Topic: First test of the support for FLAC files with embedded CUE sheet (Read 20750 times)

kstuart · « **on:** February 05, 2013, 02:12:23 pm »

Quote

18.0.111 (1/10/2013)

7. NEW: Added basic support for FLAC files with embedded CUE files.

Questions:

1 - Does this support include filling the library fields by reading the embedded CUE file information ?

2 - Does this support include using a single FLAC file that is an entire CD - and then playing back individual tracks specified in the embedded CUE file, as if they were separate FLAC files ?

3 - Does this support include writing embedded CUE files into FLAC files ?

4 - Can any program (including MC18, of course), take a single FLAC that is an entire CD, lookup the track information from an online database, and then write that track information into a new embedded CUE file?

5 - Lastly, will MC support APE files with embedded CUE files ?

UPDATE: First Test can be found at this post:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77950.msg530433#msg530433

kstuart · « **Reply #1 on:** February 06, 2013, 11:01:43 am »

Are these details described anywhere ?

Thanks !

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** February 06, 2013, 11:21:37 am »

Probably not.

kstuart · « **Reply #3 on:** February 07, 2013, 11:48:13 am »

Has any Beta Team member used the support for FLAC files with embedded CUE files?

glynor · « **Reply #4 on:** February 07, 2013, 02:41:14 pm »

I don't.

If you post an example CUE file, MrC offered to test it for you in the other thread. I know you copypasta'd it but he asked for the actual binary file.

I'll test it too...

kstuart · « **Reply #5 on:** February 07, 2013, 04:05:43 pm »

Quote from: glynor on February 07, 2013, 02:41:14 pm

I don't.

If you post an example CUE file, MrC offered to test it for you in the other thread. I know you copypasta'd it but he asked for the actual binary file.

I'll test it too...

This thread is about the new feature - support of embedded CUE files in FLAC files.

The other threads are about CUE files being imported.

glynor · « **Reply #6 on:** February 07, 2013, 05:30:50 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 07, 2013, 04:05:43 pm

This thread is about the new feature - support of embedded CUE files in FLAC files.

Oh, sorry. I missed that reference. Now I get it.

Ignore me.

JustinChase · « **Reply #7 on:** February 07, 2013, 07:02:06 pm »

I don't have any embedded cue/flac files to test with, sorry.

**I just noticed that support was added in a build that is now publicly available, so I suggest that you can probably give it a test yourself, if you have any such files.

kstuart · « **Reply #8 on:** February 09, 2013, 12:49:28 pm »

[I can see the need for "embedded CUE sheet" as the term within another file, and "CUE file" for a standalone cue file.]

I now claim to be forever enshrined in history as the First Person to Ever Play a FLAC file with an Embedded CUE sheet in JRiver Media Center !

Results (some good, some not so good):

* The single album FLAC file with the embedded CUE sheet plays as if it were individual tracks with the tag information specified in the CUE sheet. In other words, it works !

* Note: The embedded CUE sheet will block any other CUE file pointing to that FLAC file, in fact, even the same CUE sheet placed as a separate text file will be blocked. Any separate CUE files will be reported as "Failed to Import" by MC18. (If you want to save the separate CUE files, merely append a dummy file extension to the end, such as ".file".)

* Once the single album FLAC file is imported by the embedded CUE sheet, it currently exhibits the same BUG reported numerous times by other members. This behavior is that if the "NEXT" button is used to jump to the next track, it works fine. But if MC18 goes automatically to the next track after the current track ends, it plays some portion of the album while not progressing on the progress bar (the time remaining is a large number, and when the time remaining counts down to the actual length of the track, the progress bar and elapsed time start working normally).

My guess is that this BUG was introduced along with the embedded CUE sheet support (the bug reports started not long after, IIRC).

