I’m not sure it makes sense to add a separate primary release type for videos (maybe a secondary type).
For one, albums can include both audio and video tracks, and some platforms, like bandcamp, combine video and audio releases. It’s probably better to use a format to distinguish rather than creating separate release groups.
In situations where it is very common to have both separate video and audio versions of an album (for examples, stand-up comedy) having separate release groups might lead to confusion.
For older videos, I wonder if the best solution would be a broadcast status for releases. Essentially treating them as a type of promotional release, hidden from the user unless there is an official release. Broadcast dates would then be used for the release date.
(PS - a broadcast status would be extremely helpful for broadcast releases in general)
this is an interesting idea… I don’t think I’d be opposed to it myself, tho I think it should be shown to the user, similar to an official release. that is, I think it’d be odd to hide officially released releases just because their only release was on television or similar. perhaps a new medium type? I don’t know if there’s a perfect solution here or not
I personally disagree, as long as there’s a relationship between the two release groups. some similar examples we’ve already got in the database with little to no confusion are translated releases, re-recordings, and remix releases, which all get split into seperate release groups with a relationship between the two
I’d even argue that combining release groups could lead to more confusion in some cases, such as the two versions of the Take On Me music video (1984 and 1985, tho since they have different audio as well as different video, they might be split anyways)
do you have examples handy? for clarity, I’m not saying that just because a release has video it needs to be in a seperate release group (for example, with bonus or deluxe edition content), but I think if the video is the core part of the release (such as a live video release, an official documentary, or music videos, both multiple and individual), perhaps it should get it’s own release group. (and also maybe not relegated to the Other primary type, as many of these examples are)
also, several other databases split out or only deal with video releases, such as Rate Your Music, which has seperate release group equivalents for Take On Me, the audio single, the 1984 video, and the more popular 1985 video. other video-focused databases include IMVDb and IMDb (both of which have seperate entities for each video), which wouldn’t be correct URLs to add to the audio single release group
I was thinking of it more as a promotional release, “official” but not notable unless it’s paired with a physical or digital release. There is a closed ticked for supporting broadcast medium which could allow for greater technical detail about the broadcast. The ephemeral nature of a broadcast feels to me like it’s a distinct status though, closer to a promotional release.
There’s also a “broadcast by” attribute which could be used to circumvent the issue entirely. There’s an open issue for providing it in Picard.
I personally disagree, as long as there’s a relationship between the two release groups. some similar examples we’ve already got in the database with little to no confusion are translated releases, re-recordings, and remix releases, which all get split into seperate release groups with a relationship between the two
I’m thinking of video releases more like radio edits, distinct recordings for sure but basically the same thing.
do you have examples handy? for clarity, I’m not saying that just because a release has video it needs to be in a seperate release group (for example, with bonus or deluxe edition content), but I think if the video is the core part of the release (such as a live video release, an official documentary, or music videos, both multiple and individual), perhaps it should get it’s own release group. (and also maybe not relegated to the Other primary type, as many of these examples are)
Here are some examples combing audio+video:
Another example though is podcasts. Off hand, I know that Live at KEXP, Tiny Desk Concert, and Like a Version all release video and audio versions of their episodes.
Where this gets confusing though is older singles. In the modern era a video and audio single are pretty interchangeable, but should we combine singles with broadcast releases of music videos? that’s harder to say. Again, it might be better to understand broadcasts as a type of “promotional” releases.
an issue with this (at least currently) is the same as we’ve had before with YouTube releases, where it doesn’t set the recordings track release date, nor do relationship dates usually get picked up by external tools, like Picard
not that this alone should be a reason, databases and tools can be changed, but this doesn’t feel like a good solution to me either way
I do think Video as a secondary release type makes sense for releases which are primarily video or split video and audio. I guess it’s a question of (given comparable track lists):
album (audio only, excerpted from video? or somehow related)
video (video only)
album + video + compilation (audio and video, compilation from album and video)
vs.
album + video (audio or video or audio and video)
video (video only)
vs.
album (audio or video or audio and video)
I’d lean a little more towards the second choice, but I don’t know for sure.
Sorry, the summer + summit period was a blur and now it’s November. How?
That said, it seems we’ve gotten quite sidetracked from the discussion on release dates for videos originally played on TV or whatnot.
I kinda get the feeling adding a release year of the first time they aired would be fine in like at least 99% of cases (after all, in order to get broadcast, they must have been released to the TV channels, which means at least a promotional release). But even that would still leave open questions for things like format and status. Can people summarize their views of this issue?
for format, I don’t know that I’ve got a real preference one way or another. we could try and find what format it was given to the TV stations in (likely tape and later something else) and leave it blank when not known, or we could have a special purpose format for this. I don’t know which might be better tho
as for status, it should definitely be official (or official-like), so that it counts for track release dates and whatnot. it wouldn’t make sense for Take On Me to show as being released in 2009 or whenever it made it to YouTube. I think we could just use “Official”, but a new similar status would be fine by me too
I would be in favor of a broadcast status. Given that the desire is to capture the broadcast date as the release date, it would make sense to use the release status to differentiate these types of releases. This should only apply to the initial broadcast of a given recording, any subsequent broadcasts should be related using the broadcast by relationship. A new version of the recording should be added as a new release.
