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Thread: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

  1. #1

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    Lightbulb Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Hiya everyone,

    Long time user of "Batch Converter"; recent purchaser of "CD Ripper" (and am expecting exactly the same high quality there ).
    Also, pretty much OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) about the naming of our ripped music. I'm just having it rip our entire library again after a "Windows" ... lets go with "glitch" ... resulted in the deletion of the 40,000 or so files which comprised our audio media library. I had spent considerable effort re-organising the filenames, metadata, etc. of that library, and now it looks as though I'll have to do it all over again ...

    But there is hope, I hope

    Looking at the excellent instructions for "CD Ripper", it looks as though it will do a pretty good job of starting with good data, so that's a plus.
    "CD Ripper" also has programmatic means to alter some of the information. Looking at that, it should even be possible to arrange titles in library order (and without one of my pet hates, "Title Case" - eurgh!), E.g., "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" would become "Momentary lapse of reason, A". Same with artist information - "Alice Cooper" should, of course, be "Cooper, Alice" (whereas "Alice in chains" remains "Alice in chains" as whoever "Alice" might have been, "Alice in chains" is not the name of a person).
    See? Said I was OCD about these things

    But it's not enough. There are (quite considerable) limits on what can be achieved with even the well thought out programmatic changes which can be applied in "CD Ripper".

    Suggestion ...
    (as a developer myself, I hate it when someone says "Errrr, how about ...", but hopefully this is a good suggestion which would be relatively simple to implement ...).
    A configurable option to place a button on the metadata summary screen; that button will cause the selected metadata to be written to a temporary file, probably in some XML based format (you might need to define a suitable schema, or there may well be an existing one you can use). An external programme is called, and passed the name of that temporary file and a second; it reads the metadata from the first, makes any changes, and writes it to the second. When the programme has exited, any metadata in the second file is read and that is what is used to work out the save directory and filename, and the stored metadata.
    (of course, piping into "stdin" and reading from "stdout" of such a programme would be neater and simpler, but that can be ... "interesting" ... on "Windows" based platforms ... Temporary files, whilst slightly inelegant, will work anywhere).

    For example ...
    1. You're ripping "School's out" by "Alice Cooper".
    2. The metadata has been gathered and the best options presented to you.
    3. You click the (for example) "Check metadata" button (which has appeared because you've configured an external checking programme).
    4. That receives information such as:
      <Album>
      <ID>0123456789</ID>
      <Artist>Alice Cooper</Artist>
      <Title>Schools Out</Title>
      <PathElement>Alice Cooper</PathElement>
      <PathElement>Schools Out</PathElement>
      <AudioTracks>
      ...
      <Track>
      <Number>1</Number>
      <Title>School's Out</Title>
      <FileName>1_School's Out_Alice Cooper</FileName>
      <Composer>Alice Cooper // Glen Buxton // Michael Bruce // Dennis Dunaway & Neal Smith</Composer>
      ...
      </Track>
      </AudioTracks>
      </Album>
    5. It returns information such as:
      <Album>
      <ID>0123456789</ID>
      <Artist>Cooper, Alice</Artist>
      <PathElement>Cooper, Alice</PathElement>
      <PathElement>School's out</PathElement>
      <Title>School's out</Title>
      <Genre>Glamrock</Genre>
      <Genre>Soft rock</Genre>
      <StudioID>AC98765</StudioID>
      <AudioTracks>
      ...
      <Track>
      <Number>01</Number>
      <Title>School's out</Title>
      <FileName>01_School's out_Cooper, Alice</FileName>
      <Composer>Cooper, Alice; Buxton, Glen; Bruce, Michael; Dunaway, Dennis; Smith, Neal</Composer>
      ...
      </Track>
      </AudioTracks>
      </Album>
    6. You smile, thinking of the work you're saving with each rip, save the data, and move on to the next


    Obviously the user still has to put in work creating the external programme (script, executable, ...) which will apply their own modifications to the data.

    An excellent compliment to such a facility would then to be able to take such XML output from another programme and bulk apply it to the library rip directory. I.e., read a bunch of output in that format and (intelligently - where path or filenames are changed, a little bit of care would have to be applied working out where the item currently is ...) check whether any of it is different from what is already present and, if anything is, change it. E.g., the file might have been renamed, or the composer updated, or nothing might have changed (in which case that item would just be ignored).
    If the user then just had a programme (run, by button, from the metadata summary as above) which saved the XML data it was given, they could rip a whole load of CDs and would end up with a pile of XML representing all the metadata. That could be edited with an XML editor (or even just a simple text editor) to make any bulk changes, then that XML data fed back into your software and bulk applied. So even users who can't (or don't want to) write their own metadata correction programmes could benefit - you could easily supply a default programme which just takes the XML metadata it's given and writes it to a given directory for later editing and bulk application.

    So, whaddya think - sound sensible? Sound possible? Pretty please could we have such a facility before I launch back into months of re-ripping (I can wait )?

  2. #2
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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    We already have the ID Tag Processing DSP effect which allows 'Externally Script Tags'

    Granted this will not affect file naming right now, but in R15.3 it will do.

