Hi trw,
From a user point of view, the currently best way to achieve this task from iTSfv would be:
Step 1: Define the minimum resolution you can tolerate as high-resolution artwork.
By default, it is defined to be 600x600. This means any artwork with resolution less than 600x600 are regarded as low resolution artwork. You can customize this in Options > Validate > Checks
Step 2: Ensure following checkboxes are checked in iTSfv Main Window:
Checks > Check for Low Resolution Artwork
Library > Save validation results as iTunes Playlist
Step 3: Press Validate Selected Tracks or Advanced > Validate whole Library
iTSfv will now check for low resolution artwork in your library and save an iTunes playlist.
Step 4: Select All tracks in the tracks-with-low-res-artwork playlist and do a Get Info in iTunes. Untick the Artwork checkbox which clears the existing artwork.
Step 5: Right Click and Get Album Artwork using iTunes. For this to work you need to have an iTunes Store account which I assume you already have. It doesn’t cost anything.
Step 6: Ensure following checkboxes are checked in iTSfv Main Window:
Tracks > Embed Artwork from......
File System > Export Artwork to ...... (Optional)
Step 7: Select All tracks in the tracks-with-low-res-artwork playlist using iTunes
Step 8: Press Validate Selected Tracks in iTSfv
I hope you get the idea from step-by-step how-to. Any doubt feel free to ask.
This also gave me the idea to have an option to
5.36.0.0 Remove low resolution artwork in Tracks
Cheers,
McoreD
Full Version: iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator
thanks for the heads up. There still seem to be some bugs:
some people don't wrap the songs inside the lyric tags. Therefore, what is being saved is as lyrics is:
also, things like
still show up. Essentially you want to get rid of all HTML code. I know PHP has a nifty function for that, but I'm not sure about NET.
it would be nice if extra line breaks / spaces at the beginning and end of the lyrics could get removed.
An easy way to test all of this on your own library is exporting all lyrics and then search for "<" and "{" and "=" and ".com". That should catch most of the clutter.
Any luck on that lyric count not matching up bug we've discussed earlier?
some people don't wrap the songs inside the lyric tags. Therefore, what is being saved is as lyrics is:
QUOTE
<!-- PUT LYRICS HERE (and delete this entire line) -->
also, things like
CODE
<I>[Four minute pause] </i>
still show up. Essentially you want to get rid of all HTML code. I know PHP has a nifty function for that, but I'm not sure about NET.
it would be nice if extra line breaks / spaces at the beginning and end of the lyrics could get removed.
An easy way to test all of this on your own library is exporting all lyrics and then search for "<" and "{" and "=" and ".com". That should catch most of the clutter.
Any luck on that lyric count not matching up bug we've discussed earlier?
QUOTE(Jojo @ Jan 20 2008, 12:48) 
thanks for the heads up. There still seem to be some bugs:
some people don't wrap the songs inside the lyric tags. Therefore, what is being saved is as lyrics is:
Thanks for the valuable feedback Jojo; I was wondering what the source of error is. To my (initial) mind I assumed LyricWiki's getLyrics method would parse all the tags and provide you a clear string of Lyrics. While LyricWiki is doing its best at parsing all the tags, it seems human errors like unwrapped tags cause the html tags yet to remain in the lyrics string. All the add-ons based on LyricWiki seem to affected by this issue. By the way PHP function was the first thing came to my mind too!
So the #1 priorirty for next beta is to get this issue completed sorted.
QUOTE(Jojo @ Jan 20 2008, 12:48)
Any luck on that lyric count not matching up bug we've discussed earlier?
Purely assumptions still Jojo. The issue is hard to reproduce with a small number of tracks, so I am planning to do the following for the whole library. I hope you can double check this one for me:
- Export Lyrics to text file
- Check for missing Lyrics and save the result to iTunes Playlist
Count the number of text files
Count the number of tracks without Lyrics in the iTunes Playlist
Check: The number of text files plus the number of tracks without Lyrics should equal to Number of tracks in the library
Cheers,
McoreD
@trw : that's funny : it all depends on what we call high-res. Personally I hate very high res images (2800x2800... 
) that take ages to load and that will still look the same as a mid-res image (600x600 or a bit more) on a computer screen, since a computer screen will generally have about 1000 horizontal lines (1024, 1050, 1200). Except if you want to zoom in order to look for a fine detail, but that is completely exceptional.
That's why I DOWNSCALE all the high-res album art I find to 900 horizontal lines. For me that's more than enough.
(fortunately iTMS art is generally less than 900 horizontal lines so I don't have to downscale them)
) that take ages to load and that will still look the same as a mid-res image (600x600 or a bit more) on a computer screen, since a computer screen will generally have about 1000 horizontal lines (1024, 1050, 1200). Except if you want to zoom in order to look for a fine detail, but that is completely exceptional.That's why I DOWNSCALE all the high-res album art I find to 900 horizontal lines. For me that's more than enough.
(fortunately iTMS art is generally less than 900 horizontal lines so I don't have to downscale them)
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Jan 16 2008, 17:58)
Hi trw,
(snip)
I hope you get the idea from step-by-step how-to. Any doubt feel free to ask.
This also gave me the idea to have an option to
5.36.0.0 Remove low resolution artwork in Tracks
Cheers,
McoreD
Thank you very much for the detailed and helpful explanation.
Here is some feedback.
If by "remove low resolution artwork in Tracks" you mean to do this only if iTunes has a higher res version, great. But if you mean to remove it and leave nothing in its place, please make that a disabled-by-default option. When iTunes can't find art, which it does quite regularly, I'll get the art from Amazon or other sources, usually using MediaMonkey, yet I want to be able to check again via iTunes and iTsfv so I don't want your app negating my efforts.
I have assumed that by default you replace low-res with iTunes art when the latter exists. Is this a configurable option and if so, which one is it? Speaking of which, what is the significance of these options:
Check for tracks without artwork?
(does this mean your search is limited to tracks with no folder.jpg, or what?)
Check for tracks with iTunes downloaded artwork?
(does this mean you skip over replacing the art if the art was found by iTunes previously or what?)
Check for low resolution artwork?
(does this mean you will replace lo-res art if iTunes art is found or what?)
The "Missing artwork" feature appears to not be accurate. I looked through a sampling of the artist | album folders cited in the report and the "no art" playlist, and in many there is a folder.jpg file present -- sometimes a fairly large one (e.g., 550x550). Is your program not looking for folder.jpg in the album folder?
Embedding art in mp3's is a problem for anyone using Media Center 2005 because it causes a black box to appear in place of album art, so I am avoiding embedding for now.
As a Zune 2 owner I've concluded that to have it use my highest-rez album art its software needs to see a file named ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg in the folder. How about adding that copy to the AlbumArtSmall and Artwork that you also create?
Lastly, and this is more of an observation, I am perplexed at how unpredictable iTunes is about deciding whether to say art exists or not. I've gone so far as to set the "Info" for a tune to be exactly what is shown in the iTunes Store and yet iTunes persists in saying no album art found. It would be wonderful if one could access the art at the store without buying the tunes (having already bought the CD long ago).
Thank you again and keep up the great work!
Hi trw, I will be answering both your post and email in this reply. :-)
By “remove low resolution artwork in Tracks” what I meant was giving an option to the user to remove artwork embedded in tracks if the artwork dimension is less than the defined resolution e.g. 600x600. This way you can jump to step 4 in the How-to I replied to your post. Oh I see your point. I agree. iTSfv has no knowledge of iTunes having a larger high-res artwork until the we right click and do a Get Album Artwork. So yes, it is disabled by default. By the way, in case of an emergency it is advisable as a general practise to always have a backup in the album folder. Every embedded album art is also exported as a Folder.jpg and Artwork.jpg in the album folder in my case. I also hope most of you have a backup copy like that in the album folder? If you validate the second time with Embed Artwork option, it will automatically pick these files from the album folder so you don’t have to google them again.
iTSfv defaults to always look for higher resolution artwork and if found it will replace the lower resolution artwork by the higher resolution artwork. To disable this behaviour you can go to iTSfv Options > Advanced > Validation. Here you can disable situations where iTSfv always looks for higher resolution artwork while validating.
Check for tracks without artwork option provides a list of tracks without embedded artwork. It does not check the presence of a folder.jpg.
Check for tracks with iTunes downloaded artwork option provides a list of tracks that has non-embedded iTunes downloaded artwork. If you choose not to embed artwork into tracks, this check is useful to have an idea of what/how many tracks have iTunes downloaded artwork. For general use this is not a widely used option and only added as part of a past request.
Check for low resolution artwork provides a list of tracks that has artwork embedded which is less than high-res dimension. Once again this is not the folder.jpg files. The report contains the tracks with low resolution *embedded* artwork. If you see these in your report that means you still have some tracks with embedded artwork.
I can see confusion – expecting some track modifying behaviour from the Checks tab. The most important note is: none of the checkboxes in Checks tab modify the tracks. To modify tracks you need to specify them in Tracks tab.
Missing artwork means the embedded artwork in the track as part of ID3 v2 specification. The program checks for this artwork. Having an external file with some name in the album folder is not considered as a presence of artwork in the track. (I think this answers the 2nd para of your email).
trw, I have noticed the black box issue in WMP11 beta versions. I haven’t seen it in Vista Media Center but may be you are still experiencing it because you are using Media Center 2005?
If I were you, to match your requirements this is what I would do:
Step 1: (because you are not interested in embedding artwork into tracks, I have no fear doing this) select all tracks in iTunes, right click, press Get Info. Uncheck the artwork checkbox and press OK. This will clear any embedded artwork. This is what you desire right? You need this to happen for iTunes to download album artwork.
Step 2: Select All tracks, right click and press “Get Album Artwork”. This will download any available artwork to iTunes Artwork cache. It will not embed, don’t worry.
Step 3: Now you would prefer these artwork to be saved as Folder.jpg in each album folder. So now in iTSfv we uncheck Embed Artwork and check Export Artwork to album folder as Folder.jpg.
This will replace any low resolution Folder.jpg in album folder and you will end up with all the iTunes downloaded Artwork. If the Folder.jpg resolution is higher than the iTunes downloaded artwork, don’t worry, iTSfv will not replace it.
Trw, have ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg as a export file name in iTSfv Options > Validate > File System (the first radio button)
So in the iTSfv main window, you should “Export Artwork to album folder as ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg” in the File System tab. iTSfv will then export artwork with this name and also Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg.
Yeah I didn’t believe until it happened to me. I have been trying to grab the artwork for Radiohead’s latest album from iTunes but no matter how accurate the tags are, it will simply not download! Has anybody had luck with this?
Reading your email I see something. Would you like a list of folders that doesn’t have ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg/Folder.jpg or something similar? From your descriptions that’s what I think you are looking for me. Certainly that’s a great option to have.
Please let me know if I covered all the doubt, if not please feel free to point out.
