User talk:BrianSchweitzer/Release Format Proposal

Archived Discussion

Be sure to look at Talk:Release Type Restructuring Proposal as that's where all of the old discussion on the overall Release Type Restructuring Proposal was, before Status and Format were split out. (Some has been moved below)

General Ideas

I like the idea of a Physical Medium description. I also think that while vinyl and cassette will not be the method of importing, they should be included in an extended "Release Type." eg "Sgt. Peppers, 1967, UK, album/8 track" "Sgt. Peppers, 1987, US, CD" This way, when the only difference is the physical media, it would just result in extended release notes.

This way the "Physical Medium" option group could be freed up for a better abstraction. For example:

• Single Disc
• Two-Disc set
• Box Set/ Multi-Disc
• Single
• Maxi-Single
• EP
• song 'for single song releases/ maybe merge with non-album tracks.
• Set/ Show 'for complete sets or performances

The exact specifications of the disc type and format could be part of the extended release notes mentioned above.--Chuck__Carmody

CD

What about official CD-Rs? e.g. http://musicbrainz.org/release/5b0134fd-86c0-45c2-8e94-96f6f4d6b36d.html is one. Should we be able to make the distinction between pressed CDs and CD-Rs? --Zout

Why change the CD5"/CD3" to CD 5cm and CD 8cm? CD5/CD5" is a widely used term, as is CD3" (or Mini CD. I think they were better before :) --Gecks

• That was done by an (old) request from nikki, as she is more knowledgeable about this stuff than most other people are. afaik of what I can remember, the *official* enumeration is in cm and not in inch (which makes sense as CD's are *exactly* 5 and 8 centimetres exactly) whereas the inch enumerations are approximations. I'll call nikki to see if she can clarify this for me. ~ -- mo 18:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC) I've heard both terms used - typically the cm en regards to data CDs, and the inches en regards to music CDs... I seem to recall it actually being part of the original redbook standard in inches for music, and in cm in whatever the other standard was for data CDs... but last I read either was around 1996 :p -- BrianSchweitzer 23:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Hybrid SA-CD

In my opinion it should be possible to make normal SA-CD and hybrid SA-CD releases distinguishable. Putting them under SA-CD only would be wrong, because they are as well an audio CD as a SA-CD. Most users won't even recognize they had a hybrid SA-CD if they don't have a SA-CD player. --Fuchs

DualDisc

Mo, see DualDisc. I think it needs an extra media type. It's a disc with a CD on one side and a DVD on the other side (which then is to include the whole album in 5.1 sound). --Shepard

• I agree and added a link to Sony's DualDisc FAQ. --Fuchs
  • I see both of your points, but (and as I talked to shep with already) the problem is how MB currently stores the data, each side of the disc would become separated TOCs and thus separated discs, so the DD side will become a CD and the DVD side would become a DVD. ~mo
    • Yes and even in the future we will have one "medium-side" for each side/layer of a record. Although I still think it might be good to be able to distinct a double- record from two single-sided/layered ones. --Fuchs

DVD

For DVDs, I'd suggest to separate audio-only DVDs from concert/music video DVDs, discs with audio-only and video parts, and whatever other disc type should be added (IMHO, it wouldn't make sense to add movie DVDs because someone ripped the score). --derGraph

• this your proposal sounds good, and I agree, it fits well with the " though we are not cdbrainz, we are not moviebrainz either. we are *music*brainz " mentality ~mo
  • For the same reasons as DVDs - and with the exact same caveats - it seems we also ought to have Blue-Ray, Laserdisc, and HD-DVD in here. I'm not fond of "Video Media", but perhaps something like that with all 4 subtypes (including DVD) as children of that type? -- BrianSchweitzer 20:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Enhanced CD

Because we remove all the trailing data tracks, we should probably add some attribute to show that a disc is a CD with some extra material on the bonus track. Those discs are called Enhanced CD on the market. --Fuchs

Vinyl

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to add vinyl as a media type. Clicks, pops and hissing will surely affect the TRMs, resulting in a large amount of bogus TRMs. Tapes may also be of poor quality. And in the end, every non-digital source bears the problem of conversion into a digital format; and each conversion will have a different result. I don't know how much difference between two sources that still produce the same TRM is possible, but knowing that even the track length affects the TRM, I think we should have digital media only. --derGraph

• uh, there are releases that are only released on Vinyl, TRM's are completely not in the equation, neither are mp3's. there are releases that where released on Vinyl/cassette but never will be released on CD or SACD

And often if releases *are* re-released they are released with a *different* tracklisting than the original Vinyl and perhaps cassette with a bonus track. perhaps the LP Vinyl is split onto two cassettes, and the CD release has 4 extra bonus tracks. currently there is no way of saying that 'this release is vinyl' we need this.

