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[alexhenes]

I have a need for a feture you don't yet have.  How about developing the ability to select all of the songs in a CD that is already imported and a part of a music library and looking up the artists and songs for that CD in YADB?  This would be helpful for me as I have a lot of various artist CDs and soundtracks where I 'various artists' as the artist and don't have the actual artists list in my library.  I would like to be able to lookup a CD that I already have cataloged as various artist and update my catalog with the actual artist on the CD.  The track lookup feature does not support this function as it usually finds the orginal album the song was on and not the soundtrack or various artist CD.

Thanks

[KingSparta]

it finds the track based on a digital finger print, and the data that was submited bye the user.

i do not see this changing

[alexhenes]

I am not proposing changing the track lookup feature... but adding the ability to lookup an album that is already imported as if it were being looked up from a CD that has not been ripped yet.

[KingSparta]

I don't see how that can be done/


when a CD is read it calculates a ID from that CD

When A track is looked up it does not have a ID

Only if you create a finger print for that tract will you have something to base your lookup on.

what would you base your look up on so the server would know what album it is?

if your going to use the album name that is already in the tags, i don't see the point since you alread have it taged.

[Alex B]

There are several other programs that can do it. Tag & Rename is one of them. They go to FreeDB and get the same tags that you would have got before ripping.

From the T&R help:

"The freedb uses a CD's original song order and track time as two parameters (among others) to retrieve song information. Tag&Rename attempts to emulate these parameters to get the song information from the freedb server. If ANY changes were made to the leading or trailing silence of MP3 track times with a MP3 sound editor for example, then the album CAN NOT be found using freedb."

It works quite well. I have got the correct tags many times when updating my oldest poorly tagged/untagged album rips.

It would be nice to have this feature in a future MC version. I don't think the program code for doing it is very complicated. I would like to think it would be possible as well with YADB. (...or perhaps we'll see a nice Spartasoft plug-in doing it someday.  )

[KingSparta]

or perhaps we'll see a nice Spartasoft plug-in doing it someday

well i was going to do something with a lookup, but

1. I can not generate a fingerprint
2. J river will not allow access to the fingerprint thru the SDK
3. you can not access YADB thru the SDK
4. you can not access the CD in the drive directly thru the SDK
5. I am not that smart

and i don't see any of this changing
 

[Alex B]

I see. I have personally found #5 difficult to change too. Sometimes I feel that it goes the other way round as I get older. 

eh_ex,

You could ask that again when the dust has settled down after the MC11 release and JRiver has published their plans for a future MC version. I think it would be a nice feature if only possible with YADB.

[alexhenes]

Hey Guys...

How is the digital finger print for an album generated?

My understanding is that the algorithm uses information such as:

1.  Number of songs on the album
2.  Duration of songs on the album
3.  Sequence of songs based upon duration
4.  Anything else I have not listed?

Media Center should have the same information about an album that has already been ripped\cataloged  that it does for an album that is sitting in a CD/DVD drive.

An implementation approach could be something like this:

If the user selects all of the tracks on an album that has already been ripped/cataloged in Media Center... the user could then perform something like a right mouse click and have the option to perform an Album Lookup as opposed to a track lookup. 

Media Center would then generate the album finger print based upon the tracks that were selected and do a YADB call as if it were looking up a CD that has not been ripped\cataloged.

I am sure that I am missing a few things here and there... but it seems like the information to do an album lookup as opposed to a track lookup is there.

Album lookups would be a great feature to have.   It would enable users to get the real artists for soundtrack/various artist albums that they have already cataloged incorrectly. If you can't get it done for MC11... no big deal... but it would be a great feature to have in the future.

Thanks for your Reponses...

[JimH]

It's top secret.   

There's more we could do with this, we know.

[KingSparta]

How is the digital finger print for an album generated?

for A CD It is based apon number of tracks, size of the tracks, and order etc... on the CD. once it is converted into a media file (like MP3) this ID is no longer vallid.

at that point some sort of digital finger printing is needed i am sure there is many versions of this and all is not compatable with others.

FreeDB does not have digital fingerprinting (the last time i talked to the programmer, nor did he plan on it at that time). tag and rename if i remember correctly was based on play times of the tracks and if they were out of order you would get data for the wrong CD.

I think (Stressing the point I Think) what they did was use the play time convert that to raw cda data bytes and then generate a TOC or CD ID, then do a lookup based on that data.

I have not used tag and rename in some time so not sure of the current state.

I do have some source code for generating CD ID's but the Media Center SDK does not allow for direct access to the CD. so it is worthless to try to create anything for media center and tie it into the media center database. if there is a way, i have never found it. if there was i would have created other plugins.

eh_ex, i think your correct on all that you said in your last post

[alexhenes]

With regard to the digital signature of a CD...

for A CD It is based apon number of tracks, size of the tracks, and order etc... on the CD. once it is converted into a media file (like MP3) this ID is no longer vallid.
----
if i remember correctly was based on play times of the tracks and if they were out of order you would get data for the wrong CD.

Is the digital signature no longer valid when the CD is converted to a media file because the user could re-order the tracks?

If so... then users who re-order the tracks of an album would be SOL.  However if the order of an album in tact I would think the digital signature generated using the stats of the ripped/cataloged album would be the same as the digital signature of the CD.

In anycase... if multiple matches were found or even a single match... MC could present the user with the list of albums it could possiblely be and let the user decide if they want to use one of them to rename or add the real track artists.

Thanks again for your responses

[Myron]

There's more we could do with this, we know.

How about more options on what database to use?

I use Audiograbber, which uses Freedb, when MC can't find good info through YADB.

What are the reasons for only having YADB available?  Just not done yet, cost of service, others?

[KingSparta]

What are the reasons for only having YADB available?  Just not done yet, cost of service, others?

This was answered before, but

1. Money (FreeDB Is or was free) But CDDB was not
2. Better control, CDDB had problems working correctly

[JimH]

Lethargy

[KingSparta]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=Lethargy

[Myron]

Lethargy

OK.

I know the feeling well....