Cheers,
McoreD
By “remove low resolution artwork in Tracks” what I meant was giving an option to the user to remove artwork embedded in tracks if the artwork dimension is less than the defined resolution e.g. 600x600. This way you can jump to step 4 in the How-to I replied to your post. Oh I see your point. I agree. iTSfv has no knowledge of iTunes having a larger high-res artwork until the we right click and do a Get Album Artwork. So yes, it is disabled by default. By the way, in case of an emergency it is advisable as a general practise to always have a backup in the album folder. Every embedded album art is also exported as a Folder.jpg and Artwork.jpg in the album folder in my case. I also hope most of you have a backup copy like that in the album folder? If you validate the second time with Embed Artwork option, it will automatically pick these files from the album folder so you don’t have to google them again.
iTSfv defaults to always look for higher resolution artwork and if found it will replace the lower resolution artwork by the higher resolution artwork. To disable this behaviour you can go to iTSfv Options > Advanced > Validation. Here you can disable situations where iTSfv always looks for higher resolution artwork while validating.
Check for tracks without artwork option provides a list of tracks without embedded artwork. It does not check the presence of a folder.jpg.
Check for tracks with iTunes downloaded artwork option provides a list of tracks that has non-embedded iTunes downloaded artwork. If you choose not to embed artwork into tracks, this check is useful to have an idea of what/how many tracks have iTunes downloaded artwork. For general use this is not a widely used option and only added as part of a past request.
Check for low resolution artwork provides a list of tracks that has artwork embedded which is less than high-res dimension. Once again this is not the folder.jpg files. The report contains the tracks with low resolution *embedded* artwork. If you see these in your report that means you still have some tracks with embedded artwork.
I can see confusion – expecting some track modifying behaviour from the Checks tab. The most important note is: none of the checkboxes in Checks tab modify the tracks. To modify tracks you need to specify them in Tracks tab.
Missing artwork means the embedded artwork in the track as part of ID3 v2 specification. The program checks for this artwork. Having an external file with some name in the album folder is not considered as a presence of artwork in the track. (I think this answers the 2nd para of your email).
trw, I have noticed the black box issue in WMP11 beta versions. I haven’t seen it in Vista Media Center but may be you are still experiencing it because you are using Media Center 2005?
If I were you, to match your requirements this is what I would do:
Step 1: (because you are not interested in embedding artwork into tracks, I have no fear doing this) select all tracks in iTunes, right click, press Get Info. Uncheck the artwork checkbox and press OK. This will clear any embedded artwork. This is what you desire right? You need this to happen for iTunes to download album artwork.
Step 2: Select All tracks, right click and press “Get Album Artwork”. This will download any available artwork to iTunes Artwork cache. It will not embed, don’t worry.
Step 3: Now you would prefer these artwork to be saved as Folder.jpg in each album folder. So now in iTSfv we uncheck Embed Artwork and check Export Artwork to album folder as Folder.jpg.
This will replace any low resolution Folder.jpg in album folder and you will end up with all the iTunes downloaded Artwork. If the Folder.jpg resolution is higher than the iTunes downloaded artwork, don’t worry, iTSfv will not replace it.
Trw, have ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg as a export file name in iTSfv Options > Validate > File System (the first radio button)
So in the iTSfv main window, you should “Export Artwork to album folder as ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg” in the File System tab. iTSfv will then export artwork with this name and also Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg.
Yeah I didn’t believe until it happened to me. I have been trying to grab the artwork for Radiohead’s latest album from iTunes but no matter how accurate the tags are, it will simply not download! Has anybody had luck with this?
Reading your email I see something. Would you like a list of folders that doesn’t have ZuneCustomAlbumArt.jpg/Folder.jpg or something similar? From your descriptions that’s what I think you are looking for me. Certainly that’s a great option to have.
Please let me know if I covered all the doubt, if not please feel free to point out.
Cheers,
McoreD
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Jan 22 2008, 01:42)
Yeah I didn’t believe until it happened to me. I have been trying to grab the artwork for Radiohead’s latest album from iTunes but no matter how accurate the tags are, it will simply not download! Has anybody had luck with this?
Hey McoreD !
Try this :Artist : "Radiohead " (with a space at the end)
Album : "In Rainbows"
Works perfectly.
So that's an idea for iTSfv : automatically check for such errors from the iTS by adding spaces and stuff like that during the searches. Could that be implemented ? Or is it still impossible to use iTSfv to fetch artwork instead of iTunes ?
Whoa..! That's pure genius work!
Jose, you are a CHAMP!
It indeed worked out perfectly!
How many times I wished if Apple allowed us to programmetically allowed us to download Album Artwork ( function similar to we right clicking and pressing "Get Album Artwork" but nope! I asked this ages ago in Apple Discussions: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?...5202553#5202553 but no reply.
Thanks for helping me grabbing the Radiohead artwork. Been trying for ages.
Cheers,
McoreD
Some users found trouble loading 5.35.
5.37.0.0 Ability to log folders without artwork to file [trw]
5.36.1.0 Low Resolution artwork files can now be avoided from being embedded in Options > Tracks > Artwork
5.36.0.0 Option in Tracks tab to remove low resolution artwork as part of validation
5.35.3.1 Fixed possible crash on Application startup when registry access was denied to see if iTSfv loads on startup [John]
5.35.3.0 Multi-select Tags XML files to restore tags
5.35.2.8 First disc of a box set did not follow the list by Grouping tag in Discs Browser
5.35.2.7 Workaround to detect iTunes in 64-bit editions of Windows [Anusha]
5.35.2.6 Add new Files window and Add new Artwork window were not the top most windows when shown
Jose, you are a CHAMP!
It indeed worked out perfectly!
How many times I wished if Apple allowed us to programmetically allowed us to download Album Artwork ( function similar to we right clicking and pressing "Get Album Artwork" but nope! I asked this ages ago in Apple Discussions: http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?...5202553#5202553 but no reply.
Thanks for helping me grabbing the Radiohead artwork. Been trying for ages.
Cheers,
McoreD
Some users found trouble loading 5.35.
5.37.0.0 Ability to log folders without artwork to file [trw]
5.36.1.0 Low Resolution artwork files can now be avoided from being embedded in Options > Tracks > Artwork
5.36.0.0 Option in Tracks tab to remove low resolution artwork as part of validation
5.35.3.1 Fixed possible crash on Application startup when registry access was denied to see if iTSfv loads on startup [John]
5.35.3.0 Multi-select Tags XML files to restore tags
5.35.2.8 First disc of a box set did not follow the list by Grouping tag in Discs Browser
5.35.2.7 Workaround to detect iTunes in 64-bit editions of Windows [Anusha]
5.35.2.6 Add new Files window and Add new Artwork window were not the top most windows when shown
i can't download artwork in high quality, all that i download is still 600x600, anyone can help me?
As usual, McoreD, your reply was comprehensive and very helpful.
I installed 5.37beta and noticed that after running the validation process the reports I used to see automatically pop-up in IE no longer appear. (it listed missing art, low-res art, etc.) What happened to them?
I appreciate the feature where you add the Artist tag to the AlbumArtist tag, BUT, it overwrites AlbumArtist tags that were "Various Artists" (i.e., compilations). What's your opinion about compilations? My impression is that programs like MediaMonkey use "Various Artist" AlbumArtist tags to limit showing a compilation album more than once when listing Albums, whereas if the AlbumArtist tag is the individual Artist, then the album will appear multiple times in the Album list. How about adding logic to only replace the AlbumArtist tag with the Artist tag if AlbumArtist is empty?
Thank you! for adding the ability to see which album folders have no art. That is very useful.
Lastly, I've decided to embed art after all. Besides allowing me to more fully use your program and its reporting capability, this eliminates the need to have a special art file for the Zune 2. The fix for the black-box-in-place-of-album-art problem in MCE 2005 is to uninstall IE7, which I did, and now art shows fine at all times. Note that the black box appeared only when actually playing a tune; in all other listings and screens album art displayed fine. What a silly bug for Msoft to allow to remain unfixed.
Thank you again for your excellent work!
I installed 5.37beta and noticed that after running the validation process the reports I used to see automatically pop-up in IE no longer appear. (it listed missing art, low-res art, etc.) What happened to them?
I appreciate the feature where you add the Artist tag to the AlbumArtist tag, BUT, it overwrites AlbumArtist tags that were "Various Artists" (i.e., compilations). What's your opinion about compilations? My impression is that programs like MediaMonkey use "Various Artist" AlbumArtist tags to limit showing a compilation album more than once when listing Albums, whereas if the AlbumArtist tag is the individual Artist, then the album will appear multiple times in the Album list. How about adding logic to only replace the AlbumArtist tag with the Artist tag if AlbumArtist is empty?
Thank you! for adding the ability to see which album folders have no art. That is very useful.
Lastly, I've decided to embed art after all. Besides allowing me to more fully use your program and its reporting capability, this eliminates the need to have a special art file for the Zune 2. The fix for the black-box-in-place-of-album-art problem in MCE 2005 is to uninstall IE7, which I did, and now art shows fine at all times. Note that the black box appeared only when actually playing a tune; in all other listings and screens album art displayed fine. What a silly bug for Msoft to allow to remain unfixed.
Thank you again for your excellent work!
QUOTE(fernandotalski @ Jan 23 2008, 21:02)
i can't download artwork in high quality, all that i download is still 600x600, anyone can help me?
So 600x600 from the iTMS (while most people have 300x300 or 500x500 blurry art from Amazon) is still not high enough quality for you ? Come on...
itunes store don't use 1425x1425 resolutions now? 600x600 in full screen coverflow is crap, i want up to 900x900
QUOTE(trw @ Jan 24 2008, 05:10)
As usual, McoreD, your reply was comprehensive and very helpful.
I installed 5.37beta and noticed that after running the validation process the reports I used to see automatically pop-up in IE no longer appear. (it listed missing art, low-res art, etc.) What happened to them?
I appreciate the feature where you add the Artist tag to the AlbumArtist tag, BUT, it overwrites AlbumArtist tags that were "Various Artists" (i.e., compilations). What's your opinion about compilations? My impression is that programs like MediaMonkey use "Various Artist" AlbumArtist tags to limit showing a compilation album more than once when listing Albums, whereas if the AlbumArtist tag is the individual Artist, then the album will appear multiple times in the Album list. How about adding logic to only replace the AlbumArtist tag with the Artist tag if AlbumArtist is empty?
Thank you! for adding the ability to see which album folders have no art. That is very useful.
Lastly, I've decided to embed art after all. Besides allowing me to more fully use your program and its reporting capability, this eliminates the need to have a special art file for the Zune 2. The fix for the black-box-in-place-of-album-art problem in MCE 2005 is to uninstall IE7, which I did, and now art shows fine at all times. Note that the black box appeared only when actually playing a tune; in all other listings and screens album art displayed fine. What a silly bug for Msoft to allow to remain unfixed.
Thank you again for your excellent work!
trw, honestly I am not sure. There was no code change from 5.35 to 5.37.0.3 (please install the 5.37.0.3 as the 5.37.0.0 has an accidental reverse logic when you prevent embedding artwork low-res artwork). I hope the next successful validation provides the HTML report for you. To change HTML report display settings you can go to Options > Advanced > Reports & Logs tab.