Pintu · « **Reply #9 on:** February 12, 2013, 12:06:55 pm »

I've installed the latest J River MC Trial (18.0.129) specifically to test the support of embedded cue sheets, but unfortunately I cannot get it to work at all. I have FLAC CD images and the cue has been embedded either with foobar2000 or CUETools. But neither image shows single tracks in MC, I only see the full image.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to enable embedded cue support somewhere?

kstuart · « **Reply #10 on:** February 12, 2013, 12:29:06 pm »

Quote from: Pintu on February 12, 2013, 12:06:55 pm

I've installed the latest J River MC Trial (18.0.129) specifically to test the support of embedded cue sheets, but unfortunately I cannot get it to work at all. I have FLAC CD images and the cue has been embedded either with foobar2000 or CUETools. But neither image shows single tracks in MC, I only see the full image.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to enable embedded cue support somewhere?

As I mentioned in the previous post:

* You cannot have an external CUE file and an embedded CUE sheet at the same time (although MC18 should just ignore the external one, but it seems to get confused instead.) Rename the external CUE file to have an extension of .FILE or .TXT for example, so that you can retain it for later use.

* Check the embedded CUE sheet to make sure that it corresponds to the FLAC file. In other words, the embedded cue sheet should have ONE File command with the exact name of the FLAC file that it is in.

(Programs like EAC will often put the name of the original uncompressed into the CUE - eg "Blah.wav" - rather than the final compressed "Blah.flac".)

Currently, you cannot view the CUE sheet in MC18 - it says "too long to display", but you can get a free utility for Windows for tags at:

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html

Pintu · « **Reply #11 on:** February 12, 2013, 12:44:42 pm »

Thanks for your reply. I have done everything as you describe (I am no novice in handling cue files, I'm just new to MC). So specifically to your points

a) There is only one file in the folder (the flac image that has the embedded cue, no external cue),
b) the flac image works fine with foobar2000 and other players/programs that support embedded cues.

kstuart · « **Reply #12 on:** February 12, 2013, 02:12:28 pm »

Are the files imported to MC18 ?

What happens when you click Play ?

What do you then see in Playing Now ?

Pintu · « **Reply #13 on:** February 12, 2013, 03:43:39 pm »

Yes, the files are imported. When I click play the file plays, but there is only one track that is the length of the full image.

kstuart · « **Reply #14 on:** February 12, 2013, 06:28:29 pm »

Quote from: Pintu on February 12, 2013, 03:43:39 pm

Yes, the files are imported. When I click play the file plays, but there is only one track that is the length of the full image.

Try removing the file(s) from the library and then running Auto-Import again.

Another thing to try is right-click on the file(s) and select " Update Library from tags ".

By the way, are you importing CUE files or not ?

glynor · « **Reply #15 on:** February 12, 2013, 10:09:03 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 12, 2013, 06:28:29 pm

Try removing the file(s) from the library and then running Auto-Import again.

Keep in mind, you probably have to remove it twice:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=72593.msg491631#msg491631

glynor · « **Reply #16 on:** February 12, 2013, 11:23:47 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 09, 2013, 12:49:28 pm

* Once the single album FLAC file is imported by the embedded CUE sheet, it currently exhibits the same BUG reported numerous times by other members. This behavior is that if the "NEXT" button is used to jump to the next track, it works fine. But if MC18 goes automatically to the next track after the current track ends, it plays some portion of the album while not progressing on the progress bar (the time remaining is a large number, and when the time remaining counts down to the actual length of the track, the progress bar and elapsed time start working normally).

I just discovered that you can get it to do this even with MP3 sources if you enable the Play 5 Second Preview (from 30 seconds in) Preview Mode (under Player > Preview Mode.

Something's broken in there.

Pintu · « **Reply #17 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:39:39 am »

I've found the issue:

- When you create a FLAC image with embedded cue sheet in foobar2000, the converter creates 'FILE "CDImage.wav" WAVE' as a placeholder for the filename in the embedded cue

- Foobar2000 ignores the filelocation in the embedded cue completely. Hence, you can rename the FLAC image as you like, and it still plays without problem in foobar2000.

