MP3 Rankings - WMP vs. ID3 vs. ???

[Addict]

Hi folks,

I've been tracking song rankings in Windows Media Player for ages, and I've got a lot of them. Turns out, that wasn't necessarily the smartest move because other applications seem to ignore the MP3 ranks even if I've told WMP to "save them in the file".

Apparently WMP isn't using any kind of standard? I assume that the ID3 tagging accounts for a 5-star ranking system? This is actually a question because I don't know for sure.

If so...do most programs out there access THIS tag instead?

I'm trying to figure out the best "location" to store my rankings so the most programs will be able to access this information. Any thoughts?

ALSO - once I identify this location, I'd love to be able to migrate my WMP rankings to a more standard rank. Anyone familiar with anything that can do this? Anyone familiar with the WMP API's that has manipulated this non-standard setting?

Thanks!
AL

[stanger89]

It doesn't look like ID3V2 supports a rating:
http://www.id3.org/Frames

Or I should say, it doesn't look like Rating is a standard field defined by ID3V2.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Addict

ALSO - once I identify this location, I'd love to be able to migrate my WMP rankings to a more standard rank. Anyone familiar with anything that can do this? Anyone familiar with the WMP API's that has manipulated this non-standard setting?

All media attributes can be accessed via IWMPMedia.getItemInfo. I'm not sure off the top of my head which attribute name to use, but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out by inspecting a few examples. UserRating and UserEffectiveRating look plausible.

[Addict]

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stanger89: Wow, I'm genuinely surprised there isn't a standard for ranking... I guess I'm not in the majority...I use rankings to dictate most of my playlists (auto playlists in WMP).

I wonder where everyone's storing this info within the file? I guess they're just creating their own custom tags?

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GKusnick: Thanks for the info. If I can figure out a solid place to put a ranking that a few different apps might actually be able to access, I'll write myself a little app to move them around.

Since you seem familiar with the interface... <lightbulb goes off> Didn't you write the WMP plugin? Anyway...with a little creative coding, would it be possible to take an auto-playlist and convert it to a fixed playlist? I'd love to have my auto playlists auto-update in WMP, but then have an app run regularly that parses the auto-list and creates a normal playlist that Sage can read. If you could programmatically push an auto-playlist to a "now playing" and create a new playlist based on that, that'd be easy enough, right?

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Started playing with MusicIP's Mixer and am pretty happy with how it automatically creates similar mixes based on a few selected songs. I'd love to coordinate this feature with my rankings and get some killer auto-playlists.

Thanks for the thoughts...
AL

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Addict

=====

stanger89: Wow, I'm genuinely surprised there isn't a standard for ranking... I guess I'm not in the majority...I use rankings to dictate most of my playlists (auto playlists in WMP).

I wonder where everyone's storing this info within the file? I guess they're just creating their own custom tags?

Yeah, me too, I kind of figured it would be a standard as well, but my cursory search found nothing.

Out of curiosity, what is your ultimate goal? Depending, something like Squeezecenter might be what you're looking for, maybe JRMC.

[Opus4]

The page for ID3 v2.3.0 lists Popularimeter... does anything use that field?

- Andy

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Addict

Since you seem familiar with the interface... <lightbulb goes off> Didn't you write the WMP plugin? Anyway...with a little creative coding, would it be possible to take an auto-playlist and convert it to a fixed playlist? I'd love to have my auto playlists auto-update in WMP, but then have an app run regularly that parses the auto-list and creates a normal playlist that Sage can read. If you could programmatically push an auto-playlist to a "now playing" and create a new playlist based on that, that'd be easy enough, right?

Yeah, that was me. You can manually convert an auto playlist to a fixed playlist in WMP just by dragging it to the right-hand "drag items here" panel and saving it as a new playlist. You can also automate it by using IWMPPlaylist to enumerate the playlist contents. Each time you do that with an auto playlist, it re-executes the query and gives you a new list.