For filling the AlbumArtist tag behavior, after many code logic changes, this is what I was settled in:
CODE
765 Private Sub sEditTrackAlbumArtist(ByVal track As iTunesLib.IITFileOrCDTrack)
766
767 Dim countMissingAlbumArtist As Integer = 0
768 Dim trackLoc As String = "dead track"
769
770 ' can have The track is not modifiable. errors so need try/catch
771 If track.Compilation = True Then
772 ' dont need to overwrite all the time
773 If track.AlbumArtist <> VARIOUS_ARTISTS Then
774 Try
775 track.AlbumArtist = VARIOUS_ARTISTS
776 trackLoc = track.Location
777 Catch ex As Exception
778 mWarnings.AppendLine(ex.Message & " while setting track as Compilation for " & trackLoc)
779 mWarnings.AppendLine(ex.StackTrace)
780 End Try
781 End If
782 Else
783 If track.AlbumArtist = "" Then
784 Try
785 trackLoc = track.Location
786 If track.Compilation = True Then
787 track.AlbumArtist = VARIOUS_ARTISTS
788 Else
789 track.AlbumArtist = track.Artist
790 End If
791 Catch ex As Exception
792 mWarnings.AppendLine(ex.Message & " while filling AlbumArtist for " & trackLoc)
793 mWarnings.AppendLine(ex.StackTrace)
794 End Try
795 End If
796 End If
797
798 End Sub
Using iTunes, tracks have a tag called IsCompilation. The logic says, If track is compilation, and track's AlbumArtist tag is not "Various Artists" then force the AlbumArtist to be "Various Artists". Otherwise, like you said, if the track's AlbumArtist tag is empty then, if the track is marked as a Compilation then use "Various Artist" or guess the AlbumArtist from Artist tag. So AlbumArtist is retrieved from Artist tag *only* if AlbumArtist tag is empty. So if you have albums with different artists, I suggest you to check the Compilation tag in iTunes. That is the suggested usage in iTunes.
By the way, I just thought of a way to improve copying Artist tag to AlbumArtist feature. This is the idea: when iTSfv scans an album, if the track.AlbumArtist tag is empty, if the tracks in the album have different artist tag, then instead of using track.Artist, use "Various Artists" tag. If all the tracks have the same Artist, then use track.Artist as the AlbumArtist. Current design does not check if the Album's track Artist differs from track to track.
It's nice to see you have chosen the path for embedding artwork. Having embedding Artwork means you have another ID3 v2 tag complete, a completely portable mp3 file with the Cover Art with the file anywhere you go, and guarenteed display of Artwork in any modern player out there.
I am also really glad you are passionate about the music collection and helping each other to achieve a neat tag-complete library.
Cheers,
McoreD
QUOTE(fernandotalski @ Jan 24 2008, 04:02)
i can't download artwork in high quality, all that i download is still 600x600, anyone can help me?
fernandotalski, I think Jose answered your question. Most of the iTunes artwork you download are 600x600. iTunes Store sporadically allows 3rd party programs to download higher resolution artwork. We all enjoyed it a few months ago, when iTunes Store did that. The functionality is already there in iTSfv but disabled by default so we can activate whenever iTMS lets us download free artwork.
Thank you McoreD for explanation, I think it was wanting too ^^ 
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Jan 23 2008, 17:50)
Using iTunes, tracks have a tag called IsCompilation. The logic says, If track is compilation, and track's AlbumArtist tag is not "Various Artists" then force the AlbumArtist to be "Various Artists". Otherwise, like you said, if the track's AlbumArtist tag is empty then, if the track is marked as a Compilation then use "Various Artist" or guess the AlbumArtist from Artist tag. So AlbumArtist is retrieved from Artist tag *only* if AlbumArtist tag is empty. So if you have albums with different artists, I suggest you to check the Compilation tag in iTunes. That is the suggested usage in iTunes.
By the way, I just thought of a way to improve copying Artist tag to AlbumArtist feature. This is the idea: when iTSfv scans an album, if the track.AlbumArtist tag is empty, if the tracks in the album have different artist tag, then instead of using track.Artist, use "Various Artists" tag. If all the tracks have the same Artist, then use track.Artist as the AlbumArtist. Current design does not check if the Album's track Artist differs from track to track.
McoreD, the IsCompilation tag sounds like it's unique to iTunes, which implies to me that one's tracks would have to be tagged in iTunes. Not very attractive. Your new idea sounds more universally compatible.
QUOTE(trw @ Jan 24 2008, 08:56)
McoreD, the IsCompilation tag sounds like it's unique to iTunes, which implies to me that one's tracks would have to be tagged in iTunes. Not very attractive. Your new idea sounds more universally compatible.
Agree completely trw.
Having trouble converting the code into plain English but this is what build 5.7.1.1 and onwards would do:
5.37.1.1 If AlbumArtist tag was empty and the Disc had different track artists, AlbumArtist tag was filled with Track Artist instead of "Various Artists" [trw]
5.37.1.0 Added Advanced > Warning tab to turn on/off warnings with a warning for validating with remove low resolution artwork checkbox checked
5.37.0.4 Reporting Progress functions are wrapped in a Try/Catch block to prevent crashes when iTunes is busy [trw]
I will give it a couple of days for personal use and release it in SF.net
Thanks for pointing out a valuable issue.
Cheers,
McoreD
Hey ~*McoreD*~, I finally registered instead of pestering you via email.
iTSfv is really awesome. I love the auto ratings feature, but I'm having trouble tweaking the weighting to get it just how I like it. I checked out your code over at SourceForge, and want to make sure I understand the 'algorithm':
Played Count = #times played / the highest #times played in the library
Skipped Count = #times played / #times played + #times skipped
Last Played = #times played - #days since last played / #times played
Date Added = #days since added - #days since last played / #days since added
Then of course the weighting is applied after these calculations... Is this correct?
Also, just one other question - I saw where you've mentioned that track length is figured into these calculations, and was just wondering why that is. I haven't put as much though and work into it as you have (obviously) but I don't really understand how a song's length affects its rating.
Thanks for all your hard work!!
Ryan
iTSfv is really awesome. I love the auto ratings feature, but I'm having trouble tweaking the weighting to get it just how I like it. I checked out your code over at SourceForge, and want to make sure I understand the 'algorithm':
Played Count = #times played / the highest #times played in the library
Skipped Count = #times played / #times played + #times skipped
Last Played = #times played - #days since last played / #times played
Date Added = #days since added - #days since last played / #days since added
Then of course the weighting is applied after these calculations... Is this correct?
Also, just one other question - I saw where you've mentioned that track length is figured into these calculations, and was just wondering why that is. I haven't put as much though and work into it as you have (obviously) but I don't really understand how a song's length affects its rating.
Thanks for all your hard work!!
Ryan
Hi neonstorm,
Thanks and glad you like the program.
Yes, the weightings are calculated after these calculated ratios.
The question about Song Length is a good one. It is a very popular request in last.fm as well - haven't implemented yet.
Imaging two songs: 5 minute long and 11 minutes long. You have listened to both songs 10 times. You have actually spend more time with the 11 minutes song. Also think about 30 second Skits.. If you play that 10 times, would it need to be rated as good as a 5 minute song you opened your ears to? I guess not. Also there are DJ Mixes that's 2 hours long. You really don't get much of a playedCount with those. So they are going to be disadvanted if the song Length wasn't considered. These are the points which lead factoring in the Song Length. I hope that clarfies any doubts?
Cheers,
McoreD
Thanks and glad you like the program.
Yes, the weightings are calculated after these calculated ratios.
The question about Song Length is a good one. It is a very popular request in last.fm as well - haven't implemented yet.
Imaging two songs: 5 minute long and 11 minutes long. You have listened to both songs 10 times. You have actually spend more time with the 11 minutes song. Also think about 30 second Skits.. If you play that 10 times, would it need to be rated as good as a 5 minute song you opened your ears to? I guess not. Also there are DJ Mixes that's 2 hours long. You really don't get much of a playedCount with those. So they are going to be disadvanted if the song Length wasn't considered. These are the points which lead factoring in the Song Length. I hope that clarfies any doubts?
Cheers,
McoreD
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Jan 30 2008, 07:38)
I hope that clarfies any doubts?
Doubts? I have no such thing!!
Just curious what the reasoning was behind it. If I read correctly, it isn't implemented yet? If not, I think I would prefer not to have it, so an option to disable having song length factored in would be nice... How big of a factor is it? Say if I have a 2 minute song and an 8 minute song, and all other factors (play count, last played etc.) are equal, how much favor does the longer song get? My songs range from 1:30 to 9:00 or so, so there isn't a huge variation.
Thanks again for your great work!!
Ryan
Hi, it is implemented in iTSfv. I meant it is not implemented in last.fm yet and it is a popular request over there. I made it an option to turn on/off scaling playedCount based on track duration. That was what really happening.
For example, if there were only 2 songs in the library, where one is 2 minutes and other is 8 minutes. The average song duration for the two songs is 5 minutes. Suppose you have played the 2 minute song 100 times and the 8 minute song 80 times. When iTSfv does the playedCount scaling, for the 2 minute song, scaled playedCount will be 100*(2/5) = 40. This scaled playedCount is now compared against the maximum playedCount to give a playedCount score. 40/100 = 0.4. For the 8 minute song, 80*(8/5) = 128; 128/100 = 1.28. The result may look terrible because for the sake of the example, there are only 2 songs in the library. However when you use this concept for a typical music library, the average track Duration follows very close to randomly picked track duration. The 8 minute song is 4 times longer than the 2 minute song and has achieved a 3.2 times larger playedCount score. Finally, weightings are taken into consideration. If you have 20% allocated for playedCount score, for the 2 minute song it will be 8 points and for the 8 minute song, it will be 25.6 points. Final rating score is not limited to 100. This ensures you identifying the best song quite easily. Counter example: if you have rated a few songs as 5 stars, how do you determine the best rated song from those songs? The tracks-yyyyMMdd-ratings-adjusted.txt will have the rated songs in descending order letting you figure out the top song.
I have included an option in Options > Validate > Library to disable scaling playedCount based on track duration. I am curious to test it out myself as to how much influence that makes. Thank you for the great suggestion.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
5.38.3.0 Option to disable scaling playedCount based on Track Duration for automatic ratings [neonstorm]
5.38.2.0 Improved Capitalize Word function to support capitalizing certain words such as EP, CDS etc. using Settings > capital-words.txt [Sean]
5.38.1.0 Ability to specify "selected tracks complete a single disc" to ease overwriting AlbumArtist of a multi-artist disc that is scattered in iTunes
5.38.0.0 When determining AlbumArtist option to choose most common Artist to be considered as the AlbumArtist. Options > Tracks > AlbumArtist
5.37.4.2 Remove accidental leftover white spaces by the user when Replace Text in Tags is used
Cheers,
McoreD
For example, if there were only 2 songs in the library, where one is 2 minutes and other is 8 minutes. The average song duration for the two songs is 5 minutes. Suppose you have played the 2 minute song 100 times and the 8 minute song 80 times. When iTSfv does the playedCount scaling, for the 2 minute song, scaled playedCount will be 100*(2/5) = 40. This scaled playedCount is now compared against the maximum playedCount to give a playedCount score. 40/100 = 0.4. For the 8 minute song, 80*(8/5) = 128; 128/100 = 1.28. The result may look terrible because for the sake of the example, there are only 2 songs in the library. However when you use this concept for a typical music library, the average track Duration follows very close to randomly picked track duration. The 8 minute song is 4 times longer than the 2 minute song and has achieved a 3.2 times larger playedCount score. Finally, weightings are taken into consideration. If you have 20% allocated for playedCount score, for the 2 minute song it will be 8 points and for the 8 minute song, it will be 25.6 points. Final rating score is not limited to 100. This ensures you identifying the best song quite easily. Counter example: if you have rated a few songs as 5 stars, how do you determine the best rated song from those songs? The tracks-yyyyMMdd-ratings-adjusted.txt will have the rated songs in descending order letting you figure out the top song.