-J River MC uses the file location of the embedded cue to find the image in which it is embedded in. I think handling embedded cues that way is incorrect and should probably be treated as a bug. As a consequence, you cannot rename your image files and MC cannot play FLAC's with embedded cues unless the file is exactly named as it is in the cue.

kstuart · « **Reply #18 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:55:33 am »

Quote from: Pintu on February 13, 2013, 10:39:39 am

I've found the issue:

- When you create a FLAC image with embedded cue sheet in foobar2000, the converter creates 'FILE "CDImage.wav" WAVE' as a placeholder for the filename in the embedded cue

- Foobar2000 ignores the filelocation in the embedded cue completely. Hence, you can rename the FLAC image as you like, and it still plays without problem in foobar2000.

-J River MC uses the file location of the embedded cue to find the image in which it is embedded in. I think handling embedded cues that way is incorrect and should probably be treated as a bug. As a consequence, you cannot rename your image files and MC cannot play FLAC's with embedded cues unless the file is exactly named as it is in the cue.

That was the second starred suggestion in my post above - I said:

"In other words, the embedded cue sheet should have ONE File command with the exact name of the FLAC file that it is in. (Programs like EAC will often put the name of the original uncompressed into the CUE - eg "Blah.wav" - rather than the final compressed "Blah.flac".) "

If you don't understand what someone is suggesting, ask about it, don't ignore it.

Pintu · « **Reply #19 on:** February 13, 2013, 10:59:46 am »

Well, I misunderstood and thought you meant the information in the external cue before the embedding process.

Obviously my mistake. But the issue at hand her is that MC uses the file command when it should probably ignore it.

kstuart · « **Reply #20 on:** February 13, 2013, 11:04:09 am »

Yes, it's true that it should ignore the FILE command in the embedded cue sheet, because how could the cue sheet be referring to any other file ? That wouldn't make sense.

It's worth noting that MC18 will ignore external cue files that have FILE references that don't exist - which in that case is correct.

glynor · « **Reply #21 on:** February 13, 2013, 11:04:40 am »

Can I ask a more basic question...?

What the heck is the point of all of this? Why wouldn't you just rip to individual tracks, and embed the metadata in the normal tags? I just wonder what problem this solution is designed to solve...

Pintu · « **Reply #22 on:** February 13, 2013, 11:09:43 am »

Because ripping to an image and a cue sheet is more accurate for backup purposes. Also, for large collections (e.g. for classical music box sets) it is cleaner and safer to have only one file (image with embedded cue) rather than thousand of individual tracks.

glynor · « **Reply #23 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:04:22 pm »

Quote from: Pintu on February 13, 2013, 11:09:43 am

Because ripping to an image and a cue sheet is more accurate for backup purposes. Also, for large collections (e.g. for classical music box sets) it is cleaner and safer to have only one file (image with embedded cue) rather than thousand of individual tracks.

Not to be a jerk, but... That's not a problem being solved. That's assertions without an explanation of factual basis. For file management reasons, I can see it I suppose, though using a database makes this a moot point.

For for the other stuff you listed... How is it more accurate? In what way is it safer?

I should add: I'm not suggesting, in any way, that MC shouldn't support the feature properly (since support has been added). I just wonder what the heck it is for. It seems LESS "safe" to me. It sounds like the CUE format was co-opted inappropriately and hacked into a file tag inside a FLAC. Otherwise why does it refer to a non-existent filename?

It feels, to me at a glance, very much like a hacky-workaround for crappy players that don't know how to play back individual tracks properly. Or one of those "it feels more truthy" kinds of things.

Pintu · « **Reply #24 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:09:23 pm »

Is this thread the place to discuss this? People at Hydrogenaudio used to talk about it at length. Anyway, I am not the only one to use this concept, as it is popular particular for collector's of classical music. Hence good and proper support for JR MC as in foobar2000 would be nice.

glynor · « **Reply #25 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:12:29 pm »

Quote from: Pintu on February 13, 2013, 12:09:23 pm

Hence good and proper support for JR MC as in foobar2000 would be nice.

Totally agree here.

I was just curious.

