tags. All of these many discussions/threads and confusion will go away when we just stop thinking that the tags are the only source of data. Its a relational database. It can do nearly anything. There is no hope for a hierarchical tag based solution to do what we really need. -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Sorry, typo alert Pat Farrell wrote: JJZolx wrote: If SqueezeCenter ever gets to the point where clearing the database (which takes just a split second) is undesirable or unnecessary then add a third scan option to do a full scan without first clearing the database. Clearly the database is already undesirable. We just haven't gotten ^^ Should have been Clearing the database is already undesirable. We just haven't gotten folks to accept that. The database should be the repository of data, some from the tags, some from other sources. There is no possible way to handle the rich data needs of a complex library, especially for genres other than pop/rock/country with tags. All of these many discussions/threads and confusion will go away when we just stop thinking that the tags are the only source of data. Its a relational database. It can do nearly anything. There is no hope for a hierarchical tag based solution to do what we really need. The database should not be reset glibly. Its a data source. It needs to contain data that is not in the tags. -- Pat Farrell http://www.pfarrell.com/ ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;290974 Wrote: A code following it handles timestamp but not size. So they even knew that there was a problem but for some reason choose not to solve it. Most likely removed to speed up rescans and because it isn't as useful as you would think. Most taggers pad. This is true not only of mp3 tags but also flac: By default metaflac tries to use padding where possible to avoid rewriting the entire file if the metadata size changes. Use this option to tell metaflac to not take advantage of padding this way. So it is very possible to change tags and not have the filesize change. In fact, in many if not most cases (unless you write a ton of tags, such as with Picard and all the MB tags), the file size won't change due to padding. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
pfarrell;291088 Wrote: JJZolx wrote: If SqueezeCenter ever gets to the point where clearing the database (which takes just a split second) is undesirable or unnecessary then add a third scan option to do a full scan without first clearing the database. Clearing the database is already undesirable. We just haven't gotten folks to accept that. No. There's nothing in the database right now that can't be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch with a library scan. At some point in the future maybe this will not be the case - such as for ratings. But even with ratings, developers are (wisely) devising schemes that will survive a complete wipe of the database. As to whether it's unnecessary... there are unfortunately still situations that require it. Artwork problems immediately come to mind. We still even have SD support telling people to uninstall, delete everything, and reinstall, to fix some problems. The database should be the repository of data, some from the tags, some from other sources. That might be nice. Like the plugin someone did to let you enter and manage sort strings for contributors that lives in a database outside of the tags. No need then for things like ALBUMARTISTSORT, COMPOSERSORT, BANDSORT. But when that day comes I'd imaging 'clearing' the database would then just selectively clear it. Keep the data in the ratings table, for instance, but delete all tracks and albums. There is no possible way to handle the rich data needs of a complex library, especially for genres other than pop/rock/country with tags. All of these many discussions/threads and confusion will go away when we just stop thinking that the tags are the only source of data. Its a relational database. It can do nearly anything. There is no hope for a hierarchical tag based solution to do what we really need. Perhaps. I certainly don't see any movement in the software, though, toward this end. -- JJZolx Jim JJZolx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Hi MrSinatra, please, help me understand one thing about all this issue. You claim that you can't use existing features regarding the BAND option. I understand that ALBUMARTIST would work for you (I'm talking internal tags). Now, from a limited number of mp3 files I have, it looks like it is easy to include ALBUMARTIST tag into ID3V2.3 tags. So, what's preventing you from doing it - convert your BAND tags to ALBUMARTIST (I used mp3tag tool for that) and be done with it. What am I missing here? K -- slimkid The sound stage will open up, bass will tighten and the imaging will improve. DVD performance will also increase substantially. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAj2aPdQnk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvMNuuFSvN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDRhRv4q_SI http://youtube.com/watch?v=nlrpe8Ig5m8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=dC9tGlwPln8 slimkid's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=8881 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
slimkid;290187 Wrote: Hi MrSinatra, please, help me understand one thing about all this issue. You claim that you can't use existing features regarding the BAND option. I understand that ALBUMARTIST would work for you (I'm talking internal tags). Now, from a limited number of mp3 files I have, it looks like it is easy to include ALBUMARTIST tag into ID3V2.3 tags. So, what's preventing you from doing it - convert your BAND tags to ALBUMARTIST (I used mp3tag tool for that) and be done with it. What am I missing here? K i know its a lot of posts, but i already explained this. i already have TPE2 tags. they already are the way i need them to be if SC7 would only use them for sorting, and not just labeling. i do not see why i must get yet another program and retag all my stuff AND all new future stuff. its a pointless and unnecessary extra step. if this were simply a case of island sinatra then i would do it, but its not. a lot, if not the majority of the mp3 marketplace is in the same boat i am in. that being the case, SC7 should recognize and respect a defacto standard that affects a lot of people, dare i say, the majority. its no different than having SC7 respect the much smaller minority of mp3 users who use the Txxx user defined mp3 fields, but are still a defacto standard, just of a different type (which are just as non-standard as using TPE2 as the 'Album Artist' field). people do download and try this SC7 stuff out, and if it doesn't work as they believe (and i agree) they think it reasonably should, then they'll ditch slim, with nary a complaint to anyone. that should be avoided at all costs. i want slim to succeed. more purchasers make this stuff cheaper. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
