Packaging, is it Release or medium

Is Packaging for the medium or the release.

Examples of same medium packaging within the “box” .

Example1, Original Album Classics, Original Album Series, etc.
A cardboard box containing 5 CDs each in its own cardboard sleeve, barcode on the box only.

Example2, The Turtles - The Complete Original Album Collection
A cardboard box containing 5 CDs each in its own cardboard sleeve, barcode on box and different barcode on each sleeve (In this case the individual CD sleeve releases took over a year to be released).

Example3: Crossroads, Bear Family Jerry Lee Lewis, and others.
A cardboard box containing 3+ CD jewel cases, Barcode on the box only.

Example3: Some TimeLife series, Some jazz and blues, and others.
A cardboard box containing 3+ CD jewel cases, Barcode on box and different barcode on each jewel case.

Then there is:

The Beach Boys Pet Sessions,
A cardboard box containing 3 jewel cases, 1 cardboard sleeve, and a book.

Grateful Dead - So Many Roads (1965-1995)
A bound book of cardboard sleeves slid inside a cardboard box case.

I suspect “Other” for all but the Grateful Dead - So Many Roads, but I think there is a case to be made for cardboard sleeve and jewel case on some of the others to show how the medium is packaged.

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Especially for box sets it would be nice we could set the package type per package item, grouped medium and relate/link them to the matching cover art. As an example:


Annotation
CD 1: Jewel Case 1
CD 2+3: Jewel Case 2
CD 4: Jewel Case 3
CD 5: Gatefold 4

Longbox contains:
double sided poster
guitar pick
key-chain with bottle opener
sticker
temporary tattoo

And it would be nice to have some more package types or the possibility to combine them.

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Ticket MBS-4450 for a better support of box set is one of the most voted tickets for schema change. Moreover, there has been a very popular style discussion about box set last year. Therefore, it is very likely to be part of the next schema change release scheduled for May 2018.

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The links you provided have fantastic discussions. Two years ago before I got my account I followed the “boxset” discussions until I formed a huge headache and had to stop. I will go back to each of these and respond to them. You can never have too much data, and should never throw away valid data.

While not using MusicBrainz, I had been following its progression for at least 10 years now. I never liked the first schema as it appeared to be recording biased and I am album biased. The second schema was a fantastic improvement so several years ago I started to write Perl fetch scripts to capture data using the barcode and discid.

I rip once (full album with cue) keeping all log files from EAC, CUETools , and a old library tool, then the CD(s) go to storage after I scan the barcode(s) and get catalog(s) off them. I wrote Perl scripts to analyze and crosscheck the validity of all my data including the TOC, so I accurately create the MusicBrainz discid to use for searching when the barcode is not present in the database. I am dyslexic so I have to use as much automatic processing as I can to ensure that data is accurate.

I am in the first phase of matching my albums/data to MusicBrainz, where the barcode and discid match I use that releaseID (later on I may need to create a new release due to different country, but that is a later check). If discid matches I look very closely at all the data on the page to decide if I add a barcode (and maybe catalog/label) or create a new release based on the releaseID of the discid. So far in the last 2 days I have added 100 new releases and only edited a few releases for the barcode, 300+ nonbarcode releases with discid still to go, then the no barcode no discid ones which have releases to base the new release off. This may seem a backwards process with respect to Picard, but my Cds are in climate controlled storage and will only come out for the second phase and a cold winter that keeps me inside. I have releaseID to discid matchups for everything I have created plus a lot that is missing from the database already (plus the ISRCs that go with them if they exist), that is a later discussion as I am not going to put all those CDs back in to let Picard or isrcsubmit.py upload the data, of course a hack to isrcsubmit.py may do the trick also, but a simple sql “add discid where releaseID=xxxx” would be less painful and automatic.

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Thanks, that looks great, but I will wait for what the new scheme provides, plus I need to pull the albums out of storage to annotate the packages correctly.