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[JimH]

I don't know what we'll call her when she's finished, but she's a blabbermouth if you let her be.

Under Tools/Options/General, there is a new option called "Submit song ratings to recommendation system".  If you check it, MC will start updating our database with anonymous information (you're just a number to us) that tells us which tracks you like.  It reports skips, plays, and ratings to our database.

WE NEED some DATA to make it do anything.  If a couple of hundred people checked the box, we'd have it in a few days.

We hope to have the other side running in a build later this week.  It will have a new section under Services in the tree that shows you tracks it thinks you'll like.

Thanks to JohnT for cooking this up.  More to come.

[edbro]

How does it work in the other direction? Are the ratings applied to music on CD lookup? Can they be rejected?

Sounds interesting but I keep thinking that my 5 star rating might be somebody else's two.

[jgreen]

I can just hear Marlon Brando calling up the stairs:

"TELLA!"

[AoXoMoXoA]

So, I guess someone who uses album ratings rather than track ratings, and plays whole albums in track order without skipping would be useless to you?   


Actually this sounds like a great feature and I cannot wait to see it in aciton.

[tombert]

hmmm ... enabled it ... but I'am not always online ... so I think MC regularly tries to transmitt?

[Vulcan]

Sounds interesting... Can you give us some more info on how this will work?

[Dutch Peter]

If "Submit song ratings to recommendation system" is renamed to "Enable online metadata (lookup and submit)" i have got it checked.
Otherwise I can not find it!?

[JohnT]

If "Submit song ratings to recommendation system" is renamed to "Enable online metadata (loopup and submit)" i have got it checked.
Otherwise I can not find it!?

No that's not it. Look in Tools/Options/General/Online Metadata

hmmm ... enabled it ... but I'am not always online ... so I think MC regularly tries to transmitt?

Currently (and this may change) MC checks at program startup to see if a submission has been done within the last 24 hours. If not, it submits new or changed track usage data (maximum 1000 tracks per daily submission) and downloads the latest set of recommended tracks. The latest version also has a button to submit tracks more often, however it won't get a fresh set of recommendations more than once per day (this will probably change).

So, I guess someone who uses album ratings rather than track ratings, and plays whole albums in track order without skipping would be useless to you?

No, you should still get decent recommendations when we have enough data. We also plan to improve the system over time to make broader recommendations (artists, albums, styles, users with similar tastes, etc.). Right now, we don't have enough data to make great recommendations, but that will hopefully change with your input.

How does it work in the other direction? Are the ratings applied to music on CD lookup? Can they be rejected?

The ratings that you submit are yours only. The recommendations that you get back are tracks that you don't have in your library, the ratings on them are what our system deduces for you. These aren't real tracks that you get back of course, they're just metadata pointing to a track that you could potentially buy at Amazon, or download through a subscription service, or buy on a CD, etc.  We'd like to add the functionality to hear previews of these and provide links to purchase and download.

[eba]

As I currently haven't rated anything at all, I think in order to get anything out of this I could do with something that automatically rates my songs.  Based on my listening tendencies, I think the best way to do this would be based on volume at beginning of track compared to volume by the end.  No change = 3 star, 20% increases or decreases would gain or remove stars.  Feature request?
(Naturally it would have to be linked to my stereo system somehow as I rarely use MC's internal volume...)

[Baron Samedi]

I'm not using Rating either, is the number plays sufficient to benefit of the recommendation system?

[Dutch Peter]

Quote
If "Submit song ratings to recommendation system" is renamed to "Enable online metadata (loopup and submit)" i have got it checked.
Otherwise I can not find it!?
No that's not it. Look in Tools/Options/General/Online Metadata

I am in!!!

[JohnT]

I'm not using Rating either, is the number plays sufficient to benefit of the recommendation system?

Yes it is. Since the rating field is often unused, we go mainly off of the number of times the track has been played and skipped. Playcount increases the rating, skip count decreases it. If the rating field is filled in, we use it to augment the playcount and skipcount.

[Vulcan]

Did you guys consider basing this information off of something like last.fm?  I feel like that would at least give you a good starting point for relative number of plays.

[JohnT]

Did you guys consider basing this information off of something like last.fm?  I feel like that would at least give you a good starting point for relative number of plays.