MrSinatra;290193 Wrote: i do not see why i must get yet another program and retag all my stuff AND all new future stuff. its a pointless and unnecessary extra step. You would probably want to anyway: to change TCMP (unless you went to iTunes to change just that one tag), to add various sort options (ie, ARTISTSORT: does WinAmp support that? As what tag?), and because its a heck of a lot easier using mp3tag to change every track in an album (or even a set of albums) than WinAmp. Especially when as far as I can see, WinAmp does not provide for setting artistsort or albumsort type tags at all. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf;290194 Wrote: You would probably want to anyway: to change TCMP (unless you went to iTunes to change just that one tag), to add various sort options (ie, ARTISTSORT: does WinAmp support that? As what tag?), and because its a heck of a lot easier using mp3tag to change every track in an album (or even a set of albums) than WinAmp. Especially when as far as I can see, WinAmp does not provide for setting artistsort or albumsort type tags at all. this is what i am trying to say, i DON'T want to. i do not use or need those tags! i don't need or use artistsort, albumsort, or TCMP. all i need is for SC7 to give me an option, one way or another, to sort my albums via my existing TPE2 tags. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JJZolx;290171 Wrote: Sounds like the following is needed (my apolgies to Mr Sinatra if he already stated this, but I gave up on trying to sift through all those very long replies quite a while ago): First, there's something we'd have to come to agreement on: There just isn't a whole lot of use for _displaying_ BAND as the byline for an album when you're not also sorting by that name. I can't see anyone wanting/needing this behavior with Flac/Ogg/Ape files when they have the ALBUMARTIST tag readily available. So... - We clarify the option to mean: Use id3v2 tags' TPE2 (Band) to be equivalent to AlbumArtist in Mp3 files. Move it out from under the 'Compilation' heading. I would suggest creating maybe an 'Mp3 Tags' heading, or possibly a 'Scanning Options' heading or page. So the option would no longer refer to using the BAND role for display purposes. It would designate how to treat a certain Mp3 tag. - When the option is set, map TPE2 directly to the ALBUMARTIST role. When not set, leave it as BAND. - Permit sorting of albums by BAND in the manner suggested (somewhere) previously. By using a hierarchy of ALBUMARTIST, BAND, VA, ARTIST(s) when determining the album's primary contributor. I believe this is the approach suggested by Philip in 'bug 6490' (http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=6490). It permits you to maintain contributor roles of both BAND and ALBUMARTIST except when needed for dealing with TPE2 tags. So here's the issue, as I see it (personally speaking--I'm still waiting for enough info to make a professional call on it): Band was never supposed to be used for AlbumArtist, but it's been co-opted to this task by several applications. Given that, some people would like SqueezeCenter to optionally normalize Band (TPE2) to our internal ALBUMARTIST tag. That seems innocent enough a request, but Snarly pointed out this issue: snarlydwarf;290065 Wrote: The code that uses that flag is Schema::Album::artist. It is used precisely once, and makes no reference to TPE2, since that is called long after tags are normalized. So, yes, any change to how that flag works now would affect all formats that had a BAND tag. From the comments, if there is no ALBUMARTIST assigned to an album, and it is trying to figure out who to attribute it to for listing, it returns the BAND. It is never sorted, it is only displayed. Note this is only for listing. Unless I missed something, this is the only place this is used, and only affects the HTML generation. This was most likely meant to be used for a case like this: Album: Brandenburg Concertos . Artist: JS Bach . TPE2: Duluth Harmonica Quintet To distinguish it from: Album: Brandenburg Concertos . Artist: JS Bach . TPE2: Cleveland Symphony Orchestra That set of tags (indent means 'these are tracks',... and yes I skipped a ton of tags that are irrelevant to the illustration) would display: Brandenburg Concertos (Duluth Harmonica Quintet) Brandenburg Concertos (Cleveland Symphony Orchestra) which lets you distinguish between the two. (And, yeah, yeah, Bach should not be TPE1/Artist, but for a lot of people that tagging scheme makes more sense in their collection and tastes.) So there you have what the flag does... it is simply for display and is useful to seperate similarly named works when 'albumartist' is not really the correct setting. Which also seems reasonable enough (as well as a pretty apt description of what actually happens). I'm of the mindset--again, personally speaking--that the esoterica of these kinds of tags are so user- and application-specific that we really should not change much, in terms of the current behavior, but should better document how tags are used to people can mash their tags about in a fashion that works for them. As I stated at the very beginning of this thread, SC's handling of tags is either perfect, acceptable, or broken depending on your individual use of tags, music collection, and expectations of the result. Any change will likely just change the members in each of these sets, rather than eliminate the broken set. Given that, I'm working internally to gather as much information as possible to be able to suggest the lowest impact changes to how things are handled. Otherwise, we're right back here with a different set of users complaining about the way it works. However, I encourage the community to continue to debate this topic as it is very informative, both to the team here and to other users. Mr. Sinatra, I truly don't mean to be offensive, but just because an application with a big market share (like iTunes) handles tags a certain way doesn't make it the way all applications should handle tags. We support more music tag and file formats than iTunes and can't simply change things because a small, but vocal, group of forum posters thinks we should. As someone
