cannot show replaygain values in wps

[lenny]

Well I used to use a replaygain patch back in the day that not only created the %rg tag, but also the %rt and %ra tag. It seems that the second two were not committed with the replaygain patch and the 26 Sept. comment on the tracker confirms this (# 2740). Was this not committed for a reason, or is there still hope

[haroldpark]

Yeah I've been meaning to ask is replaygain working? Spent ages adding the info via Foobar2000 but can't see any albumgain info when I go to look at id3info for a track using rockbox. And can definitely hear huge level differences between albums. Though I vaaguely remember something about Rockbox looking somewhere different for the informaton.
hh

[Llorean]

Are your replaygain tags ape tags or ID3 tags? Foobar can produce both, and what it will produce can depend on what version you have and what settings you've set.

[pabouk]

I think important is to know that Rockbox recognizes replaygain values only in ID3 tags.

[haroldpark]

OK I updated to the latest build yesterday and I am seeing replaygain data. I had foobar setup incorrectly originally but I am pretty sure I had redone those affected tracks after I learned the proper settings.

[woodensoul]

Do you mean that you can see the values on your WPS or in the ID3 viewer?  

I made a feature request a few weeks ago to get the code committed that makes track and album values available for WPS display.  

http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/6070

[pabouk]

Unfortunately no one has explained why having the replaygain values displayed in the WPS would be useful.

[lenny]

Unfortunately no one has explained why having the replaygain values displayed in the WPS would be useful.

You got me there. I'll have to think about it. I suppose my original justification was to have the additional confirmation that it was working, however that's not really necessary. And although I believe it's a valid argument in many cases, I don't see cool factor holding any weight on this one. I guess you convinced me pabouk.

[lenny]

I thought of a reason
However, I think there is a better solution.

The one thing missing in the wps right now (replaygain-wise) is the ability to confirm that the file actually has replaygain tags. If you have replaygain set to album gain and you play a song without replaygain tags, the conditional replaygain tag will continue to show whatever you put in the "album gain slot" (%?rg<Off|Track|Album|Shuffle>). The %rt and %ra tags would show either the value of the RG if the tags were present or something along the lines of "No Tag" if there were no tags. So one could do something like this:

%?rg<Off|Track %rt|Album %ra|Shuffle %rt>

That way you would not only know what kind of replaygain is set (which isn't all that important anyway) but also if there was a tag or not.

So right now it's kind of deceptive; there's no indication if there is no replaygain tag. But adding %rt and %ra is not the only option! Here's what I suggest:

%?rg<Off|Track|Album|Shuffle|OnButNoTag>

Any thoughts? Of course one could always implement both and make everybody happy

[pabouk]

Just my personal opinion:

I can imagine that in the WPS I would like to see just whether the RG is applied at the moment but anyway I prefer simple WPSes and seeing RG values in a separate (tags) screen is fairly sufficient for me.

Other possibilities are understandable but not important for me

[Llorean]

I think that the Off /Track /Album /Shuffle should be change to Off /Track /Album, and show which tags from your file is being used, rather than Replaygain's status in the menu.

The WPS should be relevant information from the playing file in most cases, not things that are static, like that. If the file has no Replaygain information, show "Off", if it has only one of the two, so that it's had to default back from your setting, show which one, etc. I think that would be ideal, rather that simply echoing a setting that you set in the mirror and will not actually ever change until you set it again.

[lenny]

I agree with both of you (more so now than before).

and I agree Llorean, the fact that the replaygain tags don't revert to "Off" when there is no tag defeats the purpose. the point is not to see what configuation is set, the point is to see what is happening to the currently playing file. Basically what you said. the replaygain tag should show the "Off" section when there are no rg tags and all will be good.

[Multiplex]

I've been looking for something that I (with very rusty coding skills and needing an excuse to play with the VMWare dev environment) can try to contribute to Rockbox...

If no-one else has decided to have a bash I'll see if I can do a patch that will change the %rg tag as Llorean describes;
Replaygain setting (1-3) in the order: Off, Track, Album. Can also be used as a conditional tag %?rg
With the value reflecting what is happening for the curernt track, not the setting.

Don't hold your breath though (and if anyone else is planning to have a go let me know).

[Multiplex]

The patch is done and available here; http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/6223

I've tested it on the sym for the obvious scenarios;
 - tracks with no tags
 - track gain if shuffled with shuffle on and off
But I didn't go through every permutation.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

[Mmmm]

The only reason I dont like this idea is that you can't tell the difference between having the setting off or having the setting on and the file not having replaygain info... So it may say Off and so you think 'ahh, I'd better turn it on then', only to find it is already on and therefore conclude that the gain info is missing. You should be able to tell exactly what the situation is straight away by looking at the WPS.

So personally I think it would be better if the info displayed was

Off
Track
Album
Shuffle
NoTag

where NoTag would only show if replaygain was on and there is no info (ie Off would never show if replaygain was on).