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Media (Apple)

Journal mekkab's Journal: MP3s, Organization, and a relational filesystem 36

Journal by mekkab

I hate everything. I hate MP3s. I hate iTunes. I hate winamp playlists. I hate Organization. I hate harddrives. I hate new harddrive partitions. and I hate you, too.

The set up is typical- my MP3 collection grows in fits and starts. I use 1 program for 13 cds...then stop. That did a heirarchical structure of Artist, album, then songs. I download albums (*ahem, legally, of course. Emusic, et al) and organize them by folders. My current fav mp3ripper just throws 'em all in a folder, let gord sort 'em out.

And occaisionally I want to do some organization and I move things around. Or I get a new, spacious harddrive and want to move all my music there.

And moving files around a filesystem is TEH KISS OF DEATH.
My playlists break. I can't burn CD projects that I've saved, because the links don't resolve. iTunes doubly lists everything and isn't smart enough to figure out what is or isn't a duplicate.

I'm at the point right now where I want a relational file-system. Tell MP3 playing program and CD burning program the "unique file id keys" that they want, have them "ask" the OS for it, and have the OS do some magic underneath. Thats it.
Then I want a "view" program. Allows me different slices of the files I have. It would theoretically support having 18 different folder/file heirarchies, because they are all logical fabrications.

Either that, or I want a SMART Music content management system. It "hashes" the mp3. If the mp3 moves, it asks me if I want to find it, then goes out and FINDS it.

So how the fuck do I do this?!?!?!?!

Windows is a complete loss. Once OS X Tiger comes out, I'll mini-mac. That means I'll have an opportunity to migrate anew (i.e. create new playlists and such) and I'll have access to Teh-unixness for maximum programming gumption.

I'll use whatever tools that I can compile for OS X which are k00l and k-rad, and I have no fear of hacking them to bits (i.e. storing whole mp3s in postgres* (or links to mp3 locations, along with artist, title, and track info) and then writing a file-system API that does the DB key to file-link conversion under the covers, and then modify lame and any other mp3 playing/burning list management to use that)

But how do y'all do it?

EDIT

While writing this, I guess Apple just mentioned TIGER uppercut is releasing. I suppose that means its Mac-mini time.

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MP3s, Organization, and a relational filesystem More

MP3s, Organization, and a relational filesystem

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  • i make a big, fat, juicy /var/postgresql and keep my mp3s stored in there. filesystem schmilesystem
    • SO you store the whole mp3... not bad.

      What applications do you use, and how do they interface with it?
      • me? i use psql. but that's because i'm a nerd =)

        i've heard good things about otto. mysql based though. i don't know if it stores the file or just a path to it though

        but, putting together some php or perl glue to build a xmms/winamp playlist and pull the audio from the db shouldn't be all that hard. gotta do something like that to encourage my roommates to rip their cds

        people don't seem to like the idea of storing the file itself in the database. they say "just store the path to it" ... but, this l
        • but, putting together some php or perl glue to build a xmms/winamp playlist and pull the audio from the db

          Building the playlist should be peanuts, but having winamp pull them pull it from the db... well thats why I'm talking about linking and re-defining the file-IO routines to my object code. Or is there something I'm missing?

          Other than that, I'm with you: its 2005, lets stick with the new.
          • oh, duh

            you'd have some streaming server actually handle fetching it. i'm not sure what all is out there and what their capabilities are

            the darwin one is free(enough) ... i wonder if it can pull from a db ... hmm, maybe more glue needed there
            • you'd have some streaming server actually handle fetching it.

              Ohhhhhh, okay. Now I grok it. Tell winamp to get from this server 127.0.0.1:60606, and 60606 does the fetch and streams the results.

              the darwin one is free(enough) ... i wonder if it can pull from a db ... hmm, maybe more glue needed there

              Then that is where the glue code will go. Great!
  • Not to judge you, but I *did* end up letting iTunes do all the work.

    As a UNIX admin, I need to deal with filesystem layouts, database optimization, disk array upgrades, networking tweaks, etc.

    Once I'm home, the urge to geek out is so heavily drained that I just want my music to play, and iTunes tends to fit the bill.

    That said, you do need to find a system that works for you, even if it involves a virtual filesystem which keeps all the music in a single place (with subdirectories based on the md5 checksum
    • My problem with iTunes (at least on windows) was that a year or two ago I said "iTunes! Make these tracks into a Cd!"

      And iTunes said "NO." (you can search back in my journals if you really care, I was SOOOOO FUCKING PISSED!)

      WHAT?! No, software does what I tell it, or it get uninstalled. There is no inbetween. I'm currently having that fight with fucking Quicken 2005. Won't take qif files, won't interface with my bank. Their solution? I should change financial institutions! Whatever. I'm just going
      • Well, you win.

        No, really. I'd do the same thing, as fixing it would involve work, and avoiding work was the point of using iTunes in the first place!

