> Re: ITunes and Gracenote gripes > I would just like to reiterate that from my experience I see many omissions, alterations and embelishments in the CD information which I receive from Gracenote. These obviously originate from the individuals who originally up-loaded the data.
It's not always just one or two trivial spelling mistakes as some people have suggested. I like to have the data entered exactly as it appears on the notes which came with the original disk. My disks tend to be mostly jazz and classical music. I'ts rare for this exacting standard to be maintained, however Jazz CDs generally tend to be more accurately described. Of course people who don't buy CDs or are into less cerebral music might not appreciate when there are errors and ommisions. I do also understand that there are a great many people who see no reason to be meticulous about anything. I guess that's modern times for you. We see it in many other areas about us. Call me old fashioned if you will, but I don't like other peoples' errors invading my stuff, sometimes for ever. It's like getting a dent in a new car parked in a supermarket shopping area. I have tried correcting some of these deficiencies on Gracenote in the past with an earlier version of iTunes, but even though an automatic message was generated that this had succeeded, the corrected data wasn't in their data base when I checked from another computer. The illusion is maintained because a file is kept in the original machine. I just repeated the same exercise now with a new disc and two OSX 10.3.9 computers and iTunes 6. Bingo! Auto connect. Three typographic errors came down. The corrections I made then seemed to be accepted, but on checking with the other machine and another auto-connect it was revealed they hadn't. Contrary to what Gracenote espouse on their website about welcoming corrections, my experience is that data entry via iTunes 6 is a once only affair - errors can't be corrected in their data base using it. However, In the past I have been the first to upload data for three or four CDs on which they had no data - probably because the CDs were pretty ancient. Naturally, I took great care to ensure that the data I sent was correct as listed with the original recording. As for iTunes 6, I look forward to a few simple updates which will provide me with more ability to control its functions on my machine - like stopping it from automatically connecting to Gracenote when a disk is inserted. Then I could enter the data to my own standards. I actually enjoy it. I used to be able to do this on an older version. Interestingly, Gracenote are still suggesting iTunes 4.6 for Mac users on their website. I am thinking about trying retro-install - on a spare machine of course. My guess is that it might wipe previously collected CD data. Rob mentioned the com.apple.itunes.plist file. Is that where it's held Rob? Cheers, Paul. -- Dr Paul R. Weaver http://www.livejournal.com/users/fremantlebiz/calendar