Pintu · « **Reply #26 on:** February 13, 2013, 12:28:01 pm »

Quote from: glynor on February 13, 2013, 12:12:29 pm

I was just curious.

PM Sent

kstuart · « **Reply #27 on:** February 13, 2013, 01:50:38 pm »

A lot of MC18 has to be legacy support - just for example:

* SHN files (I have 6,000 of them from etree.org for things like 1977-05-08)
* AVI files (with XViD content)
* Single file CD images (most of them are .APE)(from the days when everyone thought that was best)

For example - in order to convert those SHN files to FLAC properly, I would need to get out foobar, because the only way to tag them is with the extension to the foobar component Mass Tagger called "Live Show Tagger" which can read the etree text file format.

To convert all legacy files is, I think, a little more time intensive than it is worth in the long run.

glynor · « **Reply #28 on:** February 13, 2013, 02:18:31 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 13, 2013, 01:50:38 pm

A lot of MC18 has to be legacy support

That makes sense, of course (and like I said, I never intended to suggest that this should remain broken in MC).

I just wondered why someone would do that in this day-and-age.

I too once had a metric ton of etree.org SHN files. I've been slowly-but-surely converting them over to FLAC. I'm down to a handful of not-very-good sources left.

MrC · « **Reply #29 on:** February 13, 2013, 03:00:33 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 13, 2013, 01:50:38 pm

For example - in order to convert those SHN files to FLAC properly, I would need to get out foobar, because the only way to tag them is with the extension to the foobar component Mass Tagger called "Live Show Tagger" which can read the etree text file format.

This can be done in one shot via command line shntool. Ask if you want help.

kstuart · « **Reply #30 on:** February 13, 2013, 03:24:16 pm »

Quote from: MrC on February 13, 2013, 03:00:33 pm

This can be done in one shot via command line shntool. Ask if you want help.

I see the facility in shntool to tag from cue file... I don't see one for tagging from a text file in etree format, but if you see how to do that, I would be interested.

MrC · « **Reply #31 on:** February 13, 2013, 03:28:33 pm »

Can you send me a sample? I'll delete when I'm done. Dropbox, or I'll PM you an email.

mschneid · « **Reply #32 on:** February 13, 2013, 03:35:03 pm »

hmm... just posted my cue problem in the other thread... and did not see this one...

Should i just convert all of my cue files to individual tracks once and for all...
These are old files for me... and not critical.... just annoying.

kstuart · « **Reply #33 on:** February 13, 2013, 04:23:34 pm »

Quote from: mschneid on February 13, 2013, 03:35:03 pm

hmm... just posted my cue problem in the other thread... and did not see this one...

Should i just convert all of my cue files to individual tracks once and for all...
These are old files for me... and not critical.... just annoying.

I don't think the problem you posted in the other thread is related to anything in this thread.

Matt · « **Reply #34 on:** February 14, 2013, 04:37:06 pm »

Next build:
Fixed: A 'FILE' line in a FLAC + embedded CUE could cause problems.

I have not followed everything in this thread, so if there are other bugs in this area it would help if you could summarize them.

Thanks.

kstuart · « **Reply #35 on:** February 14, 2013, 04:44:19 pm »

Quote from: Matt on February 14, 2013, 04:37:06 pm

Next build:
Fixed: A 'FILE' line in a FLAC + embedded CUE could cause problems.

I have not followed everything in this thread, so if there are other bugs in this area it would help if you could summarize them.

Thanks.

There is a bug now reported by roughly a dozen people, which I posted in the "...18.0.129 - Available Here" thread several days ago. (That playback based on a CUE file causes the Time Remaining to be larger than what is correct, causing the seekbar not to move until later, etc. - see the post for exact description.)

glynor · « **Reply #36 on:** February 14, 2013, 05:05:19 pm »

Quote from: MrC on February 13, 2013, 03:28:33 pm

Can you send me a sample? I'll delete when I'm done. Dropbox, or I'll PM you an email.

kstuart, did you get back to MrC on this?