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
MrSinatra;290160 Wrote: that was to jim, and i agree there is no TPE2 to ALBUMARTIST mapping, but my question is where are you saying the show band if ALBUMARTIST isn't defined option is? Exactly where I said it was... in Schema::Album::artist, and it is only used for -display-. It is the flag you are going on about where you insist it means TPE2, not BAND. Again, at that point in the code, the scanning is long done. It is displaying a web page or sending something to the SB3/SBC to display. It has no concept of mp3, FLAC, APE, whatever: just the already parsed tags, and it refers to BAND. Not TPE2. Hence why calling it TPE2 in the help is wrong: it isn't. That is only for MP3, and the checkbox affects -all- formats. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
MrSinatra;290193 Wrote: i know its a lot of posts, but i already explained this. i already have TPE2 tags. they already are the way i need them to be if SC7 would only use them for sorting, and not just labeling. i do not see why i must get yet another program and retag all my stuff AND all new future stuff. its a pointless and unnecessary extra step. if this were simply a case of island sinatra then i would do it, but its not. a lot, if not the majority of the mp3 marketplace is in the same boat i am in. that being the case, SC7 should recognize and respect a defacto standard that affects a lot of people, dare i say, the majority. its no different than having SC7 respect the much smaller minority of mp3 users who use the Txxx user defined mp3 fields, but are still a defacto standard, just of a different type (which are just as non-standard as using TPE2 as the 'Album Artist' field). people do download and try this SC7 stuff out, and if it doesn't work as they believe (and i agree) they think it reasonably should, then they'll ditch slim, with nary a complaint to anyone. that should be avoided at all costs. i want slim to succeed. more purchasers make this stuff cheaper. First, respecting the Txxx user defined tag IS NOT the same as mapping an existing tag to a different use. That tag is mapped directly to its intended use; it is not redefined to mean something else internally. The TPE2 tag is also used exactly as it was intended--to display the band information when appropriate (see Snarly's example for how that works). Have you suggested to the good folks at Apple that *their* implementation of ID3 tags is not correct? How about ID3.org--have you tried discussing with them the fact they didn't do a very good job of defining useful tags for anything other than a standard, non-compilation album? Seriously. Do you think they even care that they've made this mess? The mantra that SqueezeCenter should conform to some other application's broken (i.e., not conforming to standards) implementation is getting a bit strident. We may decide to do that, but I don't find the argument that itunes does it so you should too to be very compelling. Nor do I think this problem is a significant inhibitor to our success at this point. But rest assured I get the message that you want what you perceive as the majority of MP3 files supported the way you think is correct. You may stop flogging that horse now; it's long past deceased. We're looking at what would make sense, given our current user base, our target audience, our product requirements, and our resources. Once I have all the information we need, we'll put together a proposal and gather feedback on it. I'll make sure we get you involved in that process as I'd like to see if we can reasonably accommodate your request without creating an overly-complex user experience or breaking things for other users. -= Jim -- JimC well, she wasn't all of that, but she sure was some of that. -- BKlaas' college buddy JimC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JimC;290195 Wrote: So here's the issue, as I see it (personally speaking--I'm still waiting for enough info to make a professional call on it): Band was never supposed to be used for AlbumArtist, but it's been co-opted to this task by several applications. Given that, some people would like SqueezeCenter to optionally normalize Band (TPE2) to our internal ALBUMARTIST tag. That seems innocent enough a request, but Snarly pointed out this issue: or, sort by SC7s BAND, or whatever method SC7 will allow so that someone can use their TPE2 field in their files for SC7 to sort by. anyway, you quoted snarly here: JimC;290195 Wrote: The code that uses that flag is Schema::Album::artist. It is used precisely once, and makes no reference to TPE2, since that is called long after tags are normalized. So, yes, any change to how that flag works now would affect all formats that had a BAND tag. From the comments, if there is no ALBUMARTIST assigned to an album, and it is trying to figure out who to attribute it to for listing, it returns the BAND. It is never sorted, it is only displayed. Note this is only for listing. Unless I missed something, this is the only place this is used, and only affects the HTML generation. This was most likely meant to be used for a case like this: Album: Brandenburg Concertos . Artist: JS Bach . TPE2: Duluth Harmonica Quintet To distinguish it from: Album: Brandenburg Concertos . Artist: JS Bach . TPE2: Cleveland Symphony Orchestra That set of tags (indent means 'these are tracks',... and yes I skipped a ton of tags that are irrelevant to the illustration) would display: Brandenburg Concertos (Duluth