I have included an option in Options > Validate > Library to disable scaling playedCount based on track duration. I am curious to test it out myself as to how much influence that makes. Thank you for the great suggestion.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
5.38.3.0 Option to disable scaling playedCount based on Track Duration for automatic ratings [neonstorm]
5.38.2.0 Improved Capitalize Word function to support capitalizing certain words such as EP, CDS etc. using Settings > capital-words.txt [Sean]
5.38.1.0 Ability to specify "selected tracks complete a single disc" to ease overwriting AlbumArtist of a multi-artist disc that is scattered in iTunes
5.38.0.0 When determining AlbumArtist option to choose most common Artist to be considered as the AlbumArtist. Options > Tracks > AlbumArtist
5.37.4.2 Remove accidental leftover white spaces by the user when Replace Text in Tags is used
Cheers,
McoreD
Thanks for the quick response! I have to say, you are bar none the fastest responding developer I've ever seen! Excellent job!
Thanks for the description - it is very detailed, and now I understand the logic behind it a little better. I guess I'd just like it to work... illogically.
I've been looking for a way to thank you for your work, but don't see one. Do you have a way to send donations/postcards/whatever?
Thanks!
Ryan
Thanks for the description - it is very detailed, and now I understand the logic behind it a little better. I guess I'd just like it to work... illogically.
I've been looking for a way to thank you for your work, but don't see one. Do you have a way to send donations/postcards/whatever?
Thanks!
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Thanks for those encouraging comments.
I appreciate your thought to make a contribution. Donation process is new to me. SourceForge offers a method to be a supporter by donating. The SF url to donate is http://sourceforge.net/project/project_don...group_id=204248
I have a paypal account at mcored@gmail.com which is linked to my SourceForge account. If you have a paypal account you probably could use my paypal email address directly.
I am curious – does playedCount without scaling based on track duration, give you better results? I have a bunch of 120 minute long DJ remixes which were badly affected = under rated when unscaled. Since you don’t have such long tracks, you might not get affected by this. However I believe that long songs with less played count will get less credit. On the other hand, if you have a bunch of favourite songs below average track duration, their rating will not get scaled down, which can be a desirable result to you. I am interested to hear your result either way.
Thanks,
McoreD
Thanks for those encouraging comments.
I appreciate your thought to make a contribution. Donation process is new to me. SourceForge offers a method to be a supporter by donating. The SF url to donate is http://sourceforge.net/project/project_don...group_id=204248
I have a paypal account at mcored@gmail.com which is linked to my SourceForge account. If you have a paypal account you probably could use my paypal email address directly.
I am curious – does playedCount without scaling based on track duration, give you better results? I have a bunch of 120 minute long DJ remixes which were badly affected = under rated when unscaled. Since you don’t have such long tracks, you might not get affected by this. However I believe that long songs with less played count will get less credit. On the other hand, if you have a bunch of favourite songs below average track duration, their rating will not get scaled down, which can be a desirable result to you. I am interested to hear your result either way.
Thanks,
McoreD
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Jan 31 2008, 19:03)
... if you have a bunch of favourite songs below average track duration, their rating will not get scaled down, which can be a desirable result to you.
This is a very desirable result...
I ran two 'Adjust Ratings' back to back, one with the duration enabled and one disabled. Here's a snippet of the log with the variances (the formatting's not great but you get the point. )CODE
*********************
* 2008-02-01 15:30:55
*********************
Score with Duration Included (duration) vs. Score without Duration Included
101 for The White Stripes - Ball and Biscuit (7:16) vs. 99
095 for Boston - Carry On My Wayward Son (5:21) vs. 87
095 for Billy Joel - Piano Man (5:36) vs. 86
091 for The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (3:04) vs. 99
091 for Carbon Leaf - Let Your Troubles Roll By (5:26) vs. 84
090 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Bang (3:09) vs. 97
090 for The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers (3:39) vs. 92
090 for Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky (4:02) vs. 90
088 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion (3:09) vs. 94
088 for Remy Zero - Hollow (6:20) vs. 79
088 for Allman Brothers Band - Ramblin' Man (4:42) vs. 85
087 for The Crystal Method - Bad Stone (5:09) vs. 80
086 for The White Stripes - Icky Thump (4:18) vs. 84
086 for The All American Rejects - It Ends Tonight (4:05) vs. 85
085 for Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (5:27) vs. 79
085 for Billy Joel - Oh What a Night (3:36) vs. 87
084 for Styx - Come Sail Away (6:04) vs. 77
083 for Whitesnake - Here I Go Again (4:37) vs. 80
083 for Under The Influence Of Giants - Mama's Room (3:47) vs. 84
082 for Van Halen - Panama (3:32) vs. 84
082 for Tom Petty - You Don't Know How It Feels (4:50) vs. 79
082 for The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along the Watchtower (4:01) vs. 82
081 for Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun (5:17) vs. 77
081 for Outkast - B.O.B. (5:04) vs. 77
081 for Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back and Forth (5:07) vs. 77
080 for Ulrich Schnauss - Knuddelmaus (7:01) vs. 68
080 for The Killers - All These Things That I've Done (5:02) vs. 77
080 for Carbon Leaf - Life Less Ordinary (3:34) vs. 82
079 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cold Light (2:16) vs. 89
...snip...
PlayedCount: 35%, SkippedCount: 0%, LastPlayed: 0%, DateAdded: 65%
Maximum Played Count: 14, Maximum Track Duration: 1196, Average Track Duration: 236.466846569005
* 2008-02-01 15:30:55
*********************
Score with Duration Included (duration) vs. Score without Duration Included
101 for The White Stripes - Ball and Biscuit (7:16) vs. 99
095 for Boston - Carry On My Wayward Son (5:21) vs. 87
095 for Billy Joel - Piano Man (5:36) vs. 86
091 for The White Stripes - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (3:04) vs. 99
091 for Carbon Leaf - Let Your Troubles Roll By (5:26) vs. 84
090 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Bang (3:09) vs. 97
090 for The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers (3:39) vs. 92
090 for Norman Greenbaum - Spirit In The Sky (4:02) vs. 90
088 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion (3:09) vs. 94
088 for Remy Zero - Hollow (6:20) vs. 79
088 for Allman Brothers Band - Ramblin' Man (4:42) vs. 85
087 for The Crystal Method - Bad Stone (5:09) vs. 80
086 for The White Stripes - Icky Thump (4:18) vs. 84
086 for The All American Rejects - It Ends Tonight (4:05) vs. 85
085 for Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (5:27) vs. 79
085 for Billy Joel - Oh What a Night (3:36) vs. 87
084 for Styx - Come Sail Away (6:04) vs. 77
083 for Whitesnake - Here I Go Again (4:37) vs. 80
083 for Under The Influence Of Giants - Mama's Room (3:47) vs. 84
082 for Van Halen - Panama (3:32) vs. 84
082 for Tom Petty - You Don't Know How It Feels (4:50) vs. 79
082 for The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along the Watchtower (4:01) vs. 82
081 for Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun (5:17) vs. 77
081 for Outkast - B.O.B. (5:04) vs. 77
081 for Four Tet - My Angel Rocks Back and Forth (5:07) vs. 77
080 for Ulrich Schnauss - Knuddelmaus (7:01) vs. 68
080 for The Killers - All These Things That I've Done (5:02) vs. 77
080 for Carbon Leaf - Life Less Ordinary (3:34) vs. 82
079 for Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cold Light (2:16) vs. 89
...snip...
PlayedCount: 35%, SkippedCount: 0%, LastPlayed: 0%, DateAdded: 65%
Maximum Played Count: 14, Maximum Track Duration: 1196, Average Track Duration: 236.466846569005
Overall it seems like (as you suspected) the duration factor was causing my shorter 'favorite' songs to lose a bit of their rating, and bumping a few longer songs higher than I feel they should be. I think I prefer it without the duration being a factor... Thanks for implementing the option!!
Ryan
Hi Ryan, very interesting and thanks for the results.
I notice you have "Last Played" weighting factor is set to zero (35/0/0/65). That's quite a new approach to me.
Did you not have satisfied results using the default configuration 25/0/70/5 ? With the unscale playedCount you might want to have a look at the default configuration.
In the mean time these stabilty fixes are done for the next build.
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
5.38.3.2 Validation did not continue for discs without AlbumArtist from build 5.38.2.0 [Sean]
5.38.3.1 Track Progress Bar did not update while editing tracks in Selected Tracks > Editor
I notice you have "Last Played" weighting factor is set to zero (35/0/0/65). That's quite a new approach to me.
Did you not have satisfied results using the default configuration 25/0/70/5 ? With the unscale playedCount you might want to have a look at the default configuration.
In the mean time these stabilty fixes are done for the next build.
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
5.38.3.2 Validation did not continue for discs without AlbumArtist from build 5.38.2.0 [Sean]
5.38.3.1 Track Progress Bar did not update while editing tracks in Selected Tracks > Editor
Sorry if this has been covered in the previous 13 pages, but: Why does no one have a product that will allow me to import artwork into the ITunes artwork database, as opposed to embedding the art in the music file?
I have a bunch of concerts and I have a bunch of artwork, but I don't want to embed the art in the concert music file. From what I had read initially, it sounded like the ITunes artwork database just held .jpgs that had some additional proprietary tag attached. Why does no one provide a utility that allows you to add artwork to the ITunes art database?
I have a bunch of concerts and I have a bunch of artwork, but I don't want to embed the art in the concert music file. From what I had read initially, it sounded like the ITunes artwork database just held .jpgs that had some additional proprietary tag attached. Why does no one provide a utility that allows you to add artwork to the ITunes art database?
QUOTE(dsiebenh @ Feb 6 2008, 03:38)
Sorry if this has been covered in the previous 13 pages, but: Why does no one have a product that will allow me to import artwork into the ITunes artwork database, as opposed to embedding the art in the music file?
I have a bunch of concerts and I have a bunch of artwork, but I don't want to embed the art in the concert music file. From what I had read initially, it sounded like the ITunes artwork database just held .jpgs that had some additional proprietary tag attached. Why does no one provide a utility that allows you to add artwork to the ITunes art database?
Hi dsiebenh,
It is because the attempts afaik are still under R&D stage. I have attempted this in following thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=60163
welcoming/requesting other developers to have a go with it.
Cheers,
McoreD
Hi McoreD,
Here's an idea to improve itsfv even more (!).
Grab last.fm playcounts and put them into itunes.
This perl script will update your itunes db with last.fm counts.
http://bios.alterlinks.fr/index.php?option...1&Itemid=63
SInce it's only handling CML, I'm sure you can translate it into .NET.
