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Topic: iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator (Read 415672 times) previous topic - next topic
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iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #50
kanak, you are quite welcome to see the source yourself.
iTSfv is open source as of version 5.5.2.1.


Thank you for your prompt reply!

Also, i just ordered an ipod, and i'm in the process of making my files to be "itunes/ipod friendly". My tags are stored in ID3v1 + APEV2, and I noticed that itunes can't read the ape tags. What irks me is that my genre tags (the custom ones like "alternative pop") and my rating tags appear to be stored in the ape tag and do not display in itunes (the normal ones like "blues" do display). I was wondering if there's a way your program could help me out in this matter.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #51
Nice utility! I am particularly fascinated by the option to "adjust the rating according to play pattern for all tracks in library". The thing is, how exactly does this work? Does it scale the ratings according to play count, as the manual suggests? I'm asking because even my most played track doesn't score 5 stars, just 4.5.

Could you give a quick explanation of the algorithm involved?

Thanks!

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #52
Latest version 5.7.2 seems to be working. it read the entire itunes library, but then it got stuck in one album and the progress bar didn't move. No error reports.

I have tried several times. It gets stuck in exactly the same album (vangelis - masks).

Just a quick question.
The installer talks about a manual, but there's no pdf in the install directory. Are you working on that, or did I get a damaged distribution package that comes with no manual (got it from sourceforge)?

Thanks,


urlwolf,

Let me get some facts right.

You pressed Validate iTunes Music Library.
iTSfv parses the iTunes Music Library... 100%
iTSfv reads the tracks and sorts into albums (you can see in Album Browser)... 100%
Now when it starts validation, it gets stuck at Vangelis - Masks.

I have emailed a crash loggable build - 5.7.2.2 so if you could please retry and send me the log that would be nice.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #53
hmm, I haven't received any mail? which email did you send it to? (don't post it here  ) did it start with 'q'?
Thanks!

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #54
hmm, I haven't received any mail? which email did you send it to? (don't post it here  ) did it start with 'q'?
Thanks!


Ok don't worry, urlwolf. It didn't start with q and it is a different guy then.

Can you download this zip file

http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/beta/iTS...7.2.2-setup.zip

Cheers,
McoreD

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #55
Nice utility! I am particularly fascinated by the option to "adjust the rating according to play pattern for all tracks in library". The thing is, how exactly does this work? Does it scale the ratings according to play count, as the manual suggests? I'm asking because even my most played track doesn't score 5 stars, just 4.5.

Could you give a quick explanation of the algorithm involved?

Thanks!


Bluenote, glad you like the idea.

It not only takes the playedCount but other factors like LastPlayedDate, DateAdded, and SkippedCount. You can fine tune how much weight each of these factors should have for calculating the rating via Options. For example, if you don't like the idea of having SkippedCount involved, then you can have 0% weight for it and disable its influence completely. It also takes into account of song Length. So obviously if you played a 8 minute song 50 times and a 4 minute song 50 times, then the 8 minute song is gonna get more stars than the 4 minute song. 

Some developer discussion was carried in this thread:
http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t...t=automatically
thought it was interesting to mention.

You most played track didn't score 5 stars probably because you didn't listen to it recently enough or the track's length was lower than the average length of a track in the library. Like I said, there are many factors involved.

Thank you for your prompt reply!

Also, i just ordered an ipod, and i'm in the process of making my files to be "itunes/ipod friendly". My tags are stored in ID3v1 + APEV2, and I noticed that itunes can't read the ape tags. What irks me is that my genre tags (the custom ones like "alternative pop") and my rating tags appear to be stored in the ape tag and do not display in itunes (the normal ones like "blues" do display). I was wondering if there's a way your program could help me out in this matter.


