Audio quality information shown by MinimServer

[simoncn]

I am starting this thread because of two recent requests to change the information displayed by MinimServer in the #AudioData or #AudioQuality special tags. See this post and this post.

Information about the audio quality/resolution of a file is provided by two special tags #AudioData and #AudioQuality. The #AudioData tag provides exact information about bit depth and sample rate (or bit rate). The #AudioQuality tag classifies music into a smaller number of categories.

In more detail, the #AudioData tag can show any combination of bit depth and sample rate. For lossless files, some common combinations are 16/44100, 16/48000, 24/44100, 24/48000, 16/88200, 24/88200, 24/96000, 24/176400, 24/192000, 24/352800, 32/352800, 24/384000, 1/2822400, 1/5644800 and 1/11289600. #AudioData can also display any other combinations not listed above. For lossy files, #AudioData displays an approximate bit rate because lossy files vary slightly in their exact bit rate. These bit rates are displayed as <128k, ~128k, ~160k, ~192k, ~224k, ~256k, ~320k and ~400k. (The ~ means 'approximately'.)

Because of the large number of possible combinations, the #AudioQuality tag provides a simpler designation of audio quality that is intended to be sufficient for most people to select between different audio qualities in their library. The possible values for #AudioQuality are as follows:

LC : all lossy files (LC = Lossy Compression)
CD- : lossless, less than 16/44100
CD : exactly 16/44100
CD+ : better than CD, less than HD
HD : either bit depth 24 and not lower than 24/44100 or bit depth 16 and better than 16/96000

These categories date from 2013 and things have moved on quite a long way since then with DSD64, DSD128 (etc.) and PCM files with resolutions up to 32/352800 or 24/384000. To enable these higher resolution files to be identified easily, here are a few options for doing this:

1) Leave #AudioData unchanged and replace the current HD category of #AudioQuality with the following:

DSD64, DS128, DSD256, etc.
DXD : 24/352800 or better
HD+ : 24/176400 or 24/192000
HD : all others that are marked HD at present

2) Leave #AudioQuality unchanged and replace the current values in #AudioData with the following:

48k
64k
96k
128k
192k
256k
320k
16/44
24/44
16/48
24/48
16/88
24/88
24/96
24/176
24/192
24/352
32/352
24/384
DSD64
DSD128
DSD256, etc.

3) Leave both #AudioData and #AudioQuality unchanged and add a new special tag (perhaps #AudioInfo) with the values in 2) above.

My preference is for a combination of 1) and 2). What do others think?