>Quick question - does MusicIP alter files? > Only if you tell it to.
There is an option to write fingerprint and analysis data tags. This was advertised as harmless - adding extra tags that wouldn't replace any existing tags in the music files. However, I found that the process of adding MusicIP tags to id3v2.3 tags that have multiple values, eg. two artist tags, two genre tags, etc, would lose all but the first value. e.g., using Mp3tag, you can add two genres by setting the value to "Rock\\Pop" (equivalent to entering GENRE=Rock, GENRE=Pop). If I archive MusicIP analysis to the music file, it would lose the second genre, leaving only GENRE=Rock. This may be due to the id3 "standard" for id3v2.2 / 2.3 tags, which doesn't officially allow multiple values (2.4 does officially). I think it stores a single GENRE tag with values separated with a NULL (0), which Mp3tag represents with separater "\\". I don't think MusicIP writes v2.4 tags; it will change an mp3 file to v2.3. There may be other issues - I decided not to perform archive analysis, and take the hit of needing to re-process files if they move. I backup my musicIP data file frequently. I think there are also actions to fill in missing tags, etc. You can use MusicIP without it modifying music files, which is what I'd recommend. >"Only read mixable status from MusicIP (faster)" >"Import all song data from MusicIP (slower)" > >Is the second one worth bothering with? > No! I think there is no reason to ever use MusicIP import. You are much better off with only reading mixable status, for various reasons: 1. It's a lot faster. 2. MusicIP supports less formats than SBS. i.e. SBS can scan files, and adds mixable status if the song is detected by MusicIP. If it isn't in MusicIP, it is still playable in SBS, just not mixable. 3. MusicIP does some weird stuff with missing tags, which can be very annoying. eg. SBS will fill in missing album tags with "Miscellaneous", so if you rip lots of singles they will appear in SBS as either a single compilation album called "Miscellaneous" or several albums (one per artist). SBS handles this a lot nicer. If you do decide to use MusicIP import, I think it's a good idea to clear the SBS music library path, so that it never tries to merge SBS scanned files with MusicIP scanned files. I don't know how MusicIP import will work with SBS 7.6 new scan features. eg. Auto rescanning on new/changed files detection. You might find it does a whole import every time it sees a change. _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list plugins@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/plugins