• But does it make any sense to add media that need to be digitized before a TRM can be calculated? As far as I understand MusicBrainz, it's not a discographies library, but (in the first place) a system to help identify and tag digital music tracks. Now with advanced relationships, it also helps to explore relationships between artists, persons, tracks, etc. (in contrast pure user preference comparison as Audioscrobbler does). I think that it makes sense to include such ARs into MB, especially because the "framework" is already there. But then, if someone wants to read an artists discography, she could just follow the discography link. --derGraph
  • Let's just say there are different views and different opinions on what musicbrainz is and should be, and mine seem to be as far aways from yours as possible. To me musicbrainz is about recording knowledge about music, period. An extended discography if you will. See it as the imdb of music. Personally I wouldn't have a big problem if we lost all the trm information tomorrow. THen there's the other side (you and others?) that are here because they have too many mp3s that they want to tag. But I still don't really see you're point, even from that point of view. There are still loads of mp3s flowing around out there that are ripped from vinyls and others. Don't you think people might want to tag those aswell? //bnw
    • If there are some files on the net, and matching TRMs... fine, go ahead! I just wouldn't like to have some thousands of new TRMs just because some people tag their vinyl collection with MB. But then, who can tell they didn't already do? - This is pointless; you're right. --derGraph
      • TRMs in theory could be the same for vinyl and CD rips - the resolution is quite low, I believe. Pops and clicks shouldn't matter. Also, one rip from vinyl could get widely distributed on the net. Anyways, TRMs and their (possible) weaknesses shouldn't really factor into our decisions since they aren't neccesarily a permanent feature of MBz anyway... --Gecks

--- I already have a plan how to handle releases that where released as a vinyl and as a cassette and as a CD etc. with the same tracklisting. I will write up that after this proposal is finetuned and eventually put into work. ~mo

What about pre-vinyl flat cylinder media (Gramophone, Victrola, Diamond Disc, etc)? Vinyl seems to imply a media material as much as a media type, given that earlier flat cylinder media was made from either wax or rubber (and in some cases, can not even be played on a modern record player) -- BrianSchweitzer 21:53, 09 May 2008 (UTC)

8-Track

Just wanted to remind, there also were some 4-track players and releases. -- BrianSchweitzer 23:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Wax Cylinder

Now that it's a real type in the system, the possible subtypes we might want for "advanced" types of this media:

• tinfoil cylinder
• gramophone cylinder
• white wax cylinder
• brown wax cylinder
• black wax cylinder
  • standard
    • 2 minute
    • 4 minute

• • concert
    • 2 minute
    • 5 minute

• • Amberol (4 minute, standard)

• Blue Amberol (blue wax, standard) cylinder
• Royal Purple Amberol (purple wax, concert) cylinder

Unlike vinyl, color of the media here actually matters and indicates a different media type (and player required to play the media). The general type itself might perhaps also be better renamed by removing "Wax", to allow tinfoil cylinders to be included without confusion. -- BrianSchweitzer 21:53, 09 May 2008 (UTC)

Other Media Types

I'm putting these here, as I'm not quite sure where it would fit above. I agree with almost everything in the proposal. The only suggestions would be for a few things not currently listed:

• Media types: DAT (main media type), Victrola (under vinyl media type), and "Wax Cylinder" (under vinyl media type? main media type?) - DAT would be rarely needed, but the other two, especially as we enter anything from 1885 to around 1940-50 (cover of AR, earliest release of AR, etc), they're going to be the main 2 types of media. You could argue that both would be covered under "other", but it seems to me "other" vinyl ought to be reserved for the really wierd stuff - the tear-out plastic record I have from a space museum space history book, for example. Both classes have huge amounts of releases. Main Type:
  • If we're going to handle radio plays (which I *definitely* support) and game data (I won't call them soundtracks...) and all the other cat corners, this might fall under data, but currently it's not specified anywhere I can see. What about non-computer game soundtracks? More and more, these are being ripped, not in the original midi-like format, but in mp3/flac formats. They're also thus able to get consistant puids generated. (ie, the midi-like data converts to mp3, you do it, and I do it, we'll both still get the same puid.) They perhaps ought to also be data - but if so, we ought to remove the specification that that section only deals with computer game, umm, "data". -- BrianSchweitzer 23:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Video formats and DVD-Audio

Question: See 3:50:35 thorough 04:01:22 from IRC discussion as to just how DVD, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Blu-ray (in all forms), HD-DVD, 'HD Media', VCD, and SVCD ought to actually be structured in this proposal... Any ideas? -- BrianSchweitzer 04:05, 23 December 2008 (UTC)