MrC, this table has been enormously helpful to me over the past year as I've researched and tested different things. I hereby offer my time and enthusiasm for the subject.
Listener, I appreciate the coaching, including how to best benefit from and share with this community, and how I come across. Truly.
It must not show, but I have been doing quite a lot of testing and research myself. MrC's explanation of custom tags in the referenced post is where I learned to create custom tags in dbpa and get them to display in MC. Before testing/creating a custom tag, I review MrC's listing wanting to align with existing conventions, and wishing everything in his table was aligned in a sortable, filterable way with data from many other great resources I come across (see below).
I figured that if these things exist...
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:ID3_Tag_Mappinghttp://wiki.musicbrainz.org/MusicBrainz_Picard/Tags/Mappinghttp://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Metatag_Mappinghttp://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Metadata_Compatibility_1.1.6_changes...that there existed somewhere something similar with a MC column.
I would not create my own mapping without at least asking first, especially since such mappings exist for iTunes, Mp3Tag, Foobar, and other software.
And posts like below are encouraging:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=102013http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62389.0I am also working through things myself so far testing DLNA, my Sonos, and iPod syncing through MC.
I am posting publicly the things I am most struggling with, and which are most halting my private progress.
When dbpa "Style" did not map to MC "Style" and I could not understand why, I knew I needed help, especially since my test custom "AMG Rating" in dbpa lined up so effortlessly with that same custom field in MC. I have just started my tag examining using the raw tags trick Listener directed, but from a quick read it looks like while dbpa displays the field in its right click menu as "Style" that it nevertheless saves it really as "Grouping" behind the scenes in the file.
I have indeed started a spreadsheet in Excel, where I typed in the dbpa default fields that appear in the ripping screen. To it, I have added JRiver fields from MrC's list that I am considering populating on each rip. I am happy to continue adding to this Excel file and happy to share it. If someone wanted to help me build in things the community cares about and needs, it will come out better. I should probably start by trying to get MrC's entire list into Excel instead of just the handful I typed in.
Once it's in there, and I confirm I can get it to a "flat" table format, I will flag certain fields and customize useful pivot tables. One will be a list grouped by those fields I've targeted to be populated in dbpa upon every rip, versus those that are set up in dbpa, but will be more "optional" on rip. It will also show me the JRiver field name and whether it's a custom user field or not. It will show me which of those fields will not survive an iTunes import and thus whether any info should be moved or duplicated to the Comments or Lyrics field so it can show in iTunes (most importantly, on an iPod screen). I will be able to see and group the JRiver fields I am not using, and whether that's because I've already decided I will put such info into a different field, versus I have no idea what it might even be for.
Listener, you seem a bit put off that I first asked if some starting point for this existed already. I will chalk that up to my own failure to effectively communicate previously. But, I have found several threads that lead me to believe there were some others who were playing in this space, so I thought I'd ask first. If I hadn't posted my earlier question, you would not have shown me the quite helpful way to see the raw tags. I did not know before. Now I do. Thank you.
That trick shows me a lot about the fields that dbpa puts in the file, and I see where MC puts them. It does not help me see the relationship between JRiver fields dbpa is NOT populating by default (and thus are not in the sample file) and how they look as embedded tags.
If nothing exists w/MC column added to these other lists, or even some "all fields populated with field names" test rip I could download, I suppose the best way for me to figure this out is to create custom fields in dbpa for each JRiver field that I can't find an existing dbpa field for, do a test rip where I populate every dbpa/JRiver field with the name of that field, import the resulting file into MC, examine the results, and record them in my Excel sheet for future reference.
As much work as that would be, I'd be willing to do it and give the results back to this community. Just, please point me to anything that might already exist if there is anything so I am not re-inventing the wheel without realizing it. For example, MrC, does your list already exist in Excel? At a minimum, I'd be happy to take it, map the dbpa default rip window fields, do some test rips, logs and print screens and give it all back to you. What other help putting together info are you interested in?
Thanks, everyone.