Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists
Use filename in WPS instead of ID3 metadata
questions2000:
iPods
If anyone knows how to do this, please answer.
Even it is to say that this is not possible, just really need an answer, if anyone knows about this.
WHILE PLAYING SCREEN
I noticed that if files contain ID3 metadata the WPS will use that data.
If no ID3 metadata is found then the folders/filenames are used in WPS (which is what I prefer)
I do not want to use ID3 metadata at all, even if files contain any (want to ignore all ID3 metadata), I just want to be able to force/use folder/filename text in my WPS.
Does anyone know if this is possible or not?
DATABASE SCAN
I thought that Database scan would have to be activated in a setting before it was performed, but it appears that it was already done, because as said above RB appears to be aware of ID3 metadata contained in files.
I read in the manual and it says to "turn off" the database.
I looked in General Settings - Database
these settings were already turned "off"
Load to RAM = off
Auto Update = off
but the scan was must have still been performed because as mentioned WPS shows it.
-Is there another way to turn this "off"?
-Is there is a way to clear the data generated by the scan so the WPS will not be able to access it?
Thank you to anyone who reads this and provides an answer
philden:
Most themes are written to display ID3 metadata, some will display file information if metadata is not present, some will display blank lines.
The safest way would be to rewrite your favorite theme to use the filetags instead of ID3. You can find a summary of the tags from the "Documentation" menu on the left: wiki --> DocsIndex --> CustomWPS
Bilgus:
Files played are still decoded for id3 data the database is more for the browsing of songs
altering your theme is indeed a good (easily done) suggestion
questions2000:
Wow, thank you guys for the replies.
-At first I had thought that Main Menu "Files" would use folder/filenames and that "Database" section would use ID3 tags.
-Then I thought this would have been a setting somewhere to override ID3 tags from being used and to force folder/filenames (if this is possible, could be nice to add this in the future, I might mention in the suggestions section)
Did not realize that it is built into the theme.
I have found the % variables in the manual for folders/filenames and I believe I have found where they would go in the skins, might take me a little while to figure out / test out how to make this work correctly, so just wanted to make a post to thank you guys just in case it takes me longer then expected.
Hope not, but I might have some questions if I cannot figure it out.
(While I am here though)
Just so I know I understand, I was this mentioned above
"Files played are still decoded for id3 data"
So does this mean that no ID3 metadata scans were actually run automatically for entire media collection to generate this data as I had thought (mentioned in above post)?
I thought I read somewhere that there would be a file generated if a full scan was performed? not sure if this is true? If it is then I could search for this file to determine if a scan was performed, just to confirm.
So then does this mean that the ID3 data (if files contain ID3 data) that gets generated/shown in WPS, is detected on the spot per file as each file is being played?
Or maybe RB detects this ID3 data of the entire folder that current file is being played from (because RB generates a kind of "playlist" based on files in current folder being played from.
If anyone knows anything about what I have just mentioned if have some time can you confirm this.
Thank you guys again for the replies, I really appreciate it.
Just getting started with RB so am a little overwhelmed.
Really amazing work you guys are doing, thank you.
Bilgus:
Quick rundown of how I understand it...
So starting from a clean install, You've just booted Rockbox and have songs on the storage as well.
In this first example you use the file browser and choose a track.
(we used to play directories directly but now it builds a playlist of the directory within the playlist control file)
The playlist is built and the entries contain the Action tag, position in the playlist, filename.
--- Code: ---A:0:0:/Mp3s/BANANNA - Badfruit.mp3
--- End code ---
No metadata has been parsed yet we just walk the directory and if a filetype is a recognized audio type [wav, mp3, flac, aac, etc.] we store it to the playlist.
When you play the playlist that track gets loaded, the metadata parser (unique to each format) then prepares the track by first finding the metadata and copying it to a special table in memory that has a few slots available for the current track and (if it exists) the next track.
Note that the metadata doesn't just contain user visible data it may also hold data needed to decode the track so the parsing needs to be done even if we don't care about the user visible data.
PLAYBACK:
Now we are in the WPS and the track is playing when the theme asks for the artist name etc it grabs the special table and uses the info that was retrieved by the codec and displays it to the user however the theme designer intended.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lets walk through the case of building the database next:
You build your database the device walks through all the files it can find (within the database build path)
The database stores track info for each song by parsing the track metadata. [Artist/Album/genre/year/etc...]
Unless you build or update (rescan) the database there won't be a scan of all files on the device.
Later you choose a track from the database you might find it by one of the above stored tags
it then continues building a playlist just like the first example.
--- Code: ---A:0:0:/Mp3s/BANANNA - Badfruit.mp3
--- End code ---
PLAYBACK:
Now we are in the WPS and the track is playing when the theme asks for the artist name etc it grabs the special table and uses the info that was retrieved by the codec and displays it to the user however the theme designer intended.
If a tag is missing sometimes the theme author will make it fallback to a different field, filename of the track for instance.
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