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Topic: FLAC Lyrics (Read 9601 times) previous topic - next topic
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FLAC Lyrics

Hi HA members,
I'm an undergrad student at Latrobe University Australia.
I was looking to possibly add a simple txt metablock in the style of .srt subtitles used in most user editable videos these days such as youtube.

I've made a short clip of what I am proposing here
<worldwideweb.megauploads.som>/?d=J5OI8WF2 16MB
(if you know of any other file hosting site please let me know Megaupload was the only one I could think of quickly)
its mkv to be used preferably with media player classic with ffdshow decoder both of which are free, online and my preferred video media player.

This was almost a little project in itself as I wanted an .mkv as it is a current packing format that supports FLAC properly (honestly I'm unsure how they interact).
I just wanted part of a song (which I own) in FLAC with words accompanied by a .srt file which I made in a txt editor simply as you might do for youtube.
The problem is subtitles will not work without some video so I had to find some freely available content and use it as video
The next problem was that I wanted to make it quickly and without ANY video editing software. So basically I just had to mux all these things together using mkvmerge.

The lyrics file is in the standard .srt file format
"
1
00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:33,000
Weep for yourself, my man,
you'll never be what is in your heart

2
00:00:34,700 --> 00:00:39,300
weep little lion man,
you're not as brave as you were at the start

3
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:46,600
rate yourself and rake yourself,
take all the courage you have left

4
00:00:48,500 --> 00:00:52,900
wasted on fixing all the problems
that you made in your own head

5
00:00:54,500 --> 00:00:57,500
but it was not your fault but mine

6
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:01,000
and it was your heart on the line

7
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:07,000
I really fucked it up this time
didn't I, my dear?

8
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:09,500
didn't I, my...

"

I realise that there are MP3 lyric tags that are still in use, but they have been unpopular. I think .srt subs which are easier to understand and implement it would be easier for users to implement themselves, rather than relying solely on tag server and the like. Also using this format it might be easier to piggy-back (so to speak) onto existing open subs server allowing users to upload there subs online for others to use. Also the ability to take out the formatting and just display the lyrics as plain txt would obviously need to be a feature.

I was after views on the subject and weather or not its worth perusing? I'm a full time student and have a lot of work on the next month or so, but if there was sufficient interest I would like to start working on this idea towards the middle of the year. I am most adept at Java and a little C/C++ for application programming only so I realise its going to be an uphill battle. But I was hoping to get extra credit on my Thesis in "Audio Compression Schemes" actually implementing this feature (as Thesis are usually all theory and graphs)...

Also if you are a FLAC coding god I have some questions for you in my other thread.
I really appreciate your time in reading and answering my questions

Thankyou

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #1 –
I realize it hasn't been very long, but I've only has 2 downloads so far and I thought I'd ask if anyone is having trouble finding the download, or has any suggestions as to where else I might host the file for better coverage?

The reason why its ~16MB is because its a cut 30MB song with some low-rez video and a text file synced together rather home-brew style, I probably should just make one with an mp3 but it seemed like cheating at the time I made it.

The explanation might seem enough but I was really surprised about reaction from my peers when they saw that small demo, so please take a look. I'd love some feedback especially from FLACs dev team, Thanks again.

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #2 –
I'd really like to get started on this, but it's difficult to know where.

I'm going to work on a simple metablock addition exe for starters. a simple small command line exe with some basic features

lyrflac.exe "flac file" ".srt file"

adds the .srt file to the flac file as a metablock (format checks will happen after basic functionality)

lyrflac.exe "flac file"

outputs the .srt

lyrflac.exe "flac file" -d

delete the lyrics metablock

I've started reading over the metablock modules but if anyone has done something similar before some example code would be real handy  I apologise for sounding like a newbie, but I've only really been taught mainly advanced Java (because they make us), SQL, php and the only C/C++ I've done was about 3 years ago...

This is what I would like the end goal to be in foobar, so again if anyone has any experience in writing plugins your help would be greatly appreciated.

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/lh/photo/Pt...feat=directlink

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #3 –
just noticed someone else had this idea as well. http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/flac-dev/2...ust/002699.html

Asking for a bit of help if anyone else knows anything about FLAC meta blocks and C in general, I'm a REAL beginner when it comes to C so I could really use some help.

I just want an exe to do the above. Any code fragments or general meta block info (outside the source code which I have) would help muchly thanks

--RJ

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #4 –
I have a hard time imagining why SRT-subs would suddently become the defacto standard for synced lyrics. We already have LRC, which works perfectly, and are quite similar to SRT, but more extendable.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #5 –
Quote from: odyssey on
I have a hard time imagining why SRT-subs would suddently become the defacto standard for synced lyrics. We already have LRC, which works perfectly, and are quite similar to SRT, but more extendable.


Well for starters there are NO Lyric interfaces for FLAC as is and SRT/LRC are similar. I just suggested SRT because its used more often by most people for movie subs and youtube etc. And having the ability to upload/download from a subs database website (which there are many of) might be possible and useful.

Either one is fine really, custom tools/plugins will have to be made either way.

If I figure out how to make an SRT meta-block and read it etc. It's going to be easy enough to modify that into an LRC meta-block.

Thanks for the input anyways I'd almost forgotten about LRCs existence entirely

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #6 –
LRC is used by many lyrics sites. Haven't seen SRT used in lyrics-form.

I just store synced lyrics in the "LYRICS"-tag in foobar. Works fine for me. I can't really imagine what would be displaying the lyrics for me except for foobar2000.
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #7 –
Instead of SRT, you could go with something like ASS, which has a ton of support for karaoke effects and such.  I'm not too familiar with the FLAC metadata format or the foobar2000 plugin system (yet), but assuming that you have already been able to add a section for lyrics seems like this should work.  As for displaying them, you'd probably just need to make a plugin which reads the metadata block, and, using a pre-existing sub renderer like libass or vobsub (for the ASS format), just draw the subs to your plugin's area.  That could then support timing for individual syllables and graphic effects that could make for a more useful plugin.
 

FLAC Lyrics

Reply #8 –
Quote from: SCOTU on
Instead of SRT, you could go with something like ASS, which has a ton of support for karaoke effects and such.  I'm not too familiar with the FLAC metadata format or the foobar2000 plugin system (yet), but assuming that you have already been able to add a section for lyrics seems like this should work.  As for displaying them, you'd probably just need to make a plugin which reads the metadata block, and, using a pre-existing sub renderer like libass or vobsub (for the ASS format), just draw the subs to your plugin's area.  That could then support timing for individual syllables and graphic effects that could make for a more useful plugin.


All sounds great, but it's got to start with someone inserting a txt like file as a special meta-block into a FLAC file. I hope this means just using the one of the metadata interfaces found here. Special blocks have been made for all these different applications so far http://flac.sourceforge.net/id.html . So harder things have been done...