multidisc issues

[simoncn]

(11-10-2013 19:54)Andre Gosselin Wrote:  Hi,
I am using MinimServer 0.72, and found some weird behavior regarding the handling of multi-disc allbums. I will take as a concrete example three albums by Rached Podger in FLAC format, which are stored in my Contents directory as:
Podger, Rachel \
Bach- Double and Triple Concertos \ <-- 1 disc album
Vivaldi- LaCetra, Op. 9 \ <-- 2 discs album
Vivaldi- La Stravaganza, Op. 4 \ <-- 2 discs album

Inside each subdirectory, each music track is tagged with the Album tag set to the the subdir name, and the Track number tag set to "101", "102", ... for the tracks of the first disc, "201", "202", ... for the second one, etc. (I use this numbering scheme to be able to keep a reference to the disc number on devices which do not support the Disc number tag, for ex. the iPod., otherwise the tracks 01 will come first, all tracks 2 next, resulting in a confusing mix of the tracks among the album).

The problem I found is as follows. If in a 2 disc album I set the Disc number tag to value 1 for tracks of the first disc and to value 2 for those of the second disc, when browsing this album I get a merged list with tracks numbered "101", "102", ..., "118" for tracks of the first disc (which holds 18 tracks), and "319", "320", ..., "336" for those of the second disc (which holds 18 tracks). Notice the unexpected "hundred" digit here, and the weird jump from "118" to "319".

This is correct. If you had tagged the first track of disc 2 as '1', it would be shown as 119, following on from the last track 118 on disc 1. Because you have chosen to tag this track as '201', it is shown as 319 (118+201).

Quote:If I now reset the disc number tags from 1 to 3 (for tracks of first disc), and from 2 to 4 (for tracks of disc 2), browsing the album shows the track list as
>> Disc 3
101 ...
...
118 ...
>> Disc 4
201 ...
...
218 ...

I did a few tests to understand what was going on, and found that as long as value 1 is used as disc number on some tracks, MinimServer will merge the album track list as shown above. If value 1 is not used for disc number , then no merging will occur. I even tried this setup for the disc number tag: leave it unset for tracks of first disc, set to value '2' for tracks of second disc. I then get the following when browsing the album tracks:
>> [no disc]
101 ...
>> Disc 2
201 ...

Is all this a bug, or an undocumented feature of the software ?

It is working as designed. You will get disc merging only if all disc numbers are present. So if you have discs 2 and 3 without disc 1, you won't get merging. Similarly, if you have discs 1 and 3 without disc 2, you won't get merging.

The reason for this is that the merging algorithm needs to use track number information from disc n-1 to compute the starting track offset for disc n. If disc n-1 is missing, this offset can't be computed.

Quote:I realized that avoiding the "merge" feature was in fact not such a bad thing after all, since it lets you exploit the disc number tag and see the CD number on multi-disc albums, without having to append the disc number to the the track titles (which I personnaly find ugly). Also, the way the tracks are currently renumbered in merged lists is not satisfying (maybe because of my track numbering scheme, but as explained above I need a way to keep a reference to the disc number on devices which do not support the disc number tag).

The disc merging feature is intended for multidisc albums with consecutive disc numbers (1; 2; etc.) and original track numbers for each disc (1; 2; 3; etc.). With your custom track numbering scheme, you won't get good results from disc merging.

Quote:I think it would be nice if a property was added to allow/disallow list merges. When disallowed, albums where tracks are tagged with disc number values would be listed as :
>> Disc 1
...
>> Disc 2
...
In fact, this is what happens now except that you cannot use value 1 as disc number, and resort to the "no value" hack shown above.

You can do this already by adding the suffix [Disc n] or (Disc n) to the ALBUM tag for each disc. This will give you a single album containing unmerged discs with '>> Disc n' separators. If you don't want to change the ALBUM tag, you can add the 'Disc n' information in a separate DISCSUBTITLE tag instead.

Quote:I agree that merged lists can be usefull too. But now, you just cannot get them to work for multi-disc albums inside "compilation" boxed sets holding many albums. Take for example the "Karajan 1960s" box set comprised of 70+ discs, where the 2-disc album "Haydn: The Creation" are held on discs 53-54. Keeping a reference to the disc numbers is important to be able to easily refer to the booklet and obtain the recording details. But since the discs are not numbered beginning at 1, you cannot get MinimServer to output a merged list for this album, unless I have overlooked something.

What do you think ?

The complete multi-disc album would need to be either merged or unmerged. You can't have some discs within the album merged and other discs unmerged. For this situation, you could have the album unmerged and retag the tracks from disc 54 as being on disc 53. A possible new feature for a future release of MinimServer would be to merge consecutive discs that are tagged with the same DISCSUBTITLE, so that tagging both discs 53 and 54 with "DISCSUBTITLE=Haydn: The Creation" would cause just these two discs to be merged.

A more serious problem with this particular album is that MinimServer is limited to a maximum disc number of 63 and a maximum track number of 1023.