Re: FreeDB
- From: "Nick Stockton" <nstockton@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 05:40:26 -0400
it's not a database of audio files.
it's a database of cd info like track and artist info so that when you pop
your cd in the drive your music playing software can automaticly label the
tracks and tag them.
Nick Stockton
----- Original Message -----
From: "tribble" <lauraeaves@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 5:04 AM
Subject: Re: FreeDB
Wow, so you're saying it already has a music database built up for download.
Isn't this piracy? (Of course everyone copies files, but this seems like a
major operation.) I say this because I recently spent money on a couple of
collections from Time Life that I'd like to rip onto my computer. It was not
cheap but I have listened to it and like the selections. I am of the
opinion that good artistry should be rewarded and if you like a piece of
music it is a good thing to pay for it -- but as I said, we all copy stuff
off the net. Just musing.
That also brings me to the subject of audio described movie soundtracks,
which are available freely for download on the net if you know where to
look, but are copyrighted. I have a bunch of them that people have given
me, but I handle the piracy issue this way: I listen to the movies and if I
like them I order a copy of the full DVD from AudioVision for my collection,
otherwise if the movie stinks, I delete it.
Just a thought. Comments?
Anyway, thanks for the link.
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: jaffar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:55 PM
Subject: FreeDB
Hi All. If like me, you are a music fanatic, have a vast music collection
which ranges from classical to Jazz to Pop to Rock and would like to have
them organized and propperly tagged so you can find them whenever you want
them, then I'd like to recommend a free, open source, programmable music
database called FreeDb www.freedb.org
If you visit it's download page, You'll find the following:
1. complete database files which are updated from month to month.
2. Update files which when you download accompanying utilities, and
together with the update files wich are smaller in comparison, will update
your database so you don't have to download the complete files which are
rather large, upwards of 500 MB every month.
3. An accompanying howto that will help you to develop stand alone FreeDB
related software, for example software that will update, submit or mirror
your database in a network.
4. A server that will allow you to submit and retrieve database updates
as and when you like. However, the server software requires some technical
know how to build and configure as it is not a straight forward gui
software.
The files are in the unix format by default, but you could change them to
the windows format via a utility called mkfreedb.exe. If anyone wants to
host this utility on their server, let me know and i will send it along as
the website for this utility is rather obscure and I came across it only
after a thorough search of google.
Here is a synopsis of the steps you'll need to take to download the
database and the utilities described.
1. Go to www.freedb.org and click the download page. By default, you'll
land on the server download page. Click parent directory. Unfortunately,
this directory has no headings to mark where each subsection exactly is, so
use your tab and arrow keys to find what you need.
If you want to download the complete database, then you'll need to look
for files with words "freedb-complete" followed by the year month day date
format.
so, for example, if you want to download the complete database for
october, then you should look for the file tagged as:
freedb-complete-20081001.tar.bz2, which translates to year 2008, month
october, and date as the first of that month.
If you downloaded the complete database for september for example, and you
want to update your database to october's, just download the:
freedb-update-20081001.tar.bz2 which is consideraably smaller, about 7 mb
in size.
Once you have those, download a zip file called freedb-updater.zip which
contains a freedb.exe updater file. All you need do then is to unpack the
complete september database files into a directory, say music-database.
Then double click the updater.exe and browse to your music-database folder,
then browse again to your updater file, freedb-update-20081001.tar.bz2, then
tab to the start button and your september database will be updated to the
current one. Btw, be prepared to give your database folder at least 4 gb of
disk space.
Now, if you wanted to change the format of your database files from the
unix format to the windows format, just do the following.
1. create a folder. We'll call it music-windows-database for
clarification.
2. copy and paste the complete database file, and the mkfreedb.exe which i
will send along to any one who wants it to your music-windows-database
folder.
3. open your command prompt and cd to your music-windows-database
directory, so assuming your directory is on your C drive, the command is:
cd c:\music-windows-database
Now, all you have to do is to issue the command
mkfreebd, and your windows database will be built with all its default
structure, and the database files copied to the appropriate subdirectories.
Your music-windows-directory will then contain the following
subdirectories and a log text file.
1. blues where all the blues music data files will be copied.
2. Classical where all the classical music data files will be copied.
3. country where all the country music data files will be copied
4. data, where all the data files necessary for the database to function
will be copied
5. folk where all the folk music data files will be copied
6. jazz, where all the jazz music data files will be copied
7. misc where all the miscellanious music data files will be copied.
8. newage where all new age music data files will be copied.
9. reggae where all reggae music data files will be copied.
10. rock where all rock and pop music data files will be copied.
11. soundtrack where all film soundtrack music data files will be copied.
12. a log file will be created to tell you how the build process
transpired
Warning: please note that the conversion of files from unix to windows
format takes hours. I did my conversion yesterday evening my time, and the
conversion process is still going on as i write this email. This is hardly
surprising as there are millions of cds floating around in the music market
out there.
Once you have organized your database, You can then use programs such as
mp3 tag
www.mp3tag.de to tag and organize your music. You can even store the
music data in the recognized dbms like mysql, microsoft access or any dbms
of your choice.
first create the following tables.
1. artist
2. title
3. album
4. year
5. publisher
6 track number.
Give the files in your database the sql extension, then load them as a
dump into mysql or the dbms of your choice.
If you need any more clarification, please let me know. Cheers and happy
tagging.
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