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[tomx2]

Hello, Hoping someone is willing to share their solution for displaying/tagging records that have several different years of release? In other words, if you have a compilation album that has several songs that were originally released in different years how to you tag (display) the file in theater view?

An example would be a compilation that includes songs from 1965-1969. I have a tag for year/date. If i insert 1965-1969 in the field when it is read it always is displayed as "1965", dropping the "-1969", which i think is ID3 standard (but forces incorrect information). I'm looking to find a tag solution/workaround that would display in jriver as "1965-1969". Anyone run across this and come up with a solution? Any suggestion(s) would be appreciated, Tom

[blgentry]

It sounds like you need a string type field that will hold this new information.  The Date/Time field uses a data type of "date", which restricts it to a single year/date/time as opposed to a date range like 1965-1969.

I would call this new field "Year Range".  In my opinion, you would probably want this new field to have one of two values:

1.  Your manually entered date range like 1965-1969
2.  If that manual date isn't entered, it should use the existing Year field.

So for example for the album "Back in Black" by AC/DC your new field would say "1980" because that's what's in the existing Year field.
But for something like the Beatles "Red" Anthology, it would say "1962-1966".

If that sounds like something you would like, I can describe how to do it.  If you are looking for some other solution, perhaps you can describe more about what you want and how it will be used.

Brian.

[lepa]

My solution is to use [date (release)] for album release date and [date] for individual release dates of the tracks

[tomx2]

Thank you both! Appreciate your time. blgentry, "...But for something like the Beatles "Red" Anthology, it would say "1962-1966", is exactly what i want. My thinking is, to set the field (in theater view) to not display if there is no data in the field. That way it doesn't have to revert to any other field. So i guess i'm saying that i'll keep the date field, but would love to add another that will display when data is entered in the field, when no data is present it doesn't display (this is a setting in JRiver). I tag all my files (mp3tag) prior to importing them to jriver, so i have complete control over the library. lepa, good suggestion, i'm thinking the above would be perfect as i don't always have the information on the individual tracks/dates, especially when dealing with compilations with limited information on the packaging.

Thanks again, tom

[zybex]

You could create a field called "AlbumYear" of type "Calculated Data" with expression = "[Year]", and then check the "Allow custom data to override the expression".
The field would default to the Year of the track, but it would allow you to override and enter anything else like "1960-1965".

[HPBEME]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I do have a similar question about dealing with compilation albums, but would like to approach it in another way, if I can figure out how to go about it.

I would like each track on the compilation album to have its own unique date corresponding to the year of the original album it was released on, and not the release year of the compilation album.  I have manually updated individual track years for a couple compilation albums, which MC then automatically generates an "average" year for the compilation album - which I like.

The problem is, doing this manually is insanely tedious and ridiculously time-consuming. And with nearly 5000 tracks from compilation albums, I just cannot bring myself to tackling that.  But zybex is the script King, and I'm crossing my fingers he already has an elegant solution formulated for such a task.

[HPBEME]

A bonus would be if at the same time it is automatically generating the track by track release years, it could also auto populate a new user field called Original Album

[zybex]

That would need finding out a reliable source/website for that information, then writing some code to use their API or scraping the info from the webpages. Scraping breaks easily, requires constant code maintenance, so it's a no-go. Sites with free APIs are becoming rare.

[EnglishTiger]

That would need finding out a reliable source/website for that information, then writing some code to use their API or scraping the info from the webpages. Scraping breaks easily, requires constant code maintenance, so it's a no-go. Sites with free APIs are becoming rare.

I agree given that there isn't a single Scrapable Metadata Source that has all the possible/required metadata that is accurate, complete and in a format that MC can use.
In addition some of the bot-scrapable Metadata Sites will only return some of the metadata the bot is instructed to retrieve, i.e. only 60% of the Lyrics, but will allow a human to obtain 100% of the metadata.

[HPBEME]

Well that's a bummer. 

Even the initial suggestion of using a date range and custom user field to manage this would require considerable work. The overwhelming majority of my compilation albums don't indicate the year range in the title. This means I have to search track by track until I determine which tracks have the earliest and latest original release dates so I can properly specify which years it spans. Having already done that manually for a couple of compilation albums in the past to see how time consuming that might be, I can say unequivocally it is just not viable.

It just drives me nuts that I have compilation albums released in the 2000's for an artist whose career spanned the 60s and 70s.  So when I filter for artists from the 70s, that artist is excluded. Oh well, I guess I will just have to live with the way it is then... A 1st world problem to be sure

[lepa]

I have created discogs link with artist and name as search criteria. It will give me single release most of the times or album so I can get year for the track. Also Allmusic have sometimes track date in its track database but like MC's google date search it is not accurate always

[HPBEME]

But that is still searching track by track, and I have 5000+ compilation tracks that I would need to search on. Obviously not impossible, but depending on how much free time I'm willing to dedicate on a daily basis, it is still likely to take many many months to do.

I have done so much manual searching to fill certain tags, I just can't summon the desire to do it any longer. For example, over 90% of my 2500 albums have album art that is a minimum of 1000×1000 pixels with the highest quality JPEG's I can find. The time I've spent on that alone is many hundreds (thousands?) of hours.  In addition, I searched far and wide for album reviews that I populate a custom Album Review field I made… Again, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours. I am burnt out!

If there were a website that showed the track original release year directly with the specific compilation album, that might work.  I would only have to search for albums, and all the relevant track years would be captured in one search for a given album.  Still a lot of work, but at least doable. That said, I've never found a site that displays it in this way, including Wikipedia.

[zybex]

I use Spotify

[HPBEME]

I just logged into my (free) Spotify account right now and looked at a compilation album from my collection, and I don't see any track years listed - just the year the compilation album itself was released.  What am I missing?

[lepa]

the track dates? 

[HPBEME]

Well… No. As I said previously, the year of the original album the track appears on vs. the release year of the compilation album

[tomx2]

....I would like each track on the compilation album to have its own unique date corresponding to the year of the original album it was released on, and not the release year of the compilation album.  I have manually updated individual track years for a couple compilation albums, which MC then automatically generates an "average" year for the compilation album - which I like.

I too started on this route and decided, as you did, that it was just too much time involved. I was thinking date range was a good compromise. Too bad there isn't a "wildcard" id3, where one could customize a bit. I think, for now, i'm going to go with adding the date range after the album title. This is not ideal, but the goal is to get the most desired info displayed first for the casual listener. When i am unsure of the songs actual year of release (compilations with a range of dates) i can just leave YEAR empty and rely on the modified album name.

[zybex]

I just logged into my (free) Spotify account right now and looked at a compilation album from my collection, and I don't see any track years listed - just the year the compilation album itself was released.  What am I missing?

I meant I use Spotify to listen to music and not having to curate my own collection.
I use MC for video.

[HPBEME]

When i am unsure of the songs actual year of release (compilations with a range of dates) i can just leave YEAR empty and rely on the modified album name.

I am confused then. How do you decide what to use for the date range in the modified album name, if you are unsure of the actual release date for the tracks on the album?

If you're referring only to those compilations where the date range is described right in the title already, okay I get that. But the vast majority of compilation albums I have that is not specified, and the only way I know how to determine it is the search on every track.

[tomx2]

I wish i had a good answer for how to find the dates. If the comp does not have specified dates, i then look at reviews, bios, etc for more clues. A lot of times the reviewer will talk of the specific dates or of a date range.

-T

[HPBEME]

ahhh... OK.  Thanks for the clarification. 

FYI... I have been pointed to a possible solution to our problem.  It may be a couple weeks before I get it sorted out, but if I do, I will be sure to let you know.