Multiple disk IDs for a release

When deleting a disk ID, a warning is displayed that “a release can have multiple valid disc IDs”. How different may be different disk IDs attached to a release?

Here is an example I encountered today: CD 7 of the release https://musicbrainz.org/release/a830f892-6be0-35f0-a392-b91d89d89a94/discids

This disk ID has been attached to the CD before: https://musicbrainz.org/cdtoc/A7ZO3ZuXOWVlCtfY6_XXnyTtzxI-
This disk ID was calculated by Picard from a physical CD I own: https://musicbrainz.org/cdtoc/ulTFdtc0WHDnrvh_lRunGfdYGk4-

Track durations on two disk IDs are very different. For example, track #2 on the “old” disk ID is 3:49, on the “new” 2:51. There probably could be some explanation when track length differs for a couple of seconds, but here the difference is nearly 1 minute.

The length of the track #2 printed on the CD cover is 2:51, the same as in the “new” disk ID.

The “new” disk ID also matches with two other releases of the same work, links are available from the “new” disk ID.

Is it safe to assume that the “old” disk ID is wrongly attached to the release and remove it, or is there any legitimate scenario when a release can have valid disk IDs with so different track lengths?

The discid depends on the exact timing of each track, and due to how production runs of CDs work, it’s not uncommon for a later production run to have small changes in the timing of tracks on the disc. If all of the packaging stays the same, it’s still the same as far as MB is concerned, so you get multiple discids on the same release.

Normally I’d look through the history and try to find the edit where the conflicting disc id was added. Does it look like they have a good justification? etc

In this case, I didn’t turn up the edit that added A7ZO3ZuXOWVlCtfY6_XXnyTtzxI-, but I did find a little bit of history:

ulTFdtc0WHDnrvh_lRunGfdYGk4- was previously added in edit #11414294 and then removed in edit #12282795 on the basis that A7ZO3ZuXOWVlCtfY6_XXnyTtzxI- was the discID for the earlier release of Masterworks and ulTFdtc0WHDnrvh_lRunGfdYGk4- matched the standalone Messiah release. The cover art probably wasn’t available at that time, so that was a pretty reasonable looking cleanup. But since we have the cover art showing otherwise, and you can confirm you got that disc from the 2004 Masterworks release, I think you’re good to remove A7ZO3ZuXOWVlCtfY6_XXnyTtzxI- and add yours.

It does make me wish we a scan of the tracklisting from the 2001 The Masterworks, however. It’d be useful to confirm that the other set of times is correct for that one.

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Thank you. I will remove the wrong disk ID with an appropriate editor comment.

The same applies to several other disks in the same release.

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