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

[John Morton]

On Thursday 06 December 2001 22:42, Jonathan Walther wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------------
> First, a few tags are now DEPRECATED:
>
> VERSION
> 	version information is typically included in the title,
> 	such as "Doctoring the Tardis - 12" Remix"

How is having a version tag for spliting remix and cover information out 
from the title any less legitimate than separating opus and part?

> DESCRIPTION
>        role subsumed by ADDENDUM tag

Why replace a word everyone understands with one that it's so clear or 
commonly used? 

> ARTIST
> 	role fulfilled by COMPOSER, LYRICIST, PERFORMER, ENSEMBLE,
> 	CONDUCTOR, AUTHOR, PRODUCER, and ARRANGER tags.

I think this is misguide. See my notes below.

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

[misc tag suggestions]

These are all good, but they're also fairly ambiguous. You're going to have to
be a lot more specific about what each tag is supposed to do and not do to
avoid that problem. 

In fact, I don't even think it's _possible_ to usefully eliminate the 
ambiguity in every tag - you're better off crafting a way to make it not 
matter.

> 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

CDDB index hashes are not unique - not really a problem if the album's entry 
is in your local cache, but a hassle if you're looking it up in the server. 
At the very least, you need to include the catagory the cd has been placed 
in. 

> TRACKNUMBER
> 	the track number on the CD

Let's include a DISCNUMBER, too. I hate having to put that in the album.

<p>> GENRE
> 	id3 type classification (classical, pop, jazz, blues, etc)

While it's sensible to map id3 genre classifications into the GENRE tag if 
you're converting tags, it's more sensible to treat each genre tag as a 
fairly arbitary keyword that you can run a text search on. One man's metal is 
another man's hard rock, after all. 

> --------------------------------------------------------
> Here is a ``minimal'' example.
>
> ALBUM=Joyride
> ENSEMBLE=Roxette
> TITLE=Joyride
>
> Here is what you might see if you played it with ogg123:
>
> Album: Joyride
> Ensemble: Roxette
> Title: Joyride

Ok, speaking as a member of the vast hordes of pop kiddies who don't know one 
decomposing composer from the next, there is just _no_way_ I'm going to use 
the ENSEMBLE tag to describe a pop group. Forget it. I won't do it, and I 
won't use a tag system that stops me from using artist, either. 

Speaking as someone who's writing a library for converting audio metatdata 
between arbitary tag formats, how do I figure out what to convert 'artist' 
to? Ensemble? But what if they're just a performer, or a composer, or a 
string with the composer, conductor and orchestra in it?

Leave ARTIST in. It makes automatic conversion easy, and it's good enough for 
the majority of users. But provide good implementation advice to tag editor 
authors to make it easy to break down an artist tag into more specific parts, 
and to player authors so they can assemble a sensible display from title and 
artist components if the simple tags don't exist.

Don't get me wrong - I like these tags, and look forward to using many of 
them, but they require writing more complicated code to benefit a minority of 
users, so if you want to see them be adopted, you'll have to do a lot more 
work to make the lives of the implementors easier.

John

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