In fact I've been working on a new version of the SageWMP plugin with auto playlist support. It's more or less code-complete, but I've been waiting for the next version of Sage to make it out of RC status before finalizing my STVI and uploading it. So you may want to wait for that before delving into it yourself.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The page for ID3 v2.3.0 lists Popularimeter... does anything use that field?

- Andy

Popularimeter is one of the better options in the ID3 tags actually. iTunes doesn't use a standard ID3 tag and instead stores the rating in a separate file. It can be accessed however and written to the Popularimeter tag using MP3Tag as well as other tagging tools. Read the last post in this thread to see a Javascript way of doing this.

Adding the ability to read the Popularimeter tag in SageTV would be an excellent addition. It would open up the beginnings of smart playlists which I use and love in iTunes.

[Addict]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, me too, I kind of figured it would be a standard as well, but my cursory search found nothing.

Out of curiosity, what is your ultimate goal? Depending, something like Squeezecenter might be what you're looking for, maybe JRMC.

Really, what I'd like to accomplish...are FULLY automated playlists regularly updated by SageTV. These playlists will be created by two things:

1) My ranking.
2) Automated mix based on selection of a few songs.

Right now, my process is the following:

For 1) Rank in WMP, create some auto playlists based on various metrics (rank, decade, other things). Manually create static playlists from the autos (as I add new music) and put them into my Sage Music folder.

For 2) Use MusicIP Mixer to select a few songs and have it create a playlist based on what it considers "similar" songs. Manually give the playlist a name and save it to the Sage Music folder.

As it currently stands, these are both mutually exclusive. I can't do both together.

My ultimate system would work as follows:

A) Add music
B) Rank music
C) Identify songs I'd like to be the seeds for certain types of playlists (chill, rockin', party, whatever)
D) Auto playlists will automatically regenerate based on new additions (I enjoy some standard WMP auto-playlists without MusicIP intervention)
E) MusicIP (or similar) will create playlists based on "C", but also take into account ranks from "B".
F) Something takes these playlists and automatically dumps them into a Sage Music directory and they're updated in Sage automatically.

So, that my input is minimal (rank songs, identify "seed" tunes)...and I get a wealth of great automatically generated playlists.

Too late to make this long story short, I guess.

[Addict]

Originally Posted by Opus4

The page for ID3 v2.3.0 lists Popularimeter... does anything use that field?

- Andy

Great find, hysterical name, 'eh? Certainly flexible. I wonder if anyone uses it. Sure would be nice to have a spreadsheet of some kind that identified which players use what to save their rankings...

[Addict]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Yeah, that was me. You can manually convert an auto playlist to a fixed playlist in WMP just by dragging it to the right-hand "drag items here" panel and saving it as a new playlist. You can also automate it by using IWMPPlaylist to enumerate the playlist contents. Each time you do that with an auto playlist, it re-executes the query and gives you a new list.

In fact I've been working on a new version of the SageWMP plugin with auto playlist support. It's more or less code-complete, but I've been waiting for the next version of Sage to make it out of RC status before finalizing my STVI and uploading it. So you may want to wait for that before delving into it yourself.

Cool, glad to hear that can be automated programmatically. I'd certainly love to be able to update ranks via Sage (as well as any other player for that matter). That'd be killer. Just hit the number 0-5 while playing (on the now playing screen at least) and voila...new rank saved. If I remember right though, your plug-in works on the default STV right? I'm a SageMC guy... <shrug>

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Addict

Really, what I'd like to accomplish...are FULLY automated playlists regularly updated by SageTV. These playlists will be created by two things:

1) My ranking.
2) Automated mix based on selection of a few songs.

Right now, my process is the following:

For 1) Rank in WMP, create some auto playlists based on various metrics (rank, decade, other things). Manually create static playlists from the autos (as I add new music) and put them into my Sage Music folder.

For 2) Use MusicIP Mixer to select a few songs and have it create a playlist based on what it considers "similar" songs. Manually give the playlist a name and save it to the Sage Music folder.