They made their data unavailable several years ago. You can get data about your own listening habits, or the top 10 artists, albums, etc., but you can't get at the full data.

[Vulcan]

They made their data unavailable several years ago. You can get data about your own listening habits, or the top 10 artists, albums, etc., but you can't get at the full data.

Didn't realize that.

[tombert]

... number of times the track has been played and skipped. ...

I'am interested in: how long do I have to play a song till its counted as "played"? 90 %, 80 % or really play it till the end to be counted as "played"?

thx
tom

[mark_h]

Yes it is. Since the rating field is often unused, we go mainly off of the number of times the track has been played and skipped. Playcount increases the rating, skip count decreases it. If the rating field is filled in, we use it to augment the playcount and skipcount.

Counting skips for me will have the wrong effect - I listen to a lot of long tracks which I enjoy but which kind of fizzle out in the last 30 seconds or so so I often hit skip to avoid waiting for the fade down - this will be picked up by the system as me disliking a track when that is not the case...

Unless perhaps skipping is only counted if it's during the first certain % of a track?

Mark

[mark_h]

Will there be some way to feedback that the suggestion is poor or good?

Mark

[llafriel]

I agree with mark_h here. I often skip tracks because I don't want to listen to it at that moment. The track may still be a great one. A system like last.fm with a like or dislike button would be better I think.

[JohnT]

Will there be some way to feedback that the suggestion is poor or good?

That's a good idea.

Counting skips for me will have the wrong effect - I listen to a lot of long tracks which I enjoy but which kind of fizzle out in the last 30 seconds or so so I often hit skip to avoid waiting for the fade down - this will be picked up by the system as me disliking a track when that is not the case...
Unless perhaps skipping is only counted if it's during the first certain % of a track?

Skip count is only incremented if you skip during the first half of the content. Otherwise it's added to number of plays.

I agree with mark_h here. I often skip tracks because I don't want to listen to it at that moment. The track may still be a great one. A system like last.fm with a like or dislike button would be better I think.

You can use the ratings field for that - mark it 4 or 5 stars for "like" and 1 or 2 stars for "dislike". We'll probably add an options dialog at some point that would allow you turn off skip counting.

Thanks guys. Keep the ideas (and data) coming. We're getting more and more data and I would expect the system may start spitting out some accurate and useful suggestions by the end of the week.

[mark_h]

That's a good idea.

And if fact a way to say "don't recommend again" - eg in the case where the recommendation is good but that you don't want it to be recommended again for whatever reason... perhaps you've ordered the CD for instance...

Mark

[Dutch Peter]

Is there a way to look at the collected data?

I am very curious how you are presenting the suggestions ........?
Is this via MC, a playlist, a website ?? Email??

[JohnT]

Is there a way to look at the collected data?

I am very curious how you are presenting the suggestions ........?
Is this via MC, a playlist, a website ?? Email??

Currently it's a very plain "track" listing you can get to from "Services & Plug-ins" / Suggestions. You can't do much with it right now, but that will change. We hope to add lots of interactivity over time. Amazon links and previews, Wiki links, MC user groups, etc.

[Dutch Peter]

Currently it's a very plain "track" listing you can get to from "Services & Plug-ins" / Suggestions. You can't do much with it right now, but that will change. We hope to add lots of interactivity over time. Amazon links and previews, Wiki links, MC user groups, etc.

John,
I do not see anything under Services & Plug-ins / Music Suggestions!!!?
I have the option 'submit songs rating to recommandation system' checked.
I am currently not playing any song.

[JohnT]

The list of suggested tracks was first implemented in build 464. What build are you running?

[Dutch Peter]

The list of suggested tracks was first implemented in build 464. What build are you running?

465, so I should be ok.

Maybe no suggestions were made based on what I have been playing?

[eba]

To begin with I got a load of recommendations.
Then the next time I looked they had all disappeared and for a couple of days there were none there.
And then they appeared again, and have been there since.

[datdude]

That's a good idea.
Skip count is only incremented if you skip during the first half of the content. Otherwise it's added to number of plays.
You can use the ratings field for that - mark it 4 or 5 stars for "like" and 1 or 2 stars for "dislike". We'll probably add an options dialog at some point that would allow you turn off skip counting.

Thanks guys. Keep the ideas (and data) coming. We're getting more and more data and I would expect the system may start spitting out some accurate and useful suggestions by the end of the week.