  3. #3

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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by Spoon View Post
    We already have the ID Tag Processing DSP effect which allows 'Externally Script Tags'
    Yes, I looked at that - couldn't find too many details on it (probably me - I'm sure it is documented somewhere, or do I just install it and look in the help?) but surely that is being applied at completely different a point in the processing, so would it (for example) be able to affect ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Spoon View Post
    Granted this will not affect file naming right now, but in R15.3 it will do.
    ... filenames. Ah ha.
    Still, sounds as though that might be a good starting point; look at this again when I can see what the utility CODECs can do in R15.3.

    Doesn't help for batch processing though, or would dBpoweramp also be able to use that functionality? I.e., would you then be able to use dBpoweramp to use a ID Tag processing CODEC and rename files as a result? If so, I think that would provide exactly what I need (depending on exactly what your utility CODECs can do, in conjunction with R15.3).

    Many thanks for the quick and helpful response

  4. #4
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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    If so OCD, why did you not backup your audio library? Sadly, it appears you did not. Backup is essential if users are to devote much of their time to such a task as a well ripped/tagged audio library.

    A word of warning. As you are probably aware, producing a clean, well tagged audio library requires a lot of slow, manual intervention, regardless of the automated databases and programmable tools available. In my opinion, CDRipper does a reasonable job, it just may not deliver what you hope for.

    Ripping and tagging is a labour of love. If you need to re-rip over 2000 CDs, this will be very time consuming, so, best to get started asap.
    Last edited by mville; 05-14-2015 at 08:04 PM.

  5. #5
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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    The manual to this Effect is in the main dBpoweramp help, choose the DSP section.

  6. #6

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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by mville View Post
    If so OCD, why did you not backup your audio library? Sadly, it appears you did not.
    Yeah, I was just waiting for someone to mention backups ...

    Long story, with many elements, all with incredibly poor timing. Suffice it to say that yes, our multimedia libraries are backed up, but the loss of those files was only noticed the following day (so primary level backup gone - files were deleted, backup ran overnight, and therefore deleted the backed up copies to match the current contents) and air-con. engineers (that same day) accidentally wrecking the discs for the second level backup (dropping an A/C head on them ...) took care of the secondary level backups.

    All in all, it was not a good week ...

  7. #7

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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by Spoon View Post
    The manual to this Effect is in the main dBpoweramp help, choose the DSP section.
    Excellent - thank you; I'll go and take a look ...

  8. #8

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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by mville View Post
    A word of warning. As you are probably aware, producing a clean, well tagged audio library requires a lot of slow, manual intervention, regardless of the automated databases and programmable tools available.
    Yes, absolutely. It took a massive amount of time, spread out over several years, to get it all correctly tagged and filed in the first place. Losing it was therefore particularly ... well, let's just go with "annoying" ...

    On the plus side, I do still have our local database of what was and what should be for all the discs. It's not a complete set of metadata, but it does list all of the "common" changes I had to make to our library. E.g., "Apollo 440" versus "@440"; "Blue Oyster Cult" (with correct international characters in there which I'm not going even to attempt to get into this post!) versus the numerous variations you find in the online databases, including correctly spelled ones but using UTF8 character encoding rather than UTF16; etc. etc. etc. etc.
    Hence hoping for a programmatic solution whereby I can map "CDRipper"'s idea of the correctly combined metadata, check it against that database, and map the output accordingly. While it wouldn't eliminate all the pain of re-correcting the metadata, it would certainly take care of a substantial percentage of it ...

    Quote Originally Posted by mville View Post
    Ripping and tagging is a labour of love. If you need to re-rip over 2000 CDs, this will be very time consuming, so, best to get started asap.
    Indeed, but better perhaps to wait a little while and get it right than jump in feet first and create potentially a lot more work later which could easily have been avoided ...

  9. #9
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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by THEM View Post
    Indeed, but better perhaps to wait a little while and get it right than jump in feet first and create potentially a lot more work later which could easily have been avoided ...
    Oh so very true!

    Virtually all of us longtime digital audio types have learned this the hard way. Yet it's always hard to convince those new users that come here and are so impatient to get their entire CD library ripped TODAY! They're understandably excited about their new batch ripping setup that's going to send ripped files directly to their NAS, happily estimating how quickly they can get through 3000 discs, or whatever.....but they're woefully unprepared (despite warnings from the rest of us) for how "not-ready-for-prime-time" many of those files will be, and how much post-rip work they're set themselves up for.....

  10. #10
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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    Quote Originally Posted by THEM View Post
    Hence hoping for a programmatic solution whereby I can map "CDRipper"'s idea of the correctly combined metadata, check it against that database, and map the output accordingly. While it wouldn't eliminate all the pain of re-correcting the metadata, it would certainly take care of a substantial percentage of it ...
    That is my point, the solution you request just does not exist and I doubt will ever exist. I understand (and support) your point about waiting and getting your ripping strategy right before jumping in, however, you may be waiting a long time for the sophisticated solution you are after.

    Another approach might be to:
    1. Use CDRipper to rip your library.
    2. Export your local database to a unicode text file with your metadata changes/preferences, in a format that MP3Tag can import.
    3. Use MP3Tag to import the data from the unicode text file into your ripped audio files.

  11. #11

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    Re: Metadata mapping (enhancement suggestion).

    send them to India. I can introduce you to a company that could do it. 2000 cds? who has time for that!

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