Harmonica Quintet) Brandenburg Concertos (Cleveland Symphony Orchestra) which lets you distinguish between the two. (And, yeah, yeah, Bach should not be TPE1/Artist, but for a lot of people that tagging scheme makes more sense in their collection and tastes.) So there you have what the flag does... it is simply for display and is useful to seperate similarly named works when 'albumartist' is not really the correct setting. Which also seems reasonable enough (as well as a pretty apt description of what actually happens). sure. i am not advocating changing the existing functionality of the option as it currently exists. i am talking about ADDING a second option to do sorting. please see this thread in developers forum, which i wrote as per your suggestion: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=290178#post290178 and allow me to repeat this from an earlier post in response to what you quoted of snarly above: i just want to add one point to that... if those were tracks, and you had group comps together AND list albums by band picked, then SC7 would show BOTH TPE2 values; this gets unwieldy very quickly if your album has a lot of differing TPE2 values, b/c they ALL are shown. JimC;290195 Wrote: I'm of the mindset--again, personally speaking--that the esoterica of these kinds of tags are so user- and application-specific that we really should not change much, in terms of the current behavior, but should better document how tags are used to people can mash their tags about in a fashion that works for them. i am not advocating changing current behavior, but rather adding an option. TPE2 already fills the SC7 BAND field, why can't that be an option for sorting? and i absolutely agree about better documentation. JimC;290195 Wrote: As I stated at the very beginning of this thread, SC's handling of tags is either perfect, acceptable, or broken depending on your individual use of tags, music collection, and expectations of the result. Any change will likely just change the members in each of these sets, rather than eliminate the broken set. Given that, I'm working internally to gather as much information as possible to be able to suggest the lowest impact changes to how things are handled. Otherwise, we're right back here with a different set of users complaining about the way it works. i personally do not believe that to be true. meaning i understand sloppy coding of SC7 could lead to that potentially, but it is not a NECESSARILY unavoidable outcome. i think adding an option to a program that has many options is not an impossible task. i do not claim to know how to do it, or which way is best. but in the developers forum i do suggest two possible way to achieve the goal. i do not think you should lean to being against it without showing or explaining how adding a new, wholly separate sorting option would break everything. and i don't see why such an option would be impossible. JimC;290195 Wrote: However, I encourage the community to continue to debate this topic as it is very informative, both to the team here and to other users. Mr. Sinatra, I truly don't mean to be offensive, i promise you, i do not take offense to your comments, but
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf;290199 Wrote: Then you can have Buddy Holly appear in the B's instead of the H's... And JS Bach in the J's. Sinatra? He's over in F's. you assume two things: 1. that i don't want to use first names and 2. that my tags aren't ALREADY Sinatra, Frank since you don't know if either is true, you can't claim its a problem. snarlydwarf;290199 Wrote: And you will continue to be baffled as to why some albums sort as VA and some not. (ie, TCMP or COMPILATION type tags, which are easy to see and delete... but not with WinAmp.) you assume i have TCMP/Comp tags, when i already told you i don't. i know i don't b/c if i did, i would have figured that out already by SC7 sorting something into VA that had no obvious known reason to be in VA, (such as differing TPE1 artists on the same album). -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
that was to jim, and i agree there is no TPE2 to ALBUMARTIST mapping, but my question is where are you saying the show band if ALBUMARTIST isn't defined option is? snarlydwarf;290200 Wrote: Exactly where I said it was... in Schema::Album::artist, and it is only used for -display-. right agreed. i just wanted to know where it was in the UI, meaning i wanted to confirm its the List albums by band option you were talking about, and it is. thx for the clarity. snarlydwarf;290200 Wrote: It is the flag you are going on about where you insist it means TPE2, not BAND. thats what the SC7 infobox insists, and in fact while i agree it isn't always TPE2 that fills this SC7 BAND field, it is in my case. and my case is not some rare anomaly. snarlydwarf;290200 Wrote: Again, at that point in the code, the scanning is long done. It is displaying a web page or sending something to the SB3/SBC to display. agreed. snarlydwarf;290200 Wrote: It has no concept of mp3, FLAC, APE, whatever: just the already parsed tags, and it refers to BAND. Not TPE2. Hence why calling it TPE2 in the help is wrong: it isn't. That is only for MP3, and the checkbox affects -all- formats. again, i understand that. but i didn't write the current infobox, slim did, so your complaint is with slim. i just tried to be minimal in my changes, just doing what was absolutely necessary. i know that my proposed wording is similar but i think most people would figure it out fine, and the wording is all i would change, not the functionality, so in practice, its transparent to you. the fact is TPE2 does populate the SC7 BAND field if nothing else is available. but if something else is available, SC7 will use that. and i allude to that in my proposed wording when i say 'Band in some other software' (paraphrased). feel free to offer up how you would word it exactly. i'm sure my wording isn't the best, i just know its better than what is currently existing. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