Yeah hopefully the preview can be built in to the MC playback engine, or at least a miniature pop up of the song auto playing from amazon, but I don't want ot open up a large page and have to find the song to play.

[Dutch Peter]

To begin with I got a load of recommendations.
Then the next time I looked they had all disappeared and for a couple of days there were none there.
And then they appeared again, and have been there since.

I still have an empty list in front of me. Also after restart of MC.

[Dutch Peter]

I still have an empty list in front of me. Also after restart of MC.

Just checked on my laptop. There I do have suggestions.
Laptop is XP, desktop is Vista .....?

[JohnT]

Yeah hopefully the preview can be built in to the MC playback engine, or at least a miniature pop up of the song auto playing from amazon, but I don't want to open up a large page and have to find the song to play.

Unfortunately, Amazon does not currently allow preview playback outside of their web pages. Hopefully that will change.

[JohnT]

Laptop is XP, desktop is Vista .....?

I'll check into that today.

I still have an empty list in front of me. Also after restart of MC.

Maybe no suggestions were made based on what I have been playing?

It's possible there was not enough correlation with other users to make recommendations. Our data set is only a week old but it's growing fast. How many songs are in your MC library? What are the most common entries in your genre column?

To begin with I got a load of recommendations.
Then the next time I looked they had all disappeared and for a couple of days there were none there.
And then they appeared again, and have been there since.

That sounds right. The first couple of days, the system was just sending out random tracks to test the functionality. Then it started doing "real" recommendations but since the database was so tiny at first, many users didn't have enough correlation to get any recommendations.

[eba]

The first couple of days, the system was just sending out random tracks to test the functionality.

Thank FSM for that.  I thought it actually thought I'd like Robbie Williams.

[Dutch Peter]

It's possible there was not enough correlation with other users to make recommendations. Our data set is only a week old but it's growing fast. How many songs are in your MC library? What are the most common entries in your genre column?

I play basically the same on my desktop as on my laptop.
I have 10.000+ songs in my Library.
Most common genres are: pop, easy listening, party, album.
Album needs some explanation:
Let's say i buy a new album because I like a song I heard on the radio.
That song would be genre 'pop', or maybe 'easy listening' or sometimes 'party'.
The rest of the songs will be labeled on genre Album. Some tracks stay there forever, some change once I know what it should be.
I use this a lot when using Smartlists.

I do not use rock, rock/pop, indie, etc etc .....

[Dutch Peter]

I checked my desktop again.
No suggestions in the list.
After that i unchecked the 'subimt ratings ..' option.
Immediately the list was filled with 20 files.
After that I rechecked the option again.

[raldo]

The ratings that you submit are yours only. The recommendations that you get back are tracks that you don't have in your library, the ratings on them are what our system deduces for you. These aren't real tracks that you get back of course, they're just metadata pointing to a track that you could potentially buy at Amazon, or download through a subscription service, or buy on a CD, etc.  We'd like to add the functionality to hear previews of these and provide links to purchase and download.

Is it possible to also include tracks *in your own* collection which have never been played?

I.e. "You have the song but you never realized ..."

[Dutch Peter]

Is it possible to also include tracks *in your own* collection which have never been played?

I.e. "You have the song but you never realized that they were great"

I like that idea. Maybe it could be an option. Matching with the library should be configurable: some people would like Genre and Album  included, some not.

[p7389]

I activated this. Probably won't use it, but no harm in being a number in the database.

[JohnT]

Is it possible to also include tracks *in your own* collection which have never been played?

I.e. "You have the song but you never realized ..."

Interesting idea for people with large collections. It sounds like something we could build into the MC smartlist system.

[raldo]

This is probably far fetched, and from a software probably a quite different challenge, but...

Could this mechanism be expanded to also include movies?

I'm currently using http://movielens.umn.edu/main for this purpose, and I find the hits which this site produces extremely accurate.

I have rated all the movies in my collection both in Movielens and in MC...

[JohnT]

This is probably far fetched, and from a software probably a quite different challenge, but...

Could this mechanism be expanded to also include movies?

I'm currently using http://movielens.umn.edu/main for this purpose, and I find the hits which this site produces extremely accurate.

I have rated all the movies in my collection both in Movielens and in MC...

