Philip Meyer wrote: > >We have to accept this and find an alternative where at least a > >significant amount of people can be happy. Tagging with > >ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists is pretty common and I also think tagging > >with ALBUMARTIST on all albums is pretty common. It depends on the > >tagging software but I know I for a long time believe I didn't use > >"ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists" but then I start to look at the tag and > it > >was actually there and had been added automatically by the tagging > >software. > > > I would say it's not all that common to tag a regular album with an > album artist. I believe freedb and EAC don't populate it, and I've > always stripped the album artist tag out if its not necessary for > consistency in my library.
EAC is itself not common. WMP, Winamp, iTunes, and most others are far more common, and all assign/write an album artist value by default assuming their online DB has one, which in my exp most of the time they do. (not 100% sure about iTunes, but I think its true, or maybe just via auto-tagging) I use EAC, and I manually add the album artist tag in EAC pre-rip. easily done. freedb is just one DB. AMG/Rovi, CDDB/Gracenote, MB, GD3, etc all have album artist info in them, afaik. Philip Meyer wrote: > But I don't think this matters, and shouldn't directly influence how the > browse queries work. > > There needs to be a better separation of concern between: > > 1) scanning the media tags to create the music library database > 2) browsing the library database > > We shouldn't be thinking about how files are tagged when looking at the > ways we browse the music library. > > I think the scanner could populate each album with an album artist (use > the tag if it exists, otherwise select one automatically - either the > artists that appear on every track, or the various artists name). > > Then it would be safe to assume for browsing that Browse Album Artists > is just a list of album artist role. completely agree. it needs to be clear in everyone's mind in this thread, that 'Home > Album Artists' represents a listing of what the server has assigned any given file, meaning what AA value it has assigned said files, which may, -OR may not,- be directly explicitly stated in the tags. if it is stated, then its obvious it should use only that; if it isn't stated, then server needs some simple logic to assign such a value, which it already has / uses for detecting compilations when there is no explicit AA tag. the Album Artists list should be hardcoded to represent only that, and not take its actual comp status into account one way or the other, as that status is [or should be] absolutely meaningless to the AA value server has for any given file. Philip Meyer wrote: > It's crazy that a list of album artists currently needs logic to take > album artists and artists but not if the album is a compilation. can u explain further? I think I know what u mean but I want to be sure. Philip Meyer wrote: > > >ALBUM ARTISTS > >Note that this > >means that a compilation album tagged with "ALBUMARTIST=Various > >Soundtrack Albums" will be found both under "Album Artists/Various > >Soundtrack Albums" and under "Album Artists/Various Artists", but this > >is not an issue, it's better that it appear in two places than no > where > >att all. > > > I disagree. > > Browse Compilations should contain a list of albums that are > compilations, irrespective of name. > Browse Album Artists should contains a list of artists that are > associated with albums, irrespective of compilation flag. I agree with Phil here, that is how it should work, but I have no problem with a simple hardcoded link to Home > Compilations being included at the same points where "Various Artists" has been for years in the aa/artist list[s]. Philip Meyer wrote: > An album with album artist = "Various Soundtrack Albums" should not > appear under "Various Artists". Just because it is a compilation, > doesn't mean it should appear under Album Artists > Various Artists, as > the user has decided to label it as being by a different artist. right. it really has never made sense to me to have that link to comps in the middle of an artist listing anyway. like I just said, put a hard coded link there to Home > Comps both at the top of the artist lists (where the VA link has been) and where 'Various Artists' is (in 7.8 and below) in the middle of the artist lists, but rename it to Home > Comps and make it obvious its just a navigational link, and not a DB value. Philip Meyer wrote: > > >ALL ARTISTS > >- Should not contain any "Various Artists" entry, the whole purpose > with > >this menu is that you want to find music where an artist is involved > >independent if the artist released the album or was just featured on a > >specific track. > I think it should contain "Various Artists". i.e. it should be a list > of all artists of any contributor role. > If people have tagged some albums with artist = Various Artists, it > should appear in the list. > > Otherwise, the browse mode should be called "Other artists" or > "Non-album artists" :-) right again. in this new system design, the actual words "Various Artists" would only be seen if they were in tags, or if server assigned them as the value for something it detected as a comp that had no explicit AA tags. those words should NOT be used for denoting comp status, or as a "category" to find comps under. they should just be a simple value, nothing more. so ultimately, it will depend on what a user scans in, as to whether or not those words would be found in artist lists or not. to respond to Erland, all artists should, imo, be defined to mean whatever the user wants it to mean. take the tag fields you want: artist / album artist / composer / conductor / whatever, and pick at least one or any combo of them, and that creates your results list. let the user decide. by default, I think it should be artist & album artist, and any matches should be merged. Philip Meyer wrote: > > >My personal feeling is that the "Composer, Conductor, Band" setting > >will still be useful for this menu, so I don't think these options > >should be hidden. > I agree. I also agree. make all sensible tag fields available and configurable for this view. Philip Meyer wrote: > > >I also suspect that automatically setting the album artist during > >scanning if it isn't already set in an ALBUMARTIST tag is going to > >greatly simplify the browsing logic to accomplish all this, but I'll > >leave up to Michael to decide when it's appropriate to look closer at > >this. > Yes, this would at least contain awkward decision logic to one place in > the code, to be easier to maintain. I agree, but I am unclear on this. doesn't server ALREADY set an AA value on everything, one way or the other? if it doesn't, it sounds like we all agree it should. and I think its also becoming clear that if it does, it will make differing browse modes faster since that design could be leveraged under the hood, and all the comp queries could be taken out. Using: Win7 64 and LMS 7.8 & Duet with ipads and the logitech app, and ipeng on an ipod ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BJW's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=58242 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=101264 _______________________________________________ beta mailing list beta@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
