There are two digital releases under it. One with many stated countries (including US) and one US only. The one with many countries uses the US iTunes reference, to me making them both the same release that would be “worldwide”.
It appears a lot has changed since many of my last edits… so how is this handled:
Leave as-is
Merge together
Merge together and change to worldwide rather than listing out 200+ countries, etc?
So the answer is there is no answer? I am simply looking at the current state of the database as I have not really made edits in some time. It seems that things are just getting worse, so I will check back later then to see if any form of structure is decided on and stick to physical releases.
While I understand and respect the long discussions, i really have no interest in reading the discussions on it unless there is an answer, in which case, I only really care about the answer.
There is no answer unfortunately. It is still firmly in the ‘too hard’ basket as far as I know. When the new design comes out I would like to push for some release filtering improvements that may help/be of interest to you.
In this case everything does look pretty much the same (I know your concern is format/bitrate though thwaller), so I am ok with the merge personally (cover art is different but that’s addressed).
I am very interested in the coming changes. I really like MB as it relates to physical media. It is the digital that is lacking to me. My concern on it is that MB has been a great, and I would argue one of the best, resources there is for them. The issue I See right no is that the database is getting loaded with numerous digital releases, all done a bit differently. This reminds me almost of the FreeDB issue… where the system went to junk when a load of bad data was imported and allowed in. There was also a disagreement among developers, sort of as we see here… a mashing of different views and opinions.
I would be happy to put together a document vs a long post here that few will bother reading on the aspects I find important, followed by supplemental data. The biggest conflict with me is that the current DB structure is not appropriate to divide as I see it.
In brief and in very general terms… I see a “release group” as a release with a specific track listing. Under that release group, you have releases driven by the reference. So say I have an iTunes reference, I can enter in the specifics for that release… if I know the barcode, the bitrate, the encoder used, etc. So then… as I use Picard, imagine this. I select the 12 track version of Band Release. Then I select I have a digital version, then FLAC format, etc… It will take me to exactly where I want to be as it relates to identifying a release. Or say I want to know where to stream it, I could then open that track listing, select stream, then paid or free, etc. It again takes me to where I need to go, while also capturing all of the attributes that the reference used provides.
I wanted to add… I understand that many physical releases do not really need a reference. I can add images of the CD, cover, back, booklet, etc to provide proof of release. However, with a digital release, if there is no reference, there is a real doubt on its legitimacy. If you have no idea where it is from, why are we indexing it? The files themselves, if unidentified, do not really show a release. Similar to a CD-R release… while sometimes those are legit releases, most often they should not be added as they are a copy or creation that is not provable. I know that some smaller bands have released on CD-R, but in those cases, the data available will also be a bit different than it is from major labels.
Just my 2 cents on references and digital releases. I believe that the reference is critical to show what you are indexing.
@aerozol - I just added a digital release, although I stated I will stay away from them. This I am happy with to a point. I like that I have one release with multiple references (which to me are different “releases”). While I do not consider streaming like Spotify as an actual release, many do, so ok. But to me this is all the same release. The details like bitrate and such can all be defined in the reference details, if that option would be available.
I think that we should all stop pretending that we know what the record companies are doing… things like assuming this master is used here and also here. We do not know this. All we know is that masters are made and sometimes they are made specific to the intended final use. For example, say I am mastering a recording for a DVD and a CD, that will be two different masters. If I am mastering for iTunes (m4a) or MP3 and Opus, this is again to me a different master. However, some might not consider it as such.
I feel the same with things like the barcode of a digital release. If the barcode is not a part of the release (ie not in the metadata or directly stated on the store front), I will not assume that a cross reference to the barcode is valid. I often see multiple barcodes bringing me back to the same ISRC, the barcode differing from store front to store front. In my opinion, that data belongs in the reference details.
What are your thoughts on my addition below? Do you agree, disagree or have comments in between?
Please see my comment on the thread for the tool you mention above, I tagged you in it. I wanted to avoid posting duplicate content, as this turned into a discussion not related to me query here… for which the answer is… it is undetermined at this time how to properly handle the situation, it is current under discussion.