While Mp3Tag would be your *best* bet to read APE tags and write them as ID3v2 tags,

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html

iTSfv will be able to generate reports for you on what tracks will be missing what tags.

http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/tracks-2...T12-report.html
http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/tracks-2...T09-report.html

If at least one of the tracks will have genre tag then iTSfv will fill the rest of the tracks with that genre. Same for artwork.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #56
(oops - sorry)

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #57
Hi,

A few questions cause I do not seem to get the program and what each feature does and I do not have a lot of time, these are somewhat itunes questions too, but you guys seem to know what you are doing.

First of all a weird bug: I did the scan and fix and capitalize the first letters and it decapitalized the artists… but did capitalize other stuff… wuppps. Took a while to fix cause I didn’t test first… 

Here are my questions:
1.   Some albums of mine do not have track numbers in the mp3 tag. Some way of guessing them of just assigning them from 1 to x automatically depending on how it is listed in the playlist (should mostly be correct)
2.   Cover Flow artwork. I cleaned all my mp3 of embedded artwork and downloaded album covers using itunes. There are plenty of artists without album artwork (radiohead even? And tool?) and I was wondering what happens if I do embed artwork into the id3 heards. I hate bad quality album art but if I drag a 300x300 jpg into the artwork my mp3 sizes will increase dramatically I presume? Is there some way to add cover flow only artwork from external sources into itunes?
3.   For some reason even the songs with Cover Flow artwork from itunes store do not always have a thumbnail artwork on my ipod, even though I can view the full screen artwork fine?!
4.   ID header versions…. Sight. Itunes does 2.4. however I think 2.3 might be more compatible with most other mp3 headers and windows? Which version of header should I use? I added some new albums and they did not have any id3 info in itunes however wmp sees them and another tagging program does?
5.   Lyrics: yes or no? how much kb does it add to an mp3 and do you guys use it.
6.   what can itsfv do? Is there some manual?


Oops!  That's indeed a bug. It was after I was trying to incorporate some enhancements.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=514348
I hope odyssey can share this function to incorporate in iTSfv. I can't get my head around get it right at the moment.

So I decided to fall back to original simple function

Code: [Select]
    Private Function ffGetFixedCapitalString(ByVal tag As String) As String

        Console.WriteLine(ffGetFixedCapitalString2(tag))

        tag = StrConv(tag, VbStrConv.ProperCase)

        ' never replace different words here or iTunes would't find them
        tag = tag.Replace("Dj ", "DJ ")
        tag = tag.Replace("Feat", "feat")

        Return tag

    End Function


from the buggy

Code: [Select]
    Private Function ffGetFixedCapitalString2(ByVal tag As String) As String

        Dim simpleWords As String() = {"at", "by", "for", "from", "in", "into", "of", "off", "on", "onto", "out", "over", "to", "up", "with", "and", "but", "or", "nor", " a ", "an", "the"}
        tag = StrConv(tag, VbStrConv.ProperCase)
        Dim tagWords As String() = tag.Split(CChar(" "))

        ' get non-numeric words collection
        Dim scWords As New System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection
        For Each tagWord As String In tagWords
            If Not IsNumeric(tagWord) Then
                scWords.Add(tagWord)
            End If
        Next

        ' simple the required words
        For Each simpleWord As String In simpleWords
            For Each tagWord As String In tagWords
                If tagWord = (StrConv(simpleWord, VbStrConv.ProperCase)) Then
                    If tagWord <> scWords(0) Or tagWord <> scWords(scWords.Count - 1) Then
                        tagWord = simpleWord ' take simple form
                    End If
                End If
            Next
        Next

        ' reconcontruct tag
        tag = String.Empty
        For Each tagWord As String In tagWords
            tag = tag + tagWord + " "
        Next
        tag = tag.Trim

        ' never replace different words here or iTunes would't find them
        tag = tag.Replace("Dj ", "DJ ")
        tag = tag.Replace("Feat", "feat")

        MsgBox(tag)

        Return tag

    End Function


for now. If odyssey you can help out in this regard, that would be really nice! 