What do you think?
I have over 50000 playcounts that I'd love to see locally (I can grab them from itunes and see them in my local player of choice).
Here's an idea to improve itsfv even more (!).
Grab last.fm playcounts and put them into itunes.
This perl script will update your itunes db with last.fm counts.
http://bios.alterlinks.fr/index.php?option...1&Itemid=63
SInce it's only handling CML, I'm sure you can translate it into .NET.
What do you think?
I have over 50000 playcounts that I'd love to see locally (I can grab them from itunes and see them in my local player of choice).
Definitely an excellent idea urlwolf! I am also an avid fan last.fm and I’ve been looking for a .NET port of the last.fm web services. There is actually a current thread about Last.fm Services for .NET in last.fm forums. This pearl script should solve exactly what I’ve been looking for.
I have been also trying to implement an automatic genre tagger using last.fm web services.
By the way I remember you having an interest in the iTSfv source. I was wondering if you had time to play with the iTSfv 5.30 source.
Cheers,
McoreD
I have been also trying to implement an automatic genre tagger using last.fm web services.
By the way I remember you having an interest in the iTSfv source. I was wondering if you had time to play with the iTSfv 5.30 source.
Cheers,
McoreD
urlwolf,
Would like to send you a copy of the latest iTSfv BETA for your testing. I have done it for 18277 tracks of mine and I managed to update playedCount on a bunch of tracks that I had played from computers other than mine.
5.40.0.0 Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Reorganized Options > Tracks tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
Cheers,
McoreD
Updated Beta is released:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
5.40.0.1 Fixed instability due to crashes while scanning access denied system folders for new files [Fowler]
5.40.0.0 ReverseScrobble® - Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Controls in Options > Tracks are reorganized tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
5.38.3.7 Debug Window will be dynamically updated when iTSfv is busy
5.38.3.6 iTSfv did not continue renaming files if an error occured
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
Would like to send you a copy of the latest iTSfv BETA for your testing. I have done it for 18277 tracks of mine and I managed to update playedCount on a bunch of tracks that I had played from computers other than mine.
5.40.0.0 Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Reorganized Options > Tracks tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
CODE
20080209T172743 Job Started: IMPORT_PLAYEDCOUNT_LASTFM
20080209T172924 PlayedCount for "My Chemical Romance - Teenagers" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172925 PlayedCount for "My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172928 PlayedCount for "The Killers - When You Were Young" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172929 PlayedCount for "The Killers - Read My Mind" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T172930 PlayedCount for "The Killers - Exitlude" updated from 1 to 4
20080209T172933 PlayedCount for "Foo Fighters - Everlong" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172951 PlayedCount for "Ciara - Make It Last Forever" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173015 PlayedCount for "Silverchair - Young Modern Station" updated from 0 to 3
20080209T173017 PlayedCount for "Silverchair - If You Keep Losing Sleep" updated from 0 to 2
20080209T173021 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173022 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - The (After) Life Of The Party" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173024 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - Bang The Doldrums" updated from 0 to 2
20080209T173025 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173028 PlayedCount for "Thirsty Merc - 20 Good Reasons" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173040 PlayedCount for "Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173048 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Wake Up Call" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173050 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Can't Stop" updated from 2 to 5
20080209T173051 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Goodnight Goodnight" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173053 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Not Falling Apart" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173112 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - In This Diary" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173114 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - My Reply" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173116 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - The Saddest Song" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173118 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - All You Can Ever Learn Is What You Already Know" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173127 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Sitar Todi (Album Version)" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173128 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Vandanaa Trayee" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173129 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Raga Miniature" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173222 PlayedCount for "Good Charlotte - Dance Floor Anthem" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173223 PlayedCount for "Good Charlotte - Misery" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173322 Duration: 0 Hours 05 Minutes 38.400216 Seconds
20080209T173322 Cleaning Temporary Files... in G:\Users\Manno\AppData\Roaming\iTSfv\
20080209T173322 Job Finished: IMPORT_PLAYEDCOUNT_LASTFM
20080209T172924 PlayedCount for "My Chemical Romance - Teenagers" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172925 PlayedCount for "My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172928 PlayedCount for "The Killers - When You Were Young" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172929 PlayedCount for "The Killers - Read My Mind" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T172930 PlayedCount for "The Killers - Exitlude" updated from 1 to 4
20080209T172933 PlayedCount for "Foo Fighters - Everlong" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T172951 PlayedCount for "Ciara - Make It Last Forever" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173015 PlayedCount for "Silverchair - Young Modern Station" updated from 0 to 3
20080209T173017 PlayedCount for "Silverchair - If You Keep Losing Sleep" updated from 0 to 2
20080209T173021 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173022 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - The (After) Life Of The Party" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173024 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - Bang The Doldrums" updated from 0 to 2
20080209T173025 PlayedCount for "Fall Out Boy - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173028 PlayedCount for "Thirsty Merc - 20 Good Reasons" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173040 PlayedCount for "Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173048 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Wake Up Call" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173050 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Can't Stop" updated from 2 to 5
20080209T173051 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Goodnight Goodnight" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173053 PlayedCount for "Maroon 5 - Not Falling Apart" updated from 1 to 3
20080209T173112 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - In This Diary" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173114 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - My Reply" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173116 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - The Saddest Song" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173118 PlayedCount for "The Ataris - All You Can Ever Learn Is What You Already Know" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173127 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Sitar Todi (Album Version)" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173128 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Vandanaa Trayee" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173129 PlayedCount for "Ravi Shankar - Raga Miniature" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173222 PlayedCount for "Good Charlotte - Dance Floor Anthem" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173223 PlayedCount for "Good Charlotte - Misery" updated from 0 to 1
20080209T173322 Duration: 0 Hours 05 Minutes 38.400216 Seconds
20080209T173322 Cleaning Temporary Files... in G:\Users\Manno\AppData\Roaming\iTSfv\
20080209T173322 Job Finished: IMPORT_PLAYEDCOUNT_LASTFM
Cheers,
McoreD
Updated Beta is released:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
5.40.0.1 Fixed instability due to crashes while scanning access denied system folders for new files [Fowler]
5.40.0.0 ReverseScrobble® - Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Controls in Options > Tracks are reorganized tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
5.38.3.7 Debug Window will be dynamically updated when iTSfv is busy
5.38.3.6 iTSfv did not continue renaming files if an error occured
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
Sorry McoreD, I cannot test it since I have already synched my Itunes with last.fm thanks to the perl script.
But I'm sure plenty of other people won't!
But I'm sure plenty of other people won't!
QUOTE(urlwolf @ Feb 11 2008, 01:11)
Sorry McoreD, I cannot test it since I have already synched my Itunes with last.fm thanks to the perl script.
But I'm sure plenty of other people won't!
urlwolf, no worries. I didn't think of that. But I realized after doing my testing, it is not a once-off thing: Whenever I play songs outside of my home iTunes player where I have last.fm configured, I will have songs to test.
Hello McoreD,
Have you considered adding some sort of automated BPM detector?
Have you considered adding some sort of automated BPM detector?
QUOTE(TwoToad @ Feb 12 2008, 23:25)
Hello McoreD, Have you considered adding some sort of automated BPM detector?
Hi TwoToad,
It had crossed my mind a few times. Audio file scanning is beyond my expertise for now.
I have been using this standalone app though:
http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp
* Calculate extremely accurate BPM counts for any song
* Drag and drop music files from Windows Explorer
* Display and sort files by Title, Artist, or BPM
* Update ID3 tags in your music files with exact BPM information
* Easily print BPM reports for your entire music collection
* Export BPM counts for use in other programs
* Free to use and distribute for non-commercial purposes
It's nice because it actually writes the BPM tag that is iTunes compatible.
Cheers,
McoreD
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Feb 12 2008, 17:22)
It's nice because it actually writes the BPM tag that is iTunes compatible.
Aye, that is the same app I've been using. Unfortunately it doesn't support AAC files and I had been using the app on mp3 duplicates and then manually adding the bpm info to my aac files.
Anyway, good luck to you. I love your app!
For the moment I have no useful suggestions to add, but I did dust off my HA account to come and express my appreciation for iTSfv - what a wonderful app! I've been playing around with it this afternoon and it's been most useful so far.
Thank you for making it, McoreD, and I hope I'll be able to come up with some ideas
edit 1:
actually, I do have a question: I've been adding more and more songs to my itunes db, and I've found the option to ligt the downloaded coverart from itunes' own db very handy. However, even though it worked before for many albums, I can't get iTSfv to export the art to the album directory as Folder.jpg, AlbumArtSmall.jpg and Artwork.jpg anymore.
I thought the option File System / Export Artwork to Album folder did that, but that only saves the Artwork.jpg in iTSfv's own picture folder, not where the music is.
I probably put a setting wrong (?) but have to idea where, and I can't find a 'back to defaults' button for idiots like me.
How do I get my original setting back, where iTSfv did all this in one go: extract the art from the iTunes DB, save it in its own iTSfv albumart folder, AND copy it to the album directory, with three names?
In the Options/Validate/Tracks/Artwork, I have checked "Import artwork in album folder from Artwork.jpg" and in
Options/Validate/Filesystem, "Export artwork to album folder as Folder.jpg", "Read only folder.jpg" and "Export a copy of the orignial artwork format". (although I deactivated that one and it didn't make a difference, I'm not sure what it does exactly to be honest).
The "Disable automatic creation of AlbumArtSmall, Folder.jpg, Artwork and Artwork600x600" are all UNchecked.
btw, I've never seen the artwork600x600.jpg made, only the other three.
Anyway, a long message for what hopefully can be a short answer, hehe.
Thanks for your time.
edit 2:
Hm. Something is completely wrong; when I ask iTSfv to embed artwork, it acts like it is doing so (even the music skips if you do it to the song that is playing), but nothing actually is being done. No change in the files. This is odd...
edit 3:
It seems to have something to do with whether I added the album by dragging it into iTunes directly or through iTSfv. The albums handled like that latter don't respond well at all.
edit 4:
I think I'm going crazy here. Been tagging file in iTunes (with and without iTSfv) all day now but the tags aren't actually saved to the mp3 files?!? I copied the artist name to the 'album artist' tag, I did all the 'disc 1 of 1' tagging, corrected spelling mistakes etc etc etc. Now I started a new Library, imported all these -supposedly- perfectly tagged files, and they are just like this morning. Now I know why I'd been using Foobar all these years... This is very frustrating.
Thank you for making it, McoreD, and I hope I'll be able to come up with some ideas
edit 1:
actually, I do have a question: I've been adding more and more songs to my itunes db, and I've found the option to ligt the downloaded coverart from itunes' own db very handy. However, even though it worked before for many albums, I can't get iTSfv to export the art to the album directory as Folder.jpg, AlbumArtSmall.jpg and Artwork.jpg anymore.
I thought the option File System / Export Artwork to Album folder did that, but that only saves the Artwork.jpg in iTSfv's own picture folder, not where the music is.
I probably put a setting wrong (?) but have to idea where, and I can't find a 'back to defaults' button for idiots like me.