We plan to extend this to all media at some point, but for now it's music only.

[raldo]

We plan to extend this to all media at some point, but for now it's music only.

I think you're on the right track. This is definitely value added for the user.

(Make sure you include cross media recommendations!)

[Dutch Peter]

When do the suggestion change?
It seems to be static over the last few days.
What triggers a change?
Should I be able to refresh the suggestions?
Should I be able to exclude suggestions? Based on artist, genre, .....

[MusicHawk]

Sounds potentially eye-opening, given the gigantic universe of music that might be involved. Of course, we don't want GIGO...

I wonder if a user-entered Rating, if there is one for a song, should override number of plays to determine the user's opinion of the track. The number of plays can be incremented for reasons that don't necessarily indicate a superior track (random mode, for instance, or radio mode, or the listener is not sitting at MC ready to skip every "weak" track). In contrast, a terrific song might be played rarely but still have a very high Rating that could help others discover the song. This is especially likely with the large/huge libraries some users seem to have -- even the best music can't all be played frequently. If someone has made the effort to add a Rating, it's probably the most important determinant of the song's value to that person, isn't it?

>> MC checks at program startup to see if a submission has been done within the last 24 hours.

Is this the only time it runs, or does it run daily, or on a configurable schedule? Other than to install an update, my MC doesn't get stopped/restarted. Even if it's not being used by me, it's the server for other computers in the house. With the size of my library, even at 1000 tracks EVERY day it would take many months to send it all to you.

Also, I actually have multiple libraries (no need to plow through Christmas songs except at Christmas, or my old radio shows, or whatever). I presume the submission process only acts on the currently-loaded library. Will it get confused when the user switches between libraries?

Where is the submission option setting stored? I regularly copy my main library from my desktop to a laptop which I use mobile WITHOUT an Internet connection, or sometimes with a very slow connection. Will the option be thereby copied to the laptop? If so, will MC notice there's not a good connection and not keep trying to submit data?

[mark_h]

What does the "Submit Ratings" button on the suggestions page actually do?

Mark

[JohnT]

What does the "Submit Ratings" button on the suggestions page actually do?

Mark

It scans your library for songs that need to be submitted (new song or playcount changed). It uploads that data and receives a list of recommendations (if available) in the reply from the server.

[JohnT]

When do the suggestion change?
It seems to be static over the last few days.
What triggers a change?
Should I be able to refresh the suggestions?
Should I be able to exclude suggestions? Based on artist, genre, .....

Currently it's once a day, but it may have been static for a couple days. If this is still the case, let me know.

[JohnT]

I wonder if a user-entered Rating, if there is one for a song, should override number of plays to determine the user's opinion of the track. The number of plays can be incremented for reasons that don't necessarily indicate a superior track (random mode, for instance, or radio mode, or the listener is not sitting at MC ready to skip every "weak" track). In contrast, a terrific song might be played rarely but still have a very high Rating that could help others discover the song. This is especially likely with the large/huge libraries some users seem to have -- even the best music can't all be played frequently. If someone has made the effort to add a Rating, it's probably the most important determinant of the song's value to that person, isn't it?

Currently rating is equally weighted with playcount, but I agree that rating may be more important. We may change the weighting or make it user selectable.

>> MC checks at program startup to see if a submission has been done within the last 24 hours.

Is this the only time it runs, or does it run daily, or on a configurable schedule? Other than to install an update, my MC doesn't get stopped/restarted. Even if it's not being used by me, it's the server for other computers in the house. With the size of my library, even at 1000 tracks EVERY day it would take many months to send it all to you.

This is another area that may need changes. Maybe base the max submission size off of library size.

Also, I actually have multiple libraries (no need to plow through Christmas songs except at Christmas, or my old radio shows, or whatever). I presume the submission process only acts on the currently-loaded library. Will it get confused when the user switches between libraries?

No, it just scans tracks in whatever library is currently open.

Where is the submission option setting stored? I regularly copy my main library from my desktop to a laptop which I use mobile WITHOUT an Internet connection, or sometimes with a very slow connection. Will the option be thereby copied to the laptop? If so, will MC notice there's not a good connection and not keep trying to submit data?

The option setting isn't stored in the database so that won't be a problem.

Thanks for the ideas.
JohnT