i promise you, i do not take offense to your comments, but i just want to be sure you actually understand what i am proposing before you shoot it down b/c i am not sure you do yet, which is not a knock in any way, i'm just saying i'm not sure. and i never claimed it should. i have been arguing here for an OPTION, not a mandate. it just so happens that itunes, winamp, WMP, and many others have co-opted the TPE2 band tag to serve the album artist role (in those same apps). thats just the reality and it is a huge majority. i am asking for a new OPTION, and i am not asking to change or degrade or revoke ONE SCINTILLA of current functionality. i am asking to add ONE more piece of functionality. considering the facts at play here, i don't see it as minority request. Here's the real problem: you think of this a simply an option, because on the surface that's the simple way to see it. However, the reality--as everyone has tried to point out--is that this isn't a simple solution and handling it in the way you suggest may have all kinds of unintended consequences. Tag handling is borked, mostly because of these types of simple workarounds that have created a mess of the intended use of the tags. As I said in a separate message: we're gathering all the information we need to understand this issue and address it. Once we're confident we have some idea of what's going on, we'll put together a proposal and let the community comment on it. Once that's done, we'll be able to close on when/how it will be implemented. No one is dismissing your request. We're not guaranteeing it will be implemented exactly as you wish, but at least it's being considered. Can we let it go at that--at least for now? -= Jim -- JimC well, she wasn't all of that, but she sure was some of that. -- BKlaas' college buddy JimC's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=9428 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
MrSinatra;290210 Wrote: since you don't know if either is true, you can't claim its a problem. And you assume I care how you organize your music. If you want Sinatra under the Q's that is your business. I think it would be truly stupid and painful to navigate that way, but it is your library. you assume i have TCMP/Comp tags, when i already told you i don't. i know i don't b/c if i did, i would have figured that out already by SC7 sorting something into VA that had no obvious known reason to be in VA, (such as differing TPE1 artists on the same album). I assume you do, or you should, because you stated: (which is what it does now with my stuff, unless its a VA album or an album it THINKS is VA) That exactly describes the problem of having incorrect or missing TCMP tags. If you have an album that is being detected as VA because it has one track with some-other-artist, the proper way to fix that is COMPILATION=0. This forces the scanner to treat it differently. For an example, see the 2nd post on this topic where I showed some of the tags from a Sonny Bono tribute album, which I wanted attributed to Sonny Bono as Album Artist and did not want to clutter up my 'browse artist' with a bunch of bands I have no other tracks from. If you want to make SC (and iTunes!) handle those correctly, you should set the TCMP tag. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JimC;290203 Wrote: First, respecting the Txxx user defined tag IS NOT the same as mapping an existing tag to a different use. That tag is mapped directly to its intended use; it is not redefined to mean something else internally. The TPE2 tag is also used exactly as it was intended--to display the band information when appropriate (see Snarly's example for how that works). i understand that, i agree. the point i was making is that Txxx tags are a defacto standard, but not a true standard. yet, SC7 still respects it. likewise, other software uses TPE2 as album artist. this is indeed not a true standard. but it is a defacto standard. i think SC7 should respect it. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND: mp3 users have no way, NONE, to get their CDs to sort properly in SC7 using only standard tags! i think thats a huge part of this, one that can't simply be ignored. that means unless a user uses a Txxx type tag, it will be impossible for them to get an album sorted properly that may or may not be a VA album. if it offends your sensibilities to have an option to map TPE2 to both BAND and ALBUMARTIST, then allow a user an option to sort by BAND tag, (which is already populated by the TPE2 field). JimC;290203 Wrote: Have you suggested to the good folks at Apple that *their* implementation of ID3 tags is not correct? How about ID3.org--have you tried discussing with them the fact they didn't do a very good job of defining useful tags for anything other than a standard, non-compilation album? Seriously. Do you think they even care that they've made this mess? why are you trying to fight the tide? i'm not some lone nut. there are lots of people in this boat thru no fault of their own, people who you have sold to or want to sell to. is your reaction to them (assuming they even bother to complain if they don't like the results after DL), going to be blame apple and blame id3? go get another program, learn it and retag your stuff with non-standard tags? i know this isn't slims fault, i never said or meant to imply it is. all i am suggesting is it is to slims benefit to allow mp3 users to sort by TPE2 if they want, (and as many programs have made them expect will be the case). (i don't mean to say exactly how slim should accomplish this, just that it should be a goal) i mean, whats more important, SC7 and slim martyring themselves for a point that is true but nonetheless unchangeable, OR making the product flexible to account for an erroneous but widespread defacto standard? JimC;290203 Wrote: The mantra that SqueezeCenter should conform to some other application's broken (i.e., not conforming to standards) implementation is getting a bit strident. We may decide to do that, but I don't find the argument that itunes does it so you should too to be very compelling. Nor do I think this problem is a significant inhibitor to our success at this point. well, you conform to using Txxx tags that have a defacto standard. and thats a smaller overall population. did slim always conform to using Txxx tags? i'm asking that seriously, b/c i don't know. i agree its broken usage. but it is what it is. like i