How do I get my original setting back, where iTSfv did all this in one go: extract the art from the iTunes DB, save it in its own iTSfv albumart folder, AND copy it to the album directory, with three names?
In the Options/Validate/Tracks/Artwork, I have checked "Import artwork in album folder from Artwork.jpg" and in
Options/Validate/Filesystem, "Export artwork to album folder as Folder.jpg", "Read only folder.jpg" and "Export a copy of the orignial artwork format". (although I deactivated that one and it didn't make a difference, I'm not sure what it does exactly to be honest).
The "Disable automatic creation of AlbumArtSmall, Folder.jpg, Artwork and Artwork600x600" are all UNchecked.
btw, I've never seen the artwork600x600.jpg made, only the other three.
Anyway, a long message for what hopefully can be a short answer, hehe.
Thanks for your time.
edit 2:
Hm. Something is completely wrong; when I ask iTSfv to embed artwork, it acts like it is doing so (even the music skips if you do it to the song that is playing), but nothing actually is being done. No change in the files. This is odd...
edit 3:
It seems to have something to do with whether I added the album by dragging it into iTunes directly or through iTSfv. The albums handled like that latter don't respond well at all.
edit 4:
I think I'm going crazy here. Been tagging file in iTunes (with and without iTSfv) all day now but the tags aren't actually saved to the mp3 files?!? I copied the artist name to the 'album artist' tag, I did all the 'disc 1 of 1' tagging, corrected spelling mistakes etc etc etc. Now I started a new Library, imported all these -supposedly- perfectly tagged files, and they are just like this morning.
Now I know why I'd been using Foobar all these years... This is very frustrating.
TwoToad & NearlyGod, glad you like to program.
NearlyGod,
Sorry about not having a "Reset Settings button". I will think about this. For now:
Go to Options > Advanced > Files & Folders > Browse original user.config file
Close iTSfv
Delete the user.config file or rename it
Load iTSfv
Now you should have a fresh copy of new user.config
Have a go at this please, and let me know.
Added the following to the manual, thanks to you:
4.1.4.1.2 Export a copy of the Original Artwork format
Embedded artwork files from external sources are sometimes in PNG or GIF format. If this checkbox is checked iTSfv will export the embedded artwork in the original PNG or GIF format. Otherwise it will export as JPG.
Artwork 600x600 will be only made if you choose to resize the Artwork before importing. I have two options to make this more usable. I could either disable this checkbox when the "resize the artwork before importing" checkbox is unchecked or I can make iTSfv export a resized Artwork disregarding other dependent settings (preferred / expected behavior)
NearlyGod, that's very bad experience with tagging using iTunes. Personally haven't happened to me yet but I have noticed these kind of posts in Apple Discussions. In rare situations it seems like iTunes will not update the file tags. I think before anything, this issue should be resolved.
Bye for now,
McoreD
5.41.1.0 Creation of %Artwork% (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
5.40.3.0 Switched to a timer controlled reporting progress method report status more descriptively
5.40.2.0 The most common Genre for the album is determined using the most common genre for each track of the album according to Last.fm
5.40.1.1 Synchroclean portion of a previous implementation unchecked all the checkboxes in Main Window and did not restore the settings [Fowler]
5.40.1.0 iTSfv will attempt to look for artwork saved using Album Art Downloader
5.40.0.2 Progress timers in ReverseScrobble affected the progress status in Validation
NearlyGod,
Sorry about not having a "Reset Settings button". I will think about this. For now:
Go to Options > Advanced > Files & Folders > Browse original user.config file
Close iTSfv
Delete the user.config file or rename it
Load iTSfv
Now you should have a fresh copy of new user.config
Have a go at this please, and let me know.
Added the following to the manual, thanks to you:
4.1.4.1.2 Export a copy of the Original Artwork format
Embedded artwork files from external sources are sometimes in PNG or GIF format. If this checkbox is checked iTSfv will export the embedded artwork in the original PNG or GIF format. Otherwise it will export as JPG.
Artwork 600x600 will be only made if you choose to resize the Artwork before importing. I have two options to make this more usable. I could either disable this checkbox when the "resize the artwork before importing" checkbox is unchecked or I can make iTSfv export a resized Artwork disregarding other dependent settings (preferred / expected behavior)
NearlyGod, that's very bad experience with tagging using iTunes. Personally haven't happened to me yet but I have noticed these kind of posts in Apple Discussions. In rare situations it seems like iTunes will not update the file tags. I think before anything, this issue should be resolved.
Bye for now,
McoreD
5.41.1.0 Creation of %Artwork% (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
5.40.3.0 Switched to a timer controlled reporting progress method report status more descriptively
5.40.2.0 The most common Genre for the album is determined using the most common genre for each track of the album according to Last.fm
5.40.1.1 Synchroclean portion of a previous implementation unchecked all the checkboxes in Main Window and did not restore the settings [Fowler]
5.40.1.0 iTSfv will attempt to look for artwork saved using Album Art Downloader
5.40.0.2 Progress timers in ReverseScrobble affected the progress status in Validation
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Feb 13 2008, 19:18)
TwoToad & NearlyGod, glad you like to program.
More and more! It is getting more powerful very quickly; I just grabbed the 5.42 beta version.
Thank you for your quick and expansive reply.
QUOTE
Delete the user.config file or rename it
Should have thought of this myself
- this fixed my confusion with the settings and things are back to normal now. Thanks!QUOTE
4.1.4.1.2 Export a copy of the Original Artwork format
Embedded artwork files from external sources are sometimes in PNG or GIF format. If this checkbox is checked iTSfv will export the embedded artwork in the original PNG or GIF format. Otherwise it will export as JPG.
Okay, this makes it clearer to me - Exporting means that previously embedded artwork is saved to the iTSfv artwork folder. It is nice to have an option to keep the original, but even if converting to jpeg degrades the image a bit, I like having the uniformity of having all Coverart files with the same name
Still, the artwork management as a whole is something I don't have much feeling with, yet. Probably because of my limited experience with iTunes. I was/am a Foobar aficionado. But things are looking up now!
QUOTE
Artwork 600x600 will be only made if you choose to resize the Artwork before importing. I have two options to make this more usable. I could either disable this checkbox when the "resize the artwork before importing" checkbox is unchecked or I can make iTSfv export a resized Artwork disregarding other dependent settings (preferred / expected behavior)
I think that exporting it no matter what is not the way to go. Since much of the original ITMS art is around 600x600 already, there is no need to convert a 598x601 jpeg, right? As I see it now, disabling the checkbox when the user has already made it clear he does not want to resize artwork, seems more logical to me.
QUOTE
NearlyGod, that's very bad experience with tagging using iTunes. Personally haven't happened to me yet but I have noticed these kind of posts in Apple Discussions. In rare situations it seems like iTunes will not update the file tags. I think before anything, this issue should be resolved.
At first I thought my method of installing iTunes was to blame (I extracted only the iTunes setup from Apple's package, because I hate Quicktime and all that stuff), but after loading my very first Library, behaviour is back to normal. No idea if iTunes has some memory (like a Normal.dot in MS Office) about Libraries, but anyways, it is good now!
This weekend I will be messing around some more. First, work!
Hi McoreD,
I have been using this standalone app though:
http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp
* Calculate extremely accurate BPM counts for any song
* Drag and drop music files from Windows Explorer
* Display and sort files by Title, Artist, or BPM
* Update ID3 tags in your music files with exact BPM information
* Easily print BPM reports for your entire music collection
* Export BPM counts for use in other programs
* Free to use and distribute for non-commercial purposes
It's nice because it actually writes the BPM tag that is iTunes compatible.
I'm also looking for a BPM analyzer that writes some relevant tag. But does someone know it this nice little app is FLAC-compatible ? I'm not going to convert my 20.000+ FLAC to MP3 so...
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Feb 13 2008, 01:22)
I have been using this standalone app though:
http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp
* Calculate extremely accurate BPM counts for any song
* Drag and drop music files from Windows Explorer
* Display and sort files by Title, Artist, or BPM
* Update ID3 tags in your music files with exact BPM information
* Easily print BPM reports for your entire music collection
* Export BPM counts for use in other programs
* Free to use and distribute for non-commercial purposes
It's nice because it actually writes the BPM tag that is iTunes compatible.
I'm also looking for a BPM analyzer that writes some relevant tag. But does someone know it this nice little app is FLAC-compatible ? I'm not going to convert my 20.000+ FLAC to MP3 so...
QUOTE(Jose Hidalgo @ Feb 14 2008, 09:52)
I'm also looking for a BPM analyzer that writes some relevant tag. But does someone know it this nice little app is FLAC-compatible ? I'm not going to convert my 20.000+ FLAC to MP3 so...
Nope. WAV, yes. So in case you want to convert them all to WAV?
BTW, I find that mixmeister's BPM analyzer is not very accurate - especially with Drum & Bass tracks; they are very very slow but are then tagged with a 150+ BPM tag. Hehe
Well, I need a FLAC-compatible app then... 
I really hope I will have time to experiment with iTSfv this weekend, because I have now discoverd a rather serious problem: one in twenty of my mp3 files has become corrupted (reporting a sync error by EncSpot) in the process of me adding them to the iTunes library. I have them on DVD backed up, thankfully.
There can't of course be changes in the actual mp3 data, in the middle of a file, when I'm only messing around with the ID3 tags.
I don't have other signs of problems on my pc, but before I go on, I will have to fix this first.
There can't of course be changes in the actual mp3 data, in the middle of a file, when I'm only messing around with the ID3 tags.
I don't have other signs of problems on my pc, but before I go on, I will have to fix this first.
Jose,
I have a fair collection of FLAC as well so if I find a BPM Analyser for FLAC then I will definitely share the gossip.
NearlyGod,
Glad you got almost all things sorted.
Disable automatic creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg artwork is independent from Resize Artwork before importing option but now checked by default for new configurations. This means by default iTSfv will not create a resized Artwork in the music folder.
May be those corrupted MP3s caused both iTSfv and iTunes to skip writing tags to them? That's more likely the reason.
iTunes requires QuickTime for it to function properly! It seems to me that you decoupled QT from the iTunes setup?
Btw, this is the Version History of the update I pushed last night.
5.42.1.0 Duplicate Tracks are logged to tracks-yyyyMM-duplicate.txt in Logs folder
5.42.0.0 Ability to remove duplicate tracks from Library in Advanced > Library according to Options > Library > Cleaning
5.41.2.0 Reconfigure GUI in Advanced tab to accommodate room for upcoming features
5.41.1.0 Creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
Cheers,
McoreD
I have a fair collection of FLAC as well so if I find a BPM Analyser for FLAC then I will definitely share the gossip.
NearlyGod,
Glad you got almost all things sorted.
Disable automatic creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg artwork is independent from Resize Artwork before importing option but now checked by default for new configurations. This means by default iTSfv will not create a resized Artwork in the music folder.
May be those corrupted MP3s caused both iTSfv and iTunes to skip writing tags to them? That's more likely the reason.
iTunes requires QuickTime for it to function properly! It seems to me that you decoupled QT from the iTunes setup?
Btw, this is the Version History of the update I pushed last night.