Like I said, I still have a "few" (and by a few, I mean a few hundred files) live shows from etree.org that are untagged converted FLACs from the SHN sources still (that I've been too lazy to fix). If there is some automated way I could do this (I still have the SHN sources and stuff), I'd be thrilled. I'd want to tweak it from the automated import of metadata, of course, but if it could just name the tracks and stuff, that'd be a huge timesaver.

But I don't know anything about the existing method in foobar to be of help. I knew that such a thing existed, but I'd never bothered to research it at all.

kstuart · « **Reply #37 on:** February 14, 2013, 05:26:44 pm »

I did exchange some emails with MrC about it, and sent him some samples.

Meanwhile, if you want to try the foobar method, here is the one and only thread on it:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11995

This is what it looks like in action (the info in the dialog box is parsed from the usual etree text file):

glynor · « **Reply #38 on:** February 14, 2013, 05:30:26 pm »

Thanks.

MrC · « **Reply #39 on:** February 14, 2013, 05:36:53 pm »

I received a few .txt file samples, but not enough content in the standard directory forms to produce a complete solution.

The text files are generally a mess; nonetheless, I was able to produce a script to pull out some relevant information.

Since the etree stuff generally follows some directory naming, file naming, and text info conventions, it is possible to use that information to build some useful data. Perhaps this can be output into a sidecar file or mpl file which MC can read to populate tags.

I did find a script and set of tools that purports to accomplish the file conversion and tag writing. But I don't have any etree data sufficient enough to be clear how well it works. The script ends up being very much like what I wrote last night. I tried the script on the the single .shn file I was sent, but it was not in any directory structure, and there was a mismatch of the .shn and .txt file namings. I spent a little time trying to figure out how to download more content from etree - what a pain! Simply put, these folks are nuts, and clearly have not heard of torrents (they are still stuck in mailing list announcements of ftp sites that come and go - yuck).

So, if you want some help on this, I'm not going to work hard to find the input data. If you have some reasonable number of samples in the correct formats (file and directory names, content, metadata files), I'm happy to see what I can come up with.

I came up with very similar output to the foobar stuff above (didn't bother with the Venue content -that could go in Comments or elsewhere):

**** galactic2011-06-12.txt
Date: 2011/06/12
Artist: Galactic
Track: 01 Title: Intro
Track: 02 Title: Who Took The Happiness
Track: 03 Title: I Don't Know But It Sure Is Funky (Corey)
Track: 04 Title: Never Called You Crazy (Corey)
Track: 05 Title: Keep Steppin
Track: 06 Title: Boe Money
Track: 07 Title: You Don't Know (corey)
Track: 08 Title: Night People (corey)
Track: 09 Title: Cineramascope
Track: 10 Title: Balkan Wedding
Track: 11 Title: Total destruction to your mind (corey)
Track: 12 Title: Corey Plead for Gulf Coast
Track: 13 Title: Heart of Steel (corey)
Track: 14 Title: Baker's dozen >
Track: 15 Title: Stanley Drums >
Track: 16 Title: Baker's Dozen
Track: 17 Title: How Many More Times (Corey)

**** gd1969-01-17.txt
Date: 1969/01/17
Artist: 1/17/69
Disc: 1
Track: 1 Title: Turn //On Your Lovelight
Track: 2 Title: Dark Star>
Track: 3 Title: St. Stephen>
Track: 4 Title: The Eleven>
Track: 5 Title: Death Don't Have No Mercy
Disc: 2
Track: 2 Title: Drums>
Track: 3 Title: The Other One>
Track: 4 Title: Cryptical>
Track: 5 Title: Cosmic Charlie

kstuart · « **Reply #40 on:** February 14, 2013, 06:04:09 pm »

Quote from: MrC on February 14, 2013, 05:36:53 pm

I spent a little time trying to figure out how to download more content from etree - what a pain! Simply put, these folks are nuts, and clearly have not heard of torrents (they are still stuck in mailing list announcements of ftp sites that come and go - yuck).

The torrents (19,350 of them) are at:

http://bt.etree.org/

But since this is only for tagging, for testing you can use any audio file from any other album. All that matters is that the resulting tags match the stuff in the text file.