        Best of luck in finding/making an acceptable system!
      • My problem with iTunes is that when I try to use it to play CDs on my winders PC, it sucks the life out of the machine (and takes forever to skip tracks). Someday I'll reorganize my device busses, but since NOTHING ELSE has any problem with my layout (including windows media player, which definitely does raw digital access to CDs), I can't help but blame iTunes. Or else SP2 has an anti-iTunes patch :-)
  • For 2,432 years, I've been spouting off that there needs to be better storage and better file metadata. We have to COMPLETELY abandon this bullshit from the DOS days/early Unix days and design something intelligent. We have HUGE ass hard drives, flash drives, etc. We can handle storing more information in a more logical and user-helpful fashion.

    Let's design the bitch and be done with it.

    Oh, and I luvs MekkaB even though he hates me!! ;)
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Anyhow, it's also got a new feature called Automator (you, mekka, can call it Dan)

        I'll stick with Mr. Nakamura until we know eachother better.

        dump into iChoones, thereby reindexing and re-telling where they at.

        How does iCh00nz handle re-indexing? I tried it once in the past and it freaked out on me. I had doubles of everything in the list.
        • Yeah I found this frustrating. I found that if I drag and drop into iTunes it just adds them into the library. If you "Add Library..." it copies the files into the iTunes Library folder. Either way you can then hit "Advanced->Consolidate..." which will copy everything into iTunes and get rid of doubles (of course it then can't be undone). Good for merging all of your Emule/Emusic/Limewire downloads :p
          • Hmmm, interesting.

            So what happens when I move a harddrive, and the original files just aren't there anymore? does it figure out these null refs?
            • I assume you are talking about the non-consolidation option. This I haven't tried. I would assume, while listening and it came upon a missing link in the iTunes Music Library.xml, it would just skip over it. Consolidation probably takes this data, would see that there is no such file, and delete the entry.

              You can also import via xml, text or m3u in iTunes.

              iTunes is kinda iffy when it refreshes known library folders for new files. I usually find that Winamp is better, though it does it in the backgroun
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Oh, and I luvs MekkaB even though he hates me!! ;)

      Don't play that little girl shit... if you want a kiss, you ask for a kiss! GOSH!

      So I'm all about designing something. I just want to know whats already out there.
      • techno:
        Jeff Mills - Detroit's god of techno, fiery, steely, shuffling, funky, intense...discog is too large to go into but you should check "The Bells" as a good example...also does ambient stuff, but it's all good. gotta see/hear him DJing to fully appreciate the onslaught.

        DJ Funk/DJ Deeon/Waxmaster/Paul Johnson/just about anything on Dance Mania records: this is Ghetto House. Hard, minimal, often X-rated and so stoopid makes the Ramones look like Radiohead. "dance" music with a true thrown-together "pu
    • In addition to an API, a nice way to do it is to simply replace the regular file io functions at bind time, like:

      OS_STUB_DEFINES = -Dxmalloc=stub_xmalloc \
      -Dpanic=stub_panic \
      -Dcopyout=stub_copyout \
      -Dsetjmpx=stub_setjmpx \
      -Dpidsig=stub_pidsig \
      -Dcopyin=stub_copyin \

      Where our stub routines do the DB interfacing.

      Then its just a matter of modifying makefiles and recompiling.
  • My mac mini arrived in February. No chance for an upgrade, right?
  • it's been done before on BeOS
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/29/windows_on _a_database_sliced/ [theregister.co.uk]

  • Windows is a total loss? Once my homeboys down in Redmond finish up their relational file system in 2012, you're gonna totally be begging me for a copy of Windows.

  • And moving files around a filesystem is TEH KISS OF DEATH. My playlists break. I can't burn CD projects that I've saved, because the links don't resolve.

    Back in the 1990s, OS/2's WorkPlace Shell handled that pretty nicely. You'd drag an icon to a new location, and references (called "shadows") just somehow magically stayed up-to-date. I don't know how it worked, but it did.

    Then you'd go to a MS Windows machine, drag a file, and references (called "shortcuts") would break.

    Judging by today's relative

  • I've used the Digital DJ [nostatic.org] extension to Grip [http] in Linux. It uses a MySQL database for the metadata, but not for the file storage, or at least that's how it worked when last I checked.
  • It's pathetic we can't do this yet. I also won't turn everything over to iTunes, because I like my mp3s grouped by genre. But I've got many that need to be sorted, but when I do move them, iTunes is teh suck about it. Of course I should be able to assign metadata to all my files, adding keywords to pictures, documents, movies...
  • i use cdex to rip to ogg. that way everything is automatically put into folders for me and given tags. then i use winamp to listen. i don't really make playlists (except to try variations of a mix CD), instead opting to listen to an album most of the time.

    ogg sounds good. the other benefit is that it's completely incompatible with itunes, so the ipod isn't something i really want, if for no other reason than not wanting to re-rip several hundred CDs over again.

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