5.42.1.0 Duplicate Tracks are logged to tracks-yyyyMM-duplicate.txt in Logs folder
5.42.0.0 Ability to remove duplicate tracks from Library in Advanced > Library according to Options > Library > Cleaning
5.41.2.0 Reconfigure GUI in Advanced tab to accommodate room for upcoming features
5.41.1.0 Creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
Cheers,
McoreD
QUOTE(~*McoreD*~ @ Feb 14 2008, 17:17)
May be those corrupted MP3s caused both iTSfv and iTunes to skip writing tags to them? That's more likely the reason.
iTunes requires QuickTime for it to function properly! It seems to me that you decoupled QT from the iTunes setup?
McoreD, it turns out my legacy (PATA) IDE interface is broken. My FLACs, that I only copied but never touched, also had one or two bits wrong in them. A new motherboard will fix this. iTunes didn't mind the corrupt MP3s, iTunes doesn't check for loss of sync.
Also, I have QuickTime installed, just not the (in my opinion) very intrusive installation that comes from Apple, but rather 'QuickTime Lite' (previously 'QT Alternative'). I have some experience in making applications 'lighter' and especially Portable. I am working on a Portable iTunes now.
I do have a small suggestion though, which came up: the method to fill the Genre using last.fm is very useful, however, I found that you check the genre for every track separately. Often, this showed different genres within one album. It also slowed down the tagging a lot, because after 3 or 4 tracks, last.fm would become much less responsive and you have to wait and wait.
For collections that are made up of random songs, this is the only way, but it seems to me that when you are tagging Genre for whole albums, picking the first tune of an album and using that Genre for the rest, will work much quicker.
Cheers!
NG
NB I will have more silly suggestions and problems for you, in the coming weeks, for sure
QUOTE(NearlyGod @ Feb 15 2008, 18:40)
For collections that are made up of random songs, this is the only way, but it seems to me that when you are tagging Genre for whole albums, picking the first tune of an album and using that Genre for the rest, will work much quicker.
Hi NearlyGod,
Very important issue we are discussing there. I was not quite sure how to handle that well so I went ahead doing this (current implementation):
iTSfv scans for Genre using Last.fm for every track in the album.
Last.fm provides the best genre for *each* song.
iTSfv saves the Genre from each track is saved in a table and picks the most common Genre
It then assigns this Genre to the tracks without Genre
This is the reason why iTSfv scans for all the tracks.
I will surely make this an option to only scan the first track.
Thanks for point out and I am happy to hear feedback like this.
Cheers,
McoreD
Edit:
5.42.2.0 Option to scan for Genre from Last.fm for the first track instead of scanning all tracks for the most common Genre [NearlyGod]
Hi All,
Pushed the 5.42 stable today.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=204248
5.42.3.2 Fixed some stablity issues due to timer controlled reporting progress method
5.42.3.1 Replace strings such as &quot; and &amp; in lyrics downloaded from LyricWiki
5.42.3.0 Automatically restore settings from Documents\iTSfv\Settings\user.config when orignal user.config is not found (new Windows installation)
5.42.2.0 Option to scan for Genre from Last.fm for the first track instead of scanning all tracks for the most common Genre [NearlyGod]
5.42.1.0 Duplicate Tracks are logged to tracks-yyyyMM-duplicate.txt in Logs folder
5.42.0.0 Ability to remove duplicate tracks from Library in Advanced > Library according to Options > Library > Cleaning
5.41.2.0 Reconfigure GUI in Advanced tab to accommodate room for upcoming features
5.41.1.0 Creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
5.40.3.0 Switched to a timer controlled reporting progress method report status more descriptively
5.40.2.0 The most common Genre for the album is determined using the most common genre for each track of the album according to Last.fm
5.40.1.1 Synchroclean portion of a previous implementation unchecked all the checkboxes in Main Window and did not restore the settings [Fowler]
5.40.1.0 iTSfv will attempt to look for artwork saved using Album Art Downloader
5.40.0.2 Progress timers in ReverseScrobble affected the progress status in Validation
5.40.0.1 Fixed instability due to crashes while scanning access denied system folders for new files [Fowler]
5.40.0.0 ReverseScrobble� - Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Controls in Options > Tracks are reorganized tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
5.38.3.7 Debug Window will be dynamically updated when iTSfv is busy
5.38.3.6 iTSfv did not continue renaming files if an error occured
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
5.38.3.2 Validation did not continue for discs without AlbumArtist from build 5.38.2.0 [Sean]
5.38.3.1 Track Progress Bar did not update while editing tracks in Selected Tracks > Editor
5.38.3.0 Option to disable scaling playedCount based on Track Duration for automatic ratings [neonstorm]
5.38.2.0 Improved Capitalize Word function to support capitalizing certain words such as EP, CDS etc. using Settings > capital-words.txt [Sean]
5.38.1.0 Ability to specify "selected tracks complete a single disc" to ease overwriting AlbumArtist of a multi-artist disc that is scattered in iTunes
5.38.0.0 Option to choose most common Artist as the AlbumArtist for multi-Artist discs. Options > Tracks > AlbumArtist
5.37.4.3 Remove code that could overwrite Track Number when adding an album that is not properly sorted in Explorer according to Track Number
5.37.4.2 Remove accidental leftover white spaces by the user when Replace Text in Tags is used
5.37.4.1 AlbumArtist already set as "Various" or "VA" was not overwritten by "Various Artists" tag [trw]
5.37.4.0 Ability to turn on/off using Artwork Cache for validating jobs in Options > Advanced > Validate
5.37.3.2 Report was not generated when validating selected disc
5.37.3.1 Generate report after validating newly added files was missing
5.37.3.0 Saving the Artwork in the original file format is now optional in Options > File System > Artwork
5.37.2.1 Memory Leak in Warnings writer from in the build 5.37.2.0
5.37.2.0 Ability to overwrite AlbumArtist in Options > Tracks > General
5.37.1.4 AlbumArtist tag was set to Unknown Artist from build 5.37.1.1 [trw]
5.37.1.3 Fixed crash during reloading Discs Browser after tags are changed: Item has already been added.
5.37.1.2 Compilation tag was not read by XmlTrack implementation
5.37.1.1 If AlbumArtist tag was empty and the Disc had different track artists, AlbumArtist tag was filled with Track Artist instead of "Various Artists" [trw]
5.37.1.0 Added Advanced > Warning tab to turn on/off warnings with a warning for validating with remove low resolution artwork checkbox checked
5.37.0.4 Reporting Progress functions are wrapped in a Try/Catch block to prevent crashes when iTunes is busy [trw]
5.37.0.3 Strip HTML tags in Lyrics downloaded from LyricWiki [Jojo]
5.37.0.2 Accidental inverse logic in build 5.36.1.0 when determining if folder artwork is low resolution
5.37.0.1 Falsely displayed information in status bar as removing dead or foreign tracks
5.37.0.0 Ability to log folders without artwork to file [trw]
5.36.1.0 Low Resolution artwork files can now be avoided from being embedded in Options > Tracks > Artwork
5.36.0.0 Option in Tracks tab to remove low resolution artwork as part of validation
5.35.3.1 Fixed possible crash on Application startup when registry access was denied to see if iTSfv loads on startup [John]
5.35.3.0 Multi-select Tags XML files to restore tags
5.35.2.8 First disc of a box set did not follow the list by Grouping tag in Discs Browser
5.35.2.7 Workaround to detect iTunes in 64-bit editions of Windows [Anusha]
5.35.2.6 Add new Files window and Add new Artwork window were not the top most windows when shown
Cheers,
McoreD
Pushed the 5.42 stable today.
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=204248
CODE
5.42.3.2 Fixed some stablity issues due to timer controlled reporting progress method
5.42.3.1 Replace strings such as &quot; and &amp; in lyrics downloaded from LyricWiki
5.42.3.0 Automatically restore settings from Documents\iTSfv\Settings\user.config when orignal user.config is not found (new Windows installation)
5.42.2.0 Option to scan for Genre from Last.fm for the first track instead of scanning all tracks for the most common Genre [NearlyGod]
5.42.1.0 Duplicate Tracks are logged to tracks-yyyyMM-duplicate.txt in Logs folder
5.42.0.0 Ability to remove duplicate tracks from Library in Advanced > Library according to Options > Library > Cleaning
5.41.2.0 Reconfigure GUI in Advanced tab to accommodate room for upcoming features
5.41.1.0 Creation of Artwork (600x600).jpg is not dependent on the setting Tracks > Resize Artwork before importing
5.41.0.1 Resize Artwork was saved in Album folder disregarding the setting Disable Artwork (600x600).jpg in Options > File System
5.41.0.0 Check for tracks without BPM. Log file saved in Logs folder.
5.40.3.0 Switched to a timer controlled reporting progress method report status more descriptively
5.40.2.0 The most common Genre for the album is determined using the most common genre for each track of the album according to Last.fm
5.40.1.1 Synchroclean portion of a previous implementation unchecked all the checkboxes in Main Window and did not restore the settings [Fowler]
5.40.1.0 iTSfv will attempt to look for artwork saved using Album Art Downloader
5.40.0.2 Progress timers in ReverseScrobble affected the progress status in Validation
5.40.0.1 Fixed instability due to crashes while scanning access denied system folders for new files [Fowler]
5.40.0.0 ReverseScrobble� - Added support to update iTunes tracks playedCount using Last.fm user charts [urlwolf]
5.39.1.0 Controls in Options > Tracks are reorganized tab to facilitate adding upcoming options
5.39.0.0 Automatic genre tagger using Last.fm web services for validating tracks [Kaos713]
5.38.3.7 Debug Window will be dynamically updated when iTSfv is busy
5.38.3.6 iTSfv did not continue renaming files if an error occured
5.38.3.5 Renaming file as part of capitalization did not work always
5.38.3.4 Fixed possible instability when attempting to browse a disc in Discs Browser that is being deleted
5.38.3.3 Jobs > Remove dead or foreign Tracks operation will no longer depend on Resume Tracks checkBox in Advanced
5.38.3.2 Validation did not continue for discs without AlbumArtist from build 5.38.2.0 [Sean]
5.38.3.1 Track Progress Bar did not update while editing tracks in Selected Tracks > Editor
5.38.3.0 Option to disable scaling playedCount based on Track Duration for automatic ratings [neonstorm]
5.38.2.0 Improved Capitalize Word function to support capitalizing certain words such as EP, CDS etc. using Settings > capital-words.txt [Sean]
5.38.1.0 Ability to specify "selected tracks complete a single disc" to ease overwriting AlbumArtist of a multi-artist disc that is scattered in iTunes
5.38.0.0 Option to choose most common Artist as the AlbumArtist for multi-Artist discs. Options > Tracks > AlbumArtist
5.37.4.3 Remove code that could overwrite Track Number when adding an album that is not properly sorted in Explorer according to Track Number