said, slim offers mp3 users NO WAY to sort their albums using only standard id3 tags. should that not be a goal, especially since a defacto standard using TPE2 exists in many apps? and no doubt slim is successful. but there is always room to improve. JimC;290203 Wrote: But rest assured I get the message that you want what you perceive as the majority of MP3 files supported the way you think is correct. You may stop flogging that horse now; it's long past deceased. i do NOT think its correct. i agree its wrong. but it IS the reality. it is the defacto standard. how am i supposed to sort using only standard tags? that option is what i want. if i can denote by it, i should be able to sort by it. i'm not trying to exasperate you, just make my case. i'm sorry if how i do it bothers you. JimC;290203 Wrote: We're looking at what would make sense, given our current user base, our target audience, our product requirements, and our resources. Once I have all the information we need, we'll put together a proposal and gather feedback on it. I'll make sure we get you involved in that process as I'd like to see if we can reasonably accommodate your request without creating an overly-complex user experience or breaking things for other users. -= Jim i absolutely don't want to change current functionality, or make other people have to switch up their existing info to fix this. i merely want to ADD to the functionality, via a single option. i guess ultimately i am confused why you would have a user like me have the option to DENOTE my TPE2 / BAND info, but not sort by it... what good is it for me to have things sort out of place? why is the first possible, but not the second? TPE2 is already in SC7 as BAND. is it an app killer to add an option to then sort by
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
- We clarify the option to mean: Use id3v2 tags' TPE2 (Band) to be equivalent to AlbumArtist in Mp3 files. Move it out from under the 'Compilation' heading. I would suggest creating maybe an 'Mp3 Tags' heading, or possibly a 'Scanning Options' heading or page. So the option would no longer refer to using the BAND role for display purposes. It would designate how to treat a certain Mp3 tag. Shouldn't refer specifically to id3 tags. There are two very separate parts of the system that we should be talking about: 1. The Scanner, for reading tags into the internal SqueezeCenter representation of a music library. 2. SqueezeCenter that reads the internal representation for display purposes. I agree with someone else's suggestion that there should be a screen that allows specific file format tags to be mapped to a consistent internal representation. A Scanner settings page for configuring what tags the scanner should look for, and how they are mapped to things that SqueezeCenter understands. Only in this screen should it refer to TPE2, etc. All other screens about the SqueezeCenter music library should use sensible names like Album Artist, Band, etc. From reading other threads, it looks like List albums by Band/by other artists option is working as intended, but has nothing to do with scanning or Various Artists/Compilation settings. It is a display formatting setting, so perhaps should be moved to Interface settings, or Advanced/Formatting settings page. The intenal SqueezeCenter processing of Album Artist and Band should remain as-is. If someone wants TPE2 (BAND) to really mean Album Artist, that would be configured as part of the Scanner settings. They then wouldn't have any Band contributor roles, because the scanner would have put that data into Album Artist instead. - Permit sorting of albums by BAND in the manner suggested (somewhere) previously. By using a hierarchy of ALBUMARTIST, BAND, VA, ARTIST(s) when determining the album's primary contributor. Disagree. If id3 TPE2 tag is mapped to SqueezeCenter Album Artist contributor role, there would be no need for this. You wouldn't have any Band contributor roles, because the scanner would have put that data into Album Artist instead. ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
JimC;290213 Wrote: Here's the real problem: you think of this a simply an option, because on the surface that's the simple way to see it. However, the reality--as everyone has tried to point out--is that this isn't a simple solution and handling it in the way you suggest may have all kinds of unintended consequences. Tag handling is borked, mostly because of these types of simple workarounds that have created a mess of the intended use of the tags. i totally get that. please understand that its the GOAL i am arguing for, i leave the implementation to brilliant coders like you and dean and the rest of slim and the community. i just want to communicate how this lowly 'user' sees it. JimC;290213 Wrote: As I said in a separate message: we're gathering all the information we need to understand this issue and address it. Once we're confident we have some idea of what's going on, we'll put together a proposal and let the community comment on it. Once that's done, we'll be able to close on when/how it will be implemented. No one is dismissing your request. We're not guaranteeing it will be implemented exactly as you wish, but at least it's being considered. Can we let it go at that--at least for now? -= Jim you're a scholar and a gentleman. thx. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
and that means SC7 has no reasonable method to sort all albums for users who do not have user defined tags in their files. I think you meant sort all artists. SC does - it sorts by artist if there is not album artist. If you want an option to sort by Band, then there should also be options to sort by Conductor, Composer, etc, as Band shouldn't be singled out as being different from any other contributor role. I think when you talk about not sorting properly, you don't really mean sort at all. SqueezeCenter will always sort by the sort title of the artists (when there isn't an ARTISTSORT tag, the artist name is used as the sort title), but you don't tag songs with ARTISTSORT. You mean that you want a browse by band menu (as you have put an artist name in the TPE2 tag of all of your mp3 files)? Nb. CustomBrowse can do a browse by band menu. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
