I am writing (and using) a VERY beta program that scans AMG for artist and album htm files, loads them to my computer then decodes them for inclusion in ID3/MJ8/MJ9/MC tags. I started many months ago with MJ8 but it's taken so long I decided to switch to MJ9/MC. I have encountered some problems with field mapping after the conversion, detailed at the end of this message.
Here is a generated INF (my extencion choice, probably bad) file from an AMG htm:
[Scan]
1/12/2003
[Artist]
13th Floor Elevators
[Group Members]
Roky Erickson, Dan Galindo, Ronnie Leatherman, Benny Thurman, Stacy Sutherland, Tommy Hall, John Ike Walton, Danny Thomas
[Genre]
Rock
[Styles]
Garage Rock, Psychedelic
[Lables]
Collectables, Thunderbolt, Texas Archive, M.I.L. Multimedia, Get Back
[Tones]
Intense, Menacing, Fiery, Ominous, Nihilistic, Trippy, Druggy
[Bio]
Featuring the yelping vocals and visionary, occasionally demented lyrics of Roky Erickson, the 13th Floor Elevators were one of the original acid-rock bands. (..more deleted)
[Albums]
The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor... (Azrom968o3ep3)
Easter Everywhere (Ayj9hs38ba39g)
Live: I've Seen Your Face Before (Ai3ke4j870waw)
13th Floor Elevators Live (Aosr67ul0h0ja)
Bull of the Woods (A37jeeal04xd7)
Avalon 66 [live] (Amroibka96ak9)
You Really Got Me (Aelf6zfjheh6k)
Out of Order: Live at the Avalon Ballroom (Aj8jeeay24x87)
(..more deleted)
The program uses the album ID's to DL the relevant album info:
[Scan]
1/12/2003
[Artist]
13th Floor Elevators
[Album Title]
Bull of the Woods
[Date of Release]
1968 (release) inprint
[Genre]
Rock
[Styles]
Psychedelic, Garage Rock
[Cover Art]
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc500/c506/c50664s3372.jpg[Review]
Guitarist Stacy Sutherland wrote most of the songs on the band's final studio album, as Roky was largely absent due to drugs and problems with the law. Decent psychedelic rock -- pretty straight-ahead and disciplined for the genre, actually -- that doesn't match the inspired heights of their previous material. The closing "May the Circle Be Unbroken," with its wads and wads of reverb, may be the strangest thing the band ever cut. -- Richie Unterberger
[Tracks]
01. Livin' On (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:23
02. Barnyard Blues (Sutherland) - 2:52
03. Til Then (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:18
04. Never Another (Erickson/Hall) - 2:27
05. Rose and the Thorn (Sutherland) - 3:37
06. Down by the River (Sutherland) - 1:50
07. Scarlet and Gold (Sutherland) - 5:00
08. Street Song (Sutherland) - 4:57
09. Dear Dr. Doom (Hall/Sutherland) - 3:13
10. With You (Leatherman) - 2:12
11. May the Circle Remain Unbroken (Erickson) - 2:42
It also DL's the artist and cover art. My plan was to include all this info into mp3 tags so they could display during playback. Now the problems:
I had MJ8 working when I tried MJ9b. I liked a lot of the changes in MJ9 so decided to add MJ9 capability. I am now able to add DB fields that show up within MC9 in the extended properties list. I added a Charted field for Billboard/HitList ect. I simply mimicked the MC tag structure :
COMM____MediaJukebox: Charted_
and it appears in my extended file properties. Unfortunately, I can not access it outside of MC for inclusion in the Trackinfo display (TRACKINFO_INSERT_CHARTED, or equivalent). I didn't REALLY expect to be able to do that, but I AM using the old MJ8 Custom 1 field for Styles, and even this is unavailable in MC9. I think this is the the problem outlined in the "Custom Field" thread a while back.
Other fields haven't mapped well, either. The older MJ8 MJGN (general notes?) field remains as the MC9 "Notes" field, even though MC9 adds a COMM____MediaJukebox: Notes_
field of its own. This doesn't display. It's still early days for the conversion, but if anyone has any thoughts on the DB structure and how to access all the extended fields via generated htm files, I'd be interested. Also, any pointers to DB documentation would be appreciated.