As far as the audio file naming, I find they are always _____DnTxx.shn, where Dn is the Disc Number and Txx is the track number. I think that is all that is needed, since it is only necessary to make sure that the tags are applied to the correct file.

Perhaps this could be split off as a separate thread ? It might be confusing Matt and others, since it is not really related to cue sheets.

glynor · « **Reply #41 on:** February 14, 2013, 06:54:44 pm »

Quote from: MrC on February 14, 2013, 05:36:53 pm

**** galactic2011-06-12.txt
Date: 2011/06/12
Artist: Galactic
Track: 01 Title: Intro
Track: 02 Title: Who Took The Happiness
Track: 03 Title: I Don't Know But It Sure Is Funky (Corey)
Track: 04 Title: Never Called You Crazy (Corey)
Track: 05 Title: Keep Steppin
Track: 06 Title: Boe Money
Track: 07 Title: You Don't Know (corey)
Track: 08 Title: Night People (corey)
Track: 09 Title: Cineramascope
Track: 10 Title: Balkan Wedding
Track: 11 Title: Total destruction to your mind (corey)
Track: 12 Title: Corey Plead for Gulf Coast
Track: 13 Title: Heart of Steel (corey)
Track: 14 Title: Baker's dozen >
Track: 15 Title: Stanley Drums >
Track: 16 Title: Baker's Dozen
Track: 17 Title: How Many More Times (Corey)

**** gd1969-01-17.txt
Date: 1969/01/17
Artist: 1/17/69
Disc: 1
Track: 1 Title: Turn //On Your Lovelight
Track: 2 Title: Dark Star>
Track: 3 Title: St. Stephen>
Track: 4 Title: The Eleven>
Track: 5 Title: Death Don't Have No Mercy
Disc: 2
Track: 2 Title: Drums>
Track: 3 Title: The Other One>
Track: 4 Title: Cryptical>
Track: 5 Title: Cosmic Charlie

If I could get that... I'd be thrilled.

The way I always tag them is to:

Set the [Date] to match the date recorded.
Set the [Artist] and [Genre] appropriately by my standards.
Set the [Album] to something like: "1972-08-27 - Old Renaissance Faire Grounds, Veneta OR (Braverman Dank Source)"
Sometimes, if I'm feeling feisty, I set [Location] to the town/city/etc (eg "Veneta, OR") and the [Events] to the name of the show ("Benefit for Springfield Creamery").
I set a [Keyword] "live".
And then I copypasta the entire contents of the txt file into the [Notes] field.

The main problem is the Track Names, which I've always done via ol' elbow grease. I get on kicks now and then and will do 30-50 sets in a night.

PS. This makes me look like a Dead-head. I'm not, though I enjoy a good Dead show here and there, but my tastes are far more varied. If you could accuse me of being a "-head" about anything, I'd have to pick electronic music. But there is a ton of fantastic live content on etree.org.

PPS. I agree about splitting this stuff into its own thread. Useful stuff, though, this.

glynor · « **Reply #42 on:** February 14, 2013, 06:59:12 pm »

Quote from: kstuart on February 14, 2013, 06:04:09 pm

I find they are always _____DnTxx.shn, where Dn is the Disc Number and Txx is the track number.

Yep. That's pretty much the pattern I see as well.

Every so often, there is a newer one that has no disc numbers, or that follows a different pattern, but mostly they're that.

Perhaps this should be an awesomesauce job for Carnac?

kstuart · « **Reply #43 on:** February 14, 2013, 07:04:29 pm »

Okay, I will start a new thread:

" Converting SHN files to FLAC files " at

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78216

Hopefully Jim or some other admin can paste the relevant posts there, and then this one can continue as Embedded CUE sheet discussion.

The off-topic posts start with:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77950.msg531408#msg531408

but there are some posts after that message that are on topic of Embedded CUE sheets.

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Author Topic: First test of the support for FLAC files with embedded CUE sheet (Read 20750 times)