[vorbis] (Classical) Request for Standardization of expanded TAGS

[Beni Cherniavksy]

On 2001-12-06, Jonathan Walther wrote:

> I went through the whole discussion, and revised my proposal in light
> of all the comments from everyone.  Here is the updated proposal.
>
I generally like it.

> First, a few tags are now DEPRECATED:
>
> VERSION
> 	version information is typically included in the title,
> 	such as "Doctoring the Tardis - 12" Remix"
>
> DESCRIPTION
> 	role subsumed by ADDENDUM tag
>
> ORGANIZATION
> 	role fulfilled by PUBLISHER, PRODUCER, LABEL,
> 	and COPYRIGHT tags.
>
> ARTIST
> 	role fulfilled by COMPOSER, LYRICIST, PERFORMER, ENSEMBLE,
> 	CONDUCTOR, AUTHOR, PRODUCER, and ARRANGER tags.
>
Great!  ARTIST was never enough for me.  There is a minor problem of
backward compatibility - the two solutions I see are:
1) Use ARTIST for PERFORMER since it's the de-facto use in music metadata.
2) Switch to PERFORMER; ARTIST from now on means "one of the above, I
   don't know which one".
I prefer the second, since lot's of metadata with single artist field
(e.g. ID3) floats around and one should have a way to express this
common uncertainty it in vorbis comments.

P.S.  To all vorbis GUI tag editor writers - implement a simple way to
rename a comment (like making the name and not only the value editable
when you double click a comment) if you didn't already.

> --------------------------------------------------------
> We are then left with the following RECOMMENDED tags:
>
> OPUS
> COMPOSER
> ARRANGER

I like these.

> PRODUCER
> 	the person who produced the recording
>
> PUBLISHER
> 	webmaster from Hyperion will explain this
> 	one; its necessary for radio stations. if it
> 	turns out to be the same as the COPYRIGHT tag,
> 	I'll recommend we drop it entirely.
>
Could you explain this better?

> LYRICIST
> 	the person who wrote the lyrics
>
> AUTHOR
> 	author of spoken text, eg, JRR Tolkien
>
Where is the border?  If it's a poem, is it a lyricist or an author?  What
if it's half sung?

> CONDUCTOR
> PERFORMER
> ENSEMBLE

I like these.

> LABEL
> 	the record label or imprint of the CD.
>
> ISBN
>         if found, put ISBN or EIN of the compact disc here.
>
Isn't sound specifiaclly excluded from ISBN's scope?  See:
http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/international/html/usm3.htm
http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/international/html/usmnote.htm#cdrom
There are some exceptions: books on cassetes, sound on CD/Video whose
main purpose is educational, etc. - did you mean these cases?

> ISRC
> 	documentation isn't available, but if you need it...
>
It's probably temporarily down, since it's in google's cache but you need
to abort download before it tries to run a script (or disable javascript
in the browser) to see it.  In particular try
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.ifpi.org/online/isrc_sites.html
for related sites (that are on-line now :-).
Some info appears in http://www.riaa.org/Audio-Standards-3.cfm

It has shortcomings.  IIRC most people on this ML agreed that it will run
out of numbers in a quite finite time (number contains only 3 digits for
registrant (company) and this assumes that big record companies will
eliminate all small producers).  And it has 2 digits per year!

Net search appears to show it as almost dead, compared to ISWC.  It's a
different thing - identifies a musical work disregarding performance.
See:  www.iswc.org  and  http://www.mpa.org/press/Press2_8.html
At least ISWC seems better designed - single 9-digit space.

Does anybody want an ISWC tag?

Lot's of new IDs are beeing developed, they will get anywhere IMHO if they
change the standards every two years.  These standards should've been
designed to last until the fall of the Galactic Empire...

I'm afraid after 10 years the vorbis tag namespace will contain more
standard IDs than useful tags...  How about moving all IDs into one tag:

ID=ISRC=...
ID=ISBN=...
ID=ISAN=...

and so on.  URN goes this way.  Maybe adopt URNs?  They don't have
anything registered for sound yet...  See:
http://www.uri.net/urn-nid-status.html.  This will make the vorbis tag
space cleaner.  The second separator doesn't have to be an `=' - `:' or
anything else is equally good.  Also notice that the namespace name part
is case-sensitive for vorbis tools since it's part of the tag value.

> DISCID
> 	since the EIN, ISBN, etc numbers aren't to be reliably found
> 	on the CD, nor is the catalog number reliable, the FREEDB
> 	index hash should go here
>
Is the freedb index a Good one?  Never mind, it's widely used so it should
be put in but again, ID=FREEDB=.... is better.

> TRACKNUMBER
> 	the track number on the CD
>
A disknumber for multi-disk recorings was requested once.  Maybe `2-7'
in TRACKNUMBER meaning 2nd disk, 7th track is better.

> ALBUM
> 	if appropriate, an album name
>
> TITLE
> 	"the work", whether a symphony, or a pop song
>
> PART
> 	a division within a work; movement of a symphony, eg.
>
> TYPE
> 	type of work, ie, symphony, concerto, song, speech
>
> GENRE
> 	id3 type classification (classical, pop, jazz, blues, etc)
>
> DATE
> 	date of recording, if known
>
> LOCATION
> 	location of recording, if known
>
> COPYRIGHT
> 	who holds copyright to the track
>
> ADDENDUM
> 	additional comments pertaining to the piece.
>
A little too latin for me.  I like DESCRIPTION more.  If I undersatnd
correctly this exactly replaces description but is a more exact name.  If
so I think it's not worth the compatibility change.

> --------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a ``typical'' example.
>
> LABEL=Deutsche Grammophon
> COMPOSER=Gustav Mahler
> CONDUCTOR=Herbert von Karajan
> ENSEMBLE=Berliner Philharmoniker
> PERFORMER=Liza don Getti (soprano)
> PERFORMER=Joe Barr (piano)
> OPUS=8
> PART="movement 1. Allegreto"
> TITLE="Symphony no. 4"
> ADDENDUM=I was present when this recording was made; met my wife there.
> ADDENDUM=The flautist ate a green pickle with a purple egg.
>
> And here is what you might see if you played it with ogg123:
>
> Playing from file ogg/mystery_file_I_got_from_gnutella.ogg
> Label: Deutsche Grammophon
> Composer: Gustav Mahler
> Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
> Ensemble: Berliner Philharmoniker
> Performers:  Liza don Getti (soprano)
> 	     Joe Barr (piano)
> Title: Symphony no. 4 (Opus 8), movement 1. Allegreto
> Addenda: I was present when this recording was made; met
>           my wife there.  The flautist ate a green pickle
> 	  with a purple egg.
>
Is the player app suppossed to know latin singular/plurar grammar? Note
also that this gives no indication of line break inside the comment
(that's legal!) vs. two comments of same name.

> And here is what it would like like from ogg123
>
> [snip]

A good player (like ogg123) should allow a user to configure what comments
he wishes to see and in what order should they be sorted.


-- 
Beni Cherniavsky <cben at tx.technion.ac.il>
                 (also scben at t2 in Technion)

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