ogg dev - Sep 2007 - The use for an XML based metadata format

On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 11:55:04PM +0100, Ian Malone wrote:
> All capitalised tags are the result of an MB automatic
> tagging tool.  The MB one includes all the uuids, but
> also pulls in a 'sortname'. (Incidentally the album name
> had been added when encoding, I suspect that's why it was
> unmodified.)  
> Despite UUIDs there's an acknowledgement
> here that you don't want to have to query the MB database
> every time you want to search your music collection, the
> UUID's main feature as far as I can see is to help tie
> the database together at their end.
*nod*
> What I think would be useful would be a way of specifying
> names which makes it easier to do structured sort.
> Having separate first name(s) and last name fields would
> work for most cases, but a vCard-like sortname field is
> probably more realistic.  Make the sort name a mandatory
> part of the name description and suggest to application
> developers how it should be used.
I agree a sort name makes more sense. Separate name fields
also don't internationalize well. But I don't think we can
make any of this mandatory. Falling back to sorting on the
full name is reasonable.

 -r

On 12 Sep 2007 at 16:03, Ralph Giles wrote:
> I agree a sort name makes more sense. Separate name fields
> also don't internationalize well. But I don't think we can
> make any of this mandatory. Falling back to sorting on the
> full name is reasonable.
Especially since some of us use the sortable name to begin with. :)

--
-:-:- David K. Gasaway
-:-:- Email: dave@gasaway.org
-:-:- Web  : dave.gasaway.org

I've been trying to follow the situation here, because that's one of
the things I try to do in Xiph: know what's happening.  There's a
total of 70 messages related with recent metadata discussions.

Here's what I have understood so far:

* Daniel is still not trying to read and understand the _other_
metadata proposals; he makes several non-true statements regarding
them.
* Daniel wants to "stuff in" a new metadata format no matter the cost
to backwards-compatibility; he also intends it to completely
obliterate Vorbis Comment.  All of this is highly ambitious,
especially for someone with no actual knowledge in the field.
* There's interest again in metadata in Ogg.  This be a good thing.
* Skeleton still seems to me to be the more advanced and logical step
for metadata in Ogg.

Here's my take on the issue:
Metadata is highly overrated outside the Semantic Web.  As far as I
see, that's why nobody actually cared to support anything but Vorbis
Comments, ID3 hacks (in MP3), and APE tags (in whatever proprietary
format that uses that).  I believe Matroska has no metadata support
either, but I may be wrong.  So, if it's for the Semantic Web, using
W3C-based proposals are likely the best solution.  After all, they are
the ones behind the whole thing to begin with.  RDF is probably too
complicated for Ogg, though.

I guess in the end I can't offer any decent help or advice right now,
but I felt like writing this anyway.  How does that American saying
goes?  "It felt like a good idea at the time".

-Ivo

On 13/09/2007, Ralph Giles <giles@xiph.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 11:55:04PM +0100, Ian Malone wrote:
>
> > All capitalised tags are the result of an MB automatic
> > tagging tool.  The MB one includes all the uuids, but
> > also pulls in a 'sortname'. (Incidentally the album name
> > had been added when encoding, I suspect that's why it was
> > unmodified.)
> > Despite UUIDs there's an acknowledgement
> > here that you don't want to have to query the MB database
> > every time you want to search your music collection, the
> > UUID's main feature as far as I can see is to help tie
> > the database together at their end.
>
> *nod*
>
Oh, and local databases can also use it to aggregate
artists/distinguish different ones.  So again there's
every reason people might want to be able to use
existing schemes inside ours.

--
imalone