As it currently stands, these are both mutually exclusive. I can't do both together.

Here's my half-baked solution:

Take a look at Squeezecenter (the Squeezebox media server), it supports MusicIP (somehow, not sure) as well as dynamic playlists via some plugins. There's a Sage Slimplayer "plugin" which would play from Squeezecenter (I think).

[Addict]

So far, everything you've said seems to be right. Don't have time to really dive into it today, but will definitely check it out when I have time.

I installed the media server and it does have MusicIP capabilities. So, letting it scan my music directories.

The SlimPlayer plugin seems to be somewhat old, not sure if it's updated...that where I need to experiment most. Sounds like it might work with SageMC though...

This could be a pretty slick solution! Thanks for the tip, I'll keep everyone posted on what I figure out...

[Addict]

Ok...so, started on Phase 1, but I may just drop out all together on this as it appears I may be screwed when it comes to using this with an HD Extender. Got it all working just fine on my PC test client, but no sound on the extender. I really shouldn't be surprised about this as I complained I couldn't use the navigation sounds on the extender, I guess this might be a similar situation?

I have not messed with MusicIP Mixer settings yet, as I can't even get playlists to show up in SqueezeCenter or SlimPlayer...so, that would be next step assuming I can actually get sound out of this.

Anyway, here's what I did to get as far as I am right now:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...&postcount=121

AL

[Addict]

Just FYI - making some progress this weekend.

Wrote an application that's talking to WMP, iTunes, and MusicIP Mixer.

1) I've managed to copy over all my rankings from WMP to iTunes automatically.

2) I can create auto-mix playlists using MusicIP Mixer based on artist, album, or song...then filter through what it gives me based on the iTunes ranking (and pull out those I ranked poorly).

So now I've got auto-generated playlists that are filtered by ranking. Definitely a good start in the right direction!

AL

[Addict]

I thought Apple products were supposed to be easy to use? Argh. Now I realize that iTunes, unlike just about any other Music player on the planet, does not provide distinct playlist files...but dumps them all into a single XML file along with other configuration items.

So much for easy synchronization of my auto-generated playlists by pointing iTunes to a "playlist directory". Now I have to figure out how to do all this programmatically...so that any iTunes playlists I create show up in a directory for Sage (and other applications)...and so that any auto-generated playlists end up in iTunes.

Grr, argh. Never easy, is it?

[Addict]

<laughing> And to top if off...iTunes won't recognize about 1000 of 5500 songs. Nope, they don't show up in the library, at all. Appears to be totally random in nature...old stuff, new stuff (just purchased from Amazon.com)...does not exist according to iTunes, yet all other applications pointing to the exact same directory see them all just fine (WMP, MusicIP Mixer, etc).

<rolls eyes>

[Zepp]

Originally Posted by Addict

Just FYI - making some progress this weekend.

Wrote an application that's talking to WMP, iTunes, and MusicIP Mixer.

1) I've managed to copy over all my rankings from WMP to iTunes automatically.

2) I can create auto-mix playlists using MusicIP Mixer based on artist, album, or song...then filter through what it gives me based on the iTunes ranking (and pull out those I ranked poorly).

So now I've got auto-generated playlists that are filtered by ranking. Definitely a good start in the right direction!

AL

Hi Addict !
I currently have the same issue to copy all rankings from WMP to iTunes, can you give more details about how you've done it please ?
Thanks
Regards
Zepp

[Addict]

Originally Posted by Zepp

Hi Addict !
I currently have the same issue to copy all rankings from WMP to iTunes, can you give more details about how you've done it please ?
Thanks
Regards
Zepp

Hey Zepp, I'm out of town for a few days but when I get back I'll see what I can do about packaging it up for others to use...

[Zepp]

Originally Posted by Addict

Hey Zepp, I'm out of town for a few days but when I get back I'll see what I can do about packaging it up for others to use...

Really great, thanks for your help and your time Addict