1. iTSfv 5.7.1.0 and above will automatically add Track Number while adding new tracks to iTunes via iTSfv.
Here is how: http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/itsfv-ad...v-add-album.htm

2. MP3 file will increase by the size of the artwork. Extra 50 KiB per file will roughly add 750 KiB extra for an album. I don't think that's really much. Personally I highly prefer embedding so the artwork is with the track anywhere you go. Afaik there is no external way as of yet to inject Artwork into iTunes Artwork database without iTMS downloading or embedding.

3. This happens when the track has no embedded artwork. If the track has embedded artwork it will definitely display it. iTunes is supposed to take care of this even if the artwork is not embedded, but it doesn't seem to work always. Once again, embedding would be the best solution.

4. I'd go with ID3v2 2.3 as it is both WMP and iTunes readable.

5. I add Lyrics as necessary. The file size will only increase only a slight bit.

6. Here is a PDF manual: http://itsfv.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout...df?revision=1.1 

Cheers,
McoreD

urlwolf, For beta versions, I haven't included the PDF in the setup to keep the file size small.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #58
It not only takes the playedCount but other factors like LastPlayedDate, DateAdded, and SkippedCount. You can fine tune how much weight each of these factors should have for calculating the rating via Options. For example, if you don't like the idea of having SkippedCount involved, then you can have 0% weight for it and disable its influence completely. It also takes into account of song Length. So obviously if you played a 8 minute song 50 times and a 4 minute song 50 times, then the 8 minute song is gonna get more stars than the 4 minute song. 

Some developer discussion was carried in this thread:
http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t...t=automatically
thought it was interesting to mention.

You most played track didn't score 5 stars probably because you didn't listen to it recently enough or the track's length was lower than the average length of a track in the library. Like I said, there are many factors involved.


Thanks for the quick and helpful reply, McoreD - a fascinating read! And I even understood some of it.  Didn't realize the weightings were adjustable, have been playing around with them and looking at the results. At any rate, I think it's a great idea!

Thanks again for your useful and well-written program.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #59
thanks from me as well. good work. best itunes app i have ever seen (best music program after foobar as well)


mh so I do select only the box

Check for tracks without artwork and in tracks I select "import artwork from Artwork.jpg" and hit validate selected tracks.. it scans and doesnt do anything... as it doesnt import the artwork into the file

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #60
EDIT : Forget about this post, I think I've finally begun to made it work - silly me !!! 

Hi, it's me again. I'm currently trying the "Import artwork to track from Artwork.jpg" thing, but I just can't make it work.

I have in the same folder a MP3 and the corresponding "Artist - (Year) Album.jpg" artwork.
Of course I have checked in iTSfv (F2) that the "Import artwork in album folder from" is set to "%Artist% - (%Year%) %Album%.jpg".
I have also checked that the "Validate > Tracks > "Import artwork to track from Artwork.jpg" checkbox is checked.
Then I click on "Validate selected tracks", iTSfv seems to do its job but... nothing happens ! I don't see any new artwork in iTunes, and all my MP3 remain untouched (no artwork embedded).

I have tried several times, so I don't understand what's wrong.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jose

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #61
Hi Jose, that is scary. 

Here is a quick demo of importing Artwork to tracks.

http://wmwiki.com/downloads/itsfv/demo/its...twork-user-set/

The only change I did since last time was

5.7.1.2 User preferences on what file to import as artwork, was ignored and checked Artwork.jpg first


Hi germanjulian,

When you pressed "import artwork from Artwork.jpg" where there Artwork.jpg files in the album folders?

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #62
EDIT : Forget about this post, I think I've finally begun to made it work - silly me !!! 


 

Jose, how exactly?

germanjulian is having trouble so I thought we could shed some light.

Thanks,
McoreD

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #63
Thanks McoreD, downloaded and testing.
It's not that particular album; randomly, the program would just stop. Now I have read that if itunes is used for anything but playing music, itsfv would stop processing stuff. That could be my case

So, thanks for the nice pdf help system!

Will report back!

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #64

EDIT : Forget about this post, I think I've finally begun to made it work - silly me !!! 