snarlydwarf;290214 Wrote: And you assume I care how you organize your music. If you want Sinatra under the Q's that is your business. I think it would be truly stupid and painful to navigate that way, but it is your library. always good for a laugh, huh? maybe i assume since you said You would probably want to anyway but now u don't care! i'm heartbroken. but enough about that... truly meaningless. anyway... snarlydwarf;290214 Wrote: you assume i have TCMP/Comp tags, when i already told you i don't. i know i don't b/c if i did, i would have figured that out already by SC7 sorting something into VA that had no obvious known reason to be in VA, (such as differing TPE1 artists on the same album). I assume you do, or you should, because you stated: (which is what it does now with my stuff, unless its a VA album or an album it THINKS is VA) That exactly describes the problem of having incorrect or missing TCMP tags. just b/c i think it makes more sense, the full context was: if the TPE2 tag was empty, then i would expect SC7 to use TPE1 to sort, (which is what it does now with my stuff, unless its a VA album or an album it THINKS is VA) so first of all, its not a problem by definition to not have a nonstandard tag. nor is it necessarily missing. i did not find TCMP on http://id3.org/id3v2.3.0 i also found no reference to the word compilation on that page. secondly, since there's no reason i should necessarily have non-standard tags, i totally understand why SC7 is putting albums into VA that in reality don't belong there. so when you said: snarlydwarf;290199 Wrote: And you will continue to be baffled as to why some albums sort as VA and some not. (ie, TCMP or COMPILATION type tags, which are easy to see and delete... but not with WinAmp.) you were incorrect. i am not baffled in the least. if SC7 would use the BAND tag to sort, it would put these albums into the VA section. there is an interesting question as to whether SC7 would still consider it a VA album however. snarlydwarf;290214 Wrote: If you have an album that is being detected as VA because it has one track with some-other-artist, the proper way to fix that is COMPILATION=0. This forces the scanner to treat it differently. proper way? by what standard? look, i appreciate the advice, but it applies to someone else. i don't use itunes, and i don't use non-standard user defined tags. i think if someone chooses the option of sorting by BAND, then on scanning some extra logic might be needed to determine if the album was VA or not if it had differing TPE1 tags. for instance, if the TPE2 tag said Various Artist[s] or Soundtrack or Original Soundtrack or maybe even user identified criteria to SC7, then it would be a VA album that should be sorted in the VA area. otherwise it might still be a VA album, but it should be sorted by the BAND tag. again, i do not know the best implementation, i am just arguing for the goal. remember, half of such an option is off or in other words, not to use it. in the off position, it wouldn't affect you or anyone else, assuming it was properly designed. in the on position it might not be perfect at first, but honestly i wouldn't expect it to be. like everything else with slim, i would expect refinements/improvements going forward. snarlydwarf;290214 Wrote: For an example, see the 2nd post on this topic where I showed some of the tags from a Sonny Bono tribute album, which I wanted attributed to Sonny Bono as Album Artist and did not want to clutter up my 'browse artist' with a bunch of bands I have no other tracks from. If you want to make SC (and iTunes!) handle those correctly, you should set the TCMP tag. i am well aware everyone thinks i should just give in and use a tagging app. but i don't think thats ultimately the proper solution. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290225 Wrote: - Permit sorting of albums by BAND in the manner suggested (somewhere) previously. By using a hierarchy of ALBUMARTIST, BAND, VA, ARTIST(s) when determining the album's primary contributor. Disagree. If id3 TPE2 tag is mapped to SqueezeCenter Album Artist contributor role, there would be no need for this. You wouldn't have any Band contributor roles, because the scanner would have put that data into Album Artist instead. i'm not sure who wrote what ur responding to, but consider this... what you're saying is true IF TPE2 is mapped to the internal SC7 ALBUMARTIST field. (and btw, the TPE2 field could be mapped to BOTH BAND and ALBUMARTIST) however, i think what the person was saying is that a sort order logic could go progressively in that order if TPE2 filled the BAND field, which it does, and if ALBUMARTIST was empty. i know you said its never empty, and i'm sure you are right. so in that case, if the option is turned on, BAND could be at the front of the order instead. -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290229 Wrote: and that means SC7 has no reasonable method to sort all albums for users who do not have user defined tags in their files. I think you meant sort all artists. SC does - it sorts by artist if there is not album artist. no, i specifically said what i said on purpose. and what i said is true. SC7 has no way to sort ALL albums reasonably using only standard mp3 tags. that is fact. the main issue, (and maybe the only issue?) is with albums that have differing TPE1 fields. other programs hijack TPE2 to fix this. SC7 however, does not respect that. and i am just repeating myself beyond that. as i alluded to earlier, it make take some extra logic-programming to have SC7 decode mp3 tags to get it to figure out what should be the VA section or not, but thats the kind of thing that can be worked on as we go i think. Philip Meyer;290229 Wrote: If you want an option to sort by Band, then there should also be options to sort by Conductor, Composer, etc, as Band shouldn't be singled out as being different from any other contributor role. well i don't think so, for two reasons: 1. i don't think anyone has asked for that and 2. probably b/c that is not a defacto standard in the mp3 population, meaning most programs don't give you that option, as they do via TPE2. Philip Meyer;290229 Wrote: I think when you talk about not