5.37.4.2 Remove accidental leftover white spaces by the user when Replace Text in Tags is used
5.37.4.1 AlbumArtist already set as "Various" or "VA" was not overwritten by "Various Artists" tag [trw]
5.37.4.0 Ability to turn on/off using Artwork Cache for validating jobs in Options > Advanced > Validate
5.37.3.2 Report was not generated when validating selected disc
5.37.3.1 Generate report after validating newly added files was missing
5.37.3.0 Saving the Artwork in the original file format is now optional in Options > File System > Artwork
5.37.2.1 Memory Leak in Warnings writer from in the build 5.37.2.0
5.37.2.0 Ability to overwrite AlbumArtist in Options > Tracks > General
5.37.1.4 AlbumArtist tag was set to Unknown Artist from build 5.37.1.1 [trw]
5.37.1.3 Fixed crash during reloading Discs Browser after tags are changed: Item has already been added.
5.37.1.2 Compilation tag was not read by XmlTrack implementation
5.37.1.1 If AlbumArtist tag was empty and the Disc had different track artists, AlbumArtist tag was filled with Track Artist instead of "Various Artists" [trw]
5.37.1.0 Added Advanced > Warning tab to turn on/off warnings with a warning for validating with remove low resolution artwork checkbox checked
5.37.0.4 Reporting Progress functions are wrapped in a Try/Catch block to prevent crashes when iTunes is busy [trw]
5.37.0.3 Strip HTML tags in Lyrics downloaded from LyricWiki [Jojo]
5.37.0.2 Accidental inverse logic in build 5.36.1.0 when determining if folder artwork is low resolution
5.37.0.1 Falsely displayed information in status bar as removing dead or foreign tracks
5.37.0.0 Ability to log folders without artwork to file [trw]
5.36.1.0 Low Resolution artwork files can now be avoided from being embedded in Options > Tracks > Artwork
5.36.0.0 Option in Tracks tab to remove low resolution artwork as part of validation
5.35.3.1 Fixed possible crash on Application startup when registry access was denied to see if iTSfv loads on startup [John]
5.35.3.0 Multi-select Tags XML files to restore tags
5.35.2.8 First disc of a box set did not follow the list by Grouping tag in Discs Browser
5.35.2.7 Workaround to detect iTunes in 64-bit editions of Windows [Anusha]
5.35.2.6 Add new Files window and Add new Artwork window were not the top most windows when shown
Cheers,
McoreD
Hey McoreD,
Just another option to think about... Is it possible to add a checkbox to make Folder.jpg a hidden system file? Normally I go through manually at the command prompt and "attrib +h +s folder.jpg".
PS I think iTSfv is going to explode with all the options it has hehe
Just another option to think about... Is it possible to add a checkbox to make Folder.jpg a hidden system file? Normally I go through manually at the command prompt and "attrib +h +s folder.jpg".
PS I think iTSfv is going to explode with all the options it has hehe
Another great suggestion, thanks TwoToad.
The latest beta version from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
has this option.
5.43.3.0 Added options to set new folder.jpg file attributes as System or Hidden/System [TwoToad]
5.43.2.0 Open music folder of selected track or disc using Mp3tag
5.43.1.1 Removed possible chance where Track would be set to Read-Only for being Tag Complete while editing tracks
5.43.1.0 Enhanced Update Library refreshing Tags to fix uneditable tracks in iTunes [Chris Daniels]
5.43.0.1 Update Library refreshing Tags in file did not update numeric tags which are TrackNumber, TrackCount, DiscNumber, DiscCount and Year
5.43.0.0 Check for tracks metatag versions as part of validation and log results to track_yyyyMMdd_metatags.txt [Chris Daniels]
5.42.6.0 Application now has a new icon contributed by Chris Daniels and is compatible with Windows Vista 256x256 Extra Large Icon view
5.42.5.3 Strings such as "(Lp" were not properly captilized to "(LP" etc.
5.42.5.2 Google Search URL was not URL Encoded so characters such as & were not properly included in the search string
5.42.5.1 Artists with a directory seperator such as AC/DC were read as AC while adding files to library [ itsfv-Bugs-1895768 ]
5.42.5.0 Search for Artwork passing arguments to Album Art Downloader XUI from Selected Tracks > Search Artwork...
5.42.4.0 Added new "Selected Tracks" menu to group jobs related to Selected Tracks
5.42.3.9 Beta versions with the same major build number as the final version did not get downloaded as part of Checking Updates
5.42.3.8 Workaround for Artists with a directory seperator such as AC/DC being read as AC while Updating library refresh tags in file
5.42.3.7 Words in replace-words.txt when used as part of fixing case in track tags could cause iTunes not finding the track
5.42.3.6 Track Count update in the status bar while a Dialog Box is opened in iTunes, crashed application
5.42.3.5 Double urlencode Artist and Song to look up genre in Last.fm as the Artists such AC/DC did not work properly
5.42.3.4 Genre choosen from Last.fm did not undergo proper capitalization
5.42.3.3 Fixed bug if the first track looked up using Last.fm for Genre returned nothing then the choosen Genre was nothing
Thought I would mention, the http://itsfv.sourceforge.net is a very basic XHTML compatible page I made without any creativity. If anybody could volunteer to do a redesign of the page that would be much appreciated.
Cheers and Thanks,
McoreD
The latest beta version from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=243989
has this option.
5.43.3.0 Added options to set new folder.jpg file attributes as System or Hidden/System [TwoToad]
5.43.2.0 Open music folder of selected track or disc using Mp3tag
5.43.1.1 Removed possible chance where Track would be set to Read-Only for being Tag Complete while editing tracks
5.43.1.0 Enhanced Update Library refreshing Tags to fix uneditable tracks in iTunes [Chris Daniels]
5.43.0.1 Update Library refreshing Tags in file did not update numeric tags which are TrackNumber, TrackCount, DiscNumber, DiscCount and Year
5.43.0.0 Check for tracks metatag versions as part of validation and log results to track_yyyyMMdd_metatags.txt [Chris Daniels]
5.42.6.0 Application now has a new icon contributed by Chris Daniels and is compatible with Windows Vista 256x256 Extra Large Icon view
5.42.5.3 Strings such as "(Lp" were not properly captilized to "(LP" etc.
5.42.5.2 Google Search URL was not URL Encoded so characters such as & were not properly included in the search string
5.42.5.1 Artists with a directory seperator such as AC/DC were read as AC while adding files to library [ itsfv-Bugs-1895768 ]
5.42.5.0 Search for Artwork passing arguments to Album Art Downloader XUI from Selected Tracks > Search Artwork...
5.42.4.0 Added new "Selected Tracks" menu to group jobs related to Selected Tracks
5.42.3.9 Beta versions with the same major build number as the final version did not get downloaded as part of Checking Updates
5.42.3.8 Workaround for Artists with a directory seperator such as AC/DC being read as AC while Updating library refresh tags in file
5.42.3.7 Words in replace-words.txt when used as part of fixing case in track tags could cause iTunes not finding the track
5.42.3.6 Track Count update in the status bar while a Dialog Box is opened in iTunes, crashed application
5.42.3.5 Double urlencode Artist and Song to look up genre in Last.fm as the Artists such AC/DC did not work properly
5.42.3.4 Genre choosen from Last.fm did not undergo proper capitalization
5.42.3.3 Fixed bug if the first track looked up using Last.fm for Genre returned nothing then the choosen Genre was nothing
Thought I would mention, the http://itsfv.sourceforge.net is a very basic XHTML compatible page I made without any creativity. If anybody could volunteer to do a redesign of the page that would be much appreciated.
Cheers and Thanks,
McoreD
Hi, finally I again had some time to spend on my music collection.
Not yet enough to come up with big ideas or big problems, but I did see something strange in iTSfv happening when I was embedding artwork:
An album called "Cecilia Bartoli & Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999)" was being worked on and in the status-bar the '&'-sign was multiplied for each track - iTSfv said it was working on Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999) and then Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999) and so forth, you get the point.
Nothing bad actually happened to the tracks, it's probably just a cosmetic thing, but I thought I should mention it.
Cheers
Not yet enough to come up with big ideas or big problems, but I did see something strange in iTSfv happening when I was embedding artwork:
An album called "Cecilia Bartoli & Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999)" was being worked on and in the status-bar the '&'-sign was multiplied for each track
- iTSfv said it was working on Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999) and then Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999) and so forth, you get the point.Nothing bad actually happened to the tracks, it's probably just a cosmetic thing, but I thought I should mention it.
Cheers
NearlyGod,
It was funny reading: Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999)
Yes, it was purely cosmetic. Album names with Ampersand did not display properly in the Status Bar. I was trying to fix this: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=497882
However, does seem to have it quite right.
5.45.1.2 Fixed ampersand character getting multiplied in Status Bar text when validating albums names with ampersand [NearlyGod]
I am ready for releasing another stable update 1st of March so that's very cool timing you spotted this.
5.45.1.2 Fixed ampersand character getting multiplied in Status Bar text when validating albums names with ampersand [NearlyGod]
5.45.1.1 Tab ordering in Add New Files window was not in expected order
5.45.1.0 Keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3 and Ctrl+4 for Checks, Validating Tracks, Library and File System
5.45.0.0 Ability to Check for iTunes Store standards or Validate Tracks, Library or File System independently via Buttons in each tab and Selected Tracks > Validate menu
5.44.2.0 Support for %Composer% syntax for tasks such as copying tags to Clipboard and File Names
Thanks,
McoreD
It was funny reading: Cecilia Bartoli &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Bryn Terfel - Duets (1999)Yes, it was purely cosmetic. Album names with Ampersand did not display properly in the Status Bar. I was trying to fix this: http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=497882
However, does seem to have it quite right.
5.45.1.2 Fixed ampersand character getting multiplied in Status Bar text when validating albums names with ampersand [NearlyGod]
I am ready for releasing another stable update 1st of March so that's very cool timing you spotted this.
5.45.1.2 Fixed ampersand character getting multiplied in Status Bar text when validating albums names with ampersand [NearlyGod]
5.45.1.1 Tab ordering in Add New Files window was not in expected order
5.45.1.0 Keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2, Ctrl+3 and Ctrl+4 for Checks, Validating Tracks, Library and File System
5.45.0.0 Ability to Check for iTunes Store standards or Validate Tracks, Library or File System independently via Buttons in each tab and Selected Tracks > Validate menu
5.44.2.0 Support for %Composer% syntax for tasks such as copying tags to Clipboard and File Names
Thanks,
McoreD
Cool, another fix! But I've only just started 
This is something I'd noticed for a while, but forgot to mention;
When filling the Track and Disc count, occasionally it will happen that a track is not fully tagged, like this:
I tried to see what those files had in common, but can't find anything. I think a few times re-validating the album fixed it, but mostly only a manual change will do it. I'll try to keep looking for a pattern here.
Keep up the good work. I've submitted iTSfv to the programs-watchlist (where interesting programs are featured when they have been updated) of a high-volume Dutch IT-website, Tweakers.Net , it hasn't been accepted yet though.
NG
But I've only just started This is something I'd noticed for a while, but forgot to mention;
When filling the Track and Disc count, occasionally it will happen that a track is not fully tagged, like this:
I tried to see what those files had in common, but can't find anything. I think a few times re-validating the album fixed it, but mostly only a manual change will do it. I'll try to keep looking for a pattern here.
Keep up the good work. I've submitted iTSfv to the programs-watchlist (where interesting programs are featured when they have been updated) of a high-volume Dutch IT-website, Tweakers.Net , it hasn't been accepted yet though.
NG
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