 

Jose, how exactly?

germanjulian is having trouble so I thought we could shed some light.

Thanks,
McoreD

Well, I guess one part of my problem was that my jpgs didn't have exactly the "Artist - (Year) Album" syntax, so iTSfv didn't recognize them.

I think maybe you should add one option where iTSfv automatically recognizes a jpg inside the mp3 folder, (provided it's the only jpg in that folder) and appends it to the mp3 regardless of the jpg name. So no more hassle naming jpgs exactly as iTSfv wants : if you have a jpg next to the mp3, then iTSfv will find it and append it. What do you think ? 

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #65
I have sent an error report.
I still get the same problem. Itsfv would just stop the analysis at some point. Maybe because my library is about 30000 songs?

I have done a piecemeal approach, selecting blocks of say 1000 songs, and hitting "validate selection' it fails often, but at least it gets some job done.

Too time-consuming, though.
Are you planning to release newer versions that address this issue?
Thanks

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #66
I have a similar problem, with smaller quantities. Selecting blocks of say 100 songs and hitting "validate selection" (for the "import artwork to file" thing), it just stops the analysis @ 30-40% or so, whatever the blocks I do select. No error message at all, it just plainly stops.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #67
Jose,

Yep, definitely an addable feature. With an option "Add Artwork from any file name from album folder if that is the ONLY file in that folder" is indeed a nice feature.

urlwolf/ Jose,

It's unlikely that it crashes because of the high number of tracks. Btw urlwolf, 30000 is impressive! I just passed 15000 tracks, and I will try to get there.

When validating the whole library, it has to take care of a lot of things. I hope future builds will able handle these issues without any errors. Before releasing each build with new features/tweaks, I make sure it validates my whole library so at least this way I am able fix as much as unexpected stuff. urlwolf, yes, definitely future builds will attempt to fix all these issues and be able to validate the whole library at once.

For now, if you could just validate currently selected album, we would be able to more specifically say what the error was. So

0/ select the tracks of the album in iTunes you want to validate
1/ load iTSfv
2/ press Validate Selected Tracks button

Appreciate the feedback guys,
McoreD

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #68
Hi Jose/urlwolf,

I was wondering if you could manage at least the Statistics part error free?

I've uploaded build 5.7.4.0

http://optusnet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourcef...v-5.7-setup.zip

and if you could do the following test that would be great.

1. Load iTSfv
2. Go to Advanced
3. Press Show iTunes Statistics (the last button)
4. If asks to load from HDD then press No
5. See if you could get something similar to this

[/quote]

5.7.4.0 Import artwork from any single file that exists in the music folder. Enabled by default. [Jose]
5.7.3.0 Artwork will be converted to JPEG before saving if the embedded artwork was found to be in a different format

5.7.2.5 Already existed Custom format artwork file was not overwritten if embedded artwork was found to be larger
5.7.2.4 Removed a rare possibililty of validation while adjusting track ratings
5.7.2.3 Application crash while removing multiple artwork from read-only tracks
5.7.2.2 iTSfv will ask to report the bug via email on the event it crashes due to something unexpected [urlwolf]
5.7.2.1 DiscCount was cleared if entire music library was validated more than once without restart iTSfv
5.7.2.0 Automatically fill track number if not found while adding files to library using taglib-sharp.dll
5.7.1.2 User preferences on what file to import as artwork, was ignored and checked Artwork.jpg first
5.7.1.1 Revalidating library would crash iTSfv [bug got introduced after 5.02]
5.7.1.0 Forcing AlbumArtist and Album will be done prior to adding the tracks to iTunes using taglib-sharp.dll
5.7.0.0 Option to remove Multiple Artwork in tracks except for the first artwork


I have also updated the manual to include a step-by-step process on how to get iTSfv source compiled and running under Visual Studio 2005 or the free Visual Basic 2005 Express. Squashing bugs/issues will be really fast if you guys are interested in running iTSfv via debugger.