sorting properly, you don't really mean sort at all. SqueezeCenter will always sort by the sort title of the artists (when there isn't an ARTISTSORT tag, the artist name is used as the sort title), but you don't tag songs with ARTISTSORT. i do not use ARTISTSORT tags at all. and SC7 does not sort by artists if an album has differing TPE1 tracks on it. in that case, it uses its own internal logic to classify it as VA. Philip Meyer;290229 Wrote: You mean that you want a browse by band menu (as you have put an artist name in the TPE2 tag of all of your mp3 files)? Nb. CustomBrowse can do a browse by band menu. Phil what is Nb? what is CustomBrowse? yes, i have all my TPE2 tags organized to sort things where i want them. here's what i mean, and i thought it was the same: when i browse artwork via artist, year, album, i want my albums to sort via the info that SC7 calls BAND, namely the TPE2 tags in my files. whats the difference between browse by band and sort by band? -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 (primary) / SBR (secondary) / Jive - 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=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
Philip Meyer;290242 Wrote: My own view is that if the ALBUMARTIST tag exists for every track on an album, it would be nice *not* to classify it as Various Artists whether or not COMPILATION is set. Currently, if you have COMPILATION=1 and Group Compilation Albums together, it's almost as though ALBUMARTIST is ignored: the album just ends up under Various Artists. I think ALBUMARTIST should prevent the album from being tagged as a compilation (compilation albums effectively sets ALBUMARTIST to Various Artists). I thought this was fixed (bug 3815 maybe?). I haven't noticed any problems like that in my library, but I may have set COMPILATION=0 to be sure, because there was a problem with this in the past. PhilThe reason setting COMPILATION=0 doesn't work for me is that for albums like my Larry Levan example (he's the ALBUMRARTIST) I want Larry to appear in the artist list (despite not having any other Larry albums) but I *do not* want all the other track artists to appear in the artist list. The only way I know of to exclude artists is to set the Group Compilation Artists together and set COMPILATION=1. At the moment I seem to have only two options: 1. (COMPILATION=1) Larry isn't in the artist list, neither are any of the track artists 2. (COMPILATION=0) Larry *is* in the artist list, but so are all of the track artists what I want is 3. Larry is in the artist list, the track artists are not. I'm not at all precious about what is or is not a compilation, I just want to achieve #3. Note that were there just one other album by Larry Levan, I would actually get the desired #3 by setting COMPILATION=1. Maybe all of this would be solved by addressing http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5108 -- smc2911 http://www.last.fm/user/smc2911/ smc2911's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4388 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
My own view is that if the ALBUMARTIST tag exists for every track on an album, it would be nice *not* to classify it as Various Artists whether or not COMPILATION is set. Currently, if you have COMPILATION=1 and Group Compilation Albums together, it's almost as though ALBUMARTIST is ignored: the album just ends up under Various Artists. I think ALBUMARTIST should prevent the album from being tagged as a compilation (compilation albums effectively sets ALBUMARTIST to Various Artists). I thought this was fixed (bug 3815 maybe?). I haven't noticed any problems like that in my library, but I may have set COMPILATION=0 to be sure, because there was a problem with this in the past. Phil ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
The message I wrote earlier about some sort of tag mapping customization seems to have been overwhelmed by tpe2/band/albumartist/txxx messages. Is the idea totally broken? or definitely too complicated ? or not user friendly enough? and doesn't worth talking about it? To answer MrSinatra, I can code, and I put a lot of free time working on a metadata handling framework that begins to reveals itself useful (for me at least... I must admit that is not *yet* a good definition of universal :) ). This work -I aim this goal- would permit to adapt tagging to any format and any existing software or softwares that are yet to come (and little after, I plan to rule the world, but that's another thread;) ). -- vrobin vrobin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11705 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
Re: [slim] Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags
MrSinatra;290239 Wrote: so first of all, its not a problem by definition to not have a non-standard tag. nor is it necessarily missing. i did not find TCMP on http://id3.org/id3v2.3.0 i also found no reference to the word compilation on that page. Yes, it is one of your defacto standards. iTunes uses it, and iTunes has more users than WinAmp, therefore Winamp should add support for it. Sort of like some other tags misuse secondly, since there's no reason i should necessarily have non-standard tags, i totally understand why SC7 is putting albums into VA that in reality don't belong there. And there is a mechanism for changing that. Many unix commands support a '-f' option. It means yes, I know this is not what I am supposed to do, but I am the human and I am not making a mistake, this is really what I want. -f is very useful. In the same sense, forcing compilation (or decompilation) is useful. now, if SC7 would use the BAND tag to sort, it wouldn't put these differing TPE1 albums into the VA section It would add all artists, even one-track-wonders to your artist list. there is an interesting question as to whether SC7 would still consider it a VA album however. It would set the COMPILATION to 1, yes. i am well aware everyone thinks i should just give in and use a tagging app. but i don't think thats ultimately the proper solution. If you choose to make your own life difficult, that is your choice. -- snarlydwarf snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=46093 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