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #69
5.7.4 throws unhandled exception when using synchroclean on my library.

I did the charts and it worked; however, since I don't play music using itunes (see below), the graphs where empty.

I should say that I have lots of ogg files in my lib.
Since I have just reported bugs, let me tell you what I think: this is a great idea.
As soon as this program works consistently and reliably, this is going to be a great asset to anyone wanting a well-maintained library!

NOTE: in my case, when using album view, iTunes takes an ungodly amount of memory (400-800Mb). That is ridiculous for any application. Is that your experience? It makes iTunes useless for day-to-day.

Thanks

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #70
urlwolf,

Thanks for the insight. Have to admit I didn't expect OGG playback in iTunes at all. I cannot begin to imagine how COM calls to ogg files would behave. I will experiment with ogg after I get OGG configured in iTunes.

Btw, with iTunes I have never gone up to 800 MiB RAM usage! It indeed rose up after v7.0 but the maximum I've seen in my PC was ~320 MiB with Cover Flow view. I have 2.5 GiB RAM. May be you have very high resolution artwork? Either way I agree that is ridiculous.

Cheers,
McoreD

Edit:

Re-ran Synchroclean for my music folder but unfortunately I can't reproduce that error.


iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #71
Hi,
Recently upgraded from 5.2 to 5.7.... and now "adjust rating" no longer seems to work the way it used to! Now just a handful (maybe 4 or 5) tracks get rated, when previously it used to be hundreds. My iTunes library hasn't changed, nor have my weightings. Have you changed the algorithm by any chance, or am I missing something?

Thanks.... Bluenote

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #72
Hi Bluenote,

I hardly changed its algorithm - only a bug fix:

http://itsfv.cvs.sourceforge.net/itsfv/its...p;diff_format=h

Did you have a customized weighting system? In 5.7 the settings were reset. While in Advanced tab, can you press F2 to go to Options and check the weightings?



To adjust ratings do you go to Advanced tag and press the first button? That should work without library validation complications.



While adjusting ratings, iTSfv will also have iTunes Statistics ready. Can you please see if that is in order? After you press Adjust the Rating according to Play pattern, iTSfv will parse the library then while reading the tracks, you can press Display iTunes Music library statistics.



A crippled statistics result would imply something seriously went wrong.

Cheers,
McoreD

P.S: A possible reason for this happening could be: While iTSfv is adjusting ratings, you are limited to use iTunes only for playback of songs. Anything else would interrupt what iTSfv is doing. For example, if you pressed Get Info while iTSfv is adjusting ratings, then iTSfv would immediately stop its process.

 

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #73
Did you have a customized weighting system? In 5.7 the settings were reset. While in Advanced tab, can you press F2 to go to Options and check the weightings?



Yup, I re-adjusted them - but even if I set them back to their defualt values I get this weirdness, where only 7 or so tracks in my library get rated above 0! (with the previous version it was several hundred)

To adjust ratings do you go to Advanced tag and press the first button? That should work without library validation complications.



Yes, that's exactly how I've been doing it. I just realized though that iTSfv seems to add "Unknown Album" to songs where the album tag is blank.... why is it doing this?! I thought if I don't use any of the "validate" functions I'd be safe?

While adjusting ratings, iTSfv will also have iTunes Statistics ready. Can you please see if that is in order? After you press Adjust the Rating according to Play pattern, iTSfv will parse the library then while reading the tracks, you can press Display iTunes Music library statistics.



A crippled statistics result would imply something seriously went wrong.


Looks fine to me.

Strange. The only thing that seems a little unusual is that after the rating process is complete (the program's title bar counts up to 100% twice) the display at the bottom of the window still seems stuck on "Adjusting My Rating" - I had previously assumed this is just cosmetic, however?

Hope I'm making some sense here, thanks again! Bluenote

iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator

Reply #74
itunes 7.4.1 is available. Will this make any advances in the "large library with ogg files" camp ?

Thanks!