In general, a broadcast status would also have broader applications for broadcast releases.
I think the format question is trickier. I’ve seen tickets detailing potential broadcast mediums https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/STYLE-1602 but I really don’t have enough technical knowledge to know how useful these would be. Given that we can specify video at another level, it would probably make sense to leave this as unknown for now.
If we can agree these broadcasts count as releases, the remaining question is how to handle the “other” types fan videos, concert videos, interviews, promotional videos, commercials, etc.
There’s a lot more questions before we need to worry about a lot of these That’s why the idea of this was going bit by bit - as long as we can get something that works for most of the stuff most people want to document, we can get to the edge cases later.
actually, thinking on it a bit today, I wonder if a special purpose format (something like [video broadcast] or something?) would be a good idea. this could make adding releases easier if we automatically mark recordings on this format as videos (see this similar ticket for DVD-Video), as well as making it clear from the release group page (and in the data in general) what the release in question is without requiring a disambiguation.
(mocked up with the Inspect feature on my browser, lol)
that said, I don’t know what opinions would be on Special Purpose Formats like this, since (at least to my knowledge) we don’t currently have any, and a solution like MBS-7017 might be a better solution for marking video recordings on the release editor
I wonder if an ‘airwaves’ media type - or something with a better name - might be a good idea. My thinking is that with audio releases, the medium for the release doesn’t really care about what’s used prior to the end result, its the thing that can be held or stored. (i.e. whether its a whole band playing around one microphone or multiple synthesised stems mixed on a PC, or what formats are used between those and the final pressing/production, none of that matters except the CD, vinyl, cassette or digital file at the end.) So for music videos that were initially released pre-digital age, for the average person, generally the only way they could have those was over the airwaves on channels like MTV.
Nowadays with streaming, you have a Digital Media release which fits nicely at least.
[I’m here off the back of a thread about how songs from musical TV shows, that don’t have a corresponding ‘real’ release of any kind, could be entered but I suspect that’s too fringe to get into at this point. Also amusingly, the OK Go documentary that UltimateRiff mentions was added by me a few years back simply as it was part of a more traditional release. Small world in MB sometimes.]
I looked through all of this again. And I’m starting to think we should start by not reinventing the wheel, so I’d suggest following the standard release guidelines as much as possible. See a draft below.
For video broadcasts on TV, it looks to me like there’s no reason at all to treat them any differently from non-video broadcasts. This includes videos being originally released on TV, which is fairly equivalent to music being originally played on radio before its official release. As such, rather than making changes for this on the video guidelines, I’d expect the broadcast guideline to be expanded in the future if needed to better deal with this kind of thing.
I would probably expect the actual release to be the VHS or whatnot, if known (same as we’d do with a radio promo CD), and to involve a lot of “leave the date blank” and “leave the format blank” for cases where the data just isn’t available. Known dates of first broadcasts could potentially always be stored with the new-ish label-recording broadcast relationship?
Release date
Follow the usual release guidelines. This means the release date for a digital release of a video should generally be the earliest the video was made available to stream or purchase on any digital platform (see also When to add multiple releases below). For TV broadcasts, follow the broadcast program guidelines.
doesn’t this completely contradict the release guidelines about different cover art? if this is about the case where the video has a video-frame thumbnail (where no thumbnail was added by the uploader, so a frame from some point in the video), I think it might make sense to note that more specifically
this also doesn’t answer the question on release groups, if they’re combined with the single or they get their own (likely for each video version too). personally, I’d like to push for the latter, as you prolly already know
Not really. That is cover art. A video can have any frame selected. Especially on YouTube as that image changes regular to game the algorithm. Makes sense to just add the variations to the one video. The video was only released once. In most cases it would not even had an image attached, just sat on a reel of video tape.
at least in the areas I edit, such thumbnails are quite rare these days, save for stuff like live bootlegs. many artists and labels will create distinct thumbnail art (distinct as in not just an unedited frame from the video), even if it’s sometimes just slapping a logo or two on a screencap of the video. video thumbnails (in general) are a type of cover art
even so, we create a new release for things like a Bandcamp album getting new cover art, I don’t see this as terribly different from that
It only does if thumbnails are real cover art. For most artists I listen to, the video “cover” is just a frame from the video… But yeah, happy to specify further that it wouldn’t apply to real covers when they exist Do you have examples?
Of that little lot I know Take On Me. Not sure why it would be in a separate RG to the Single. This is a promo for the original 1980s single. Seems like it should really live with the Single.
You’d stick a Radio Promo CD in with the main Single RG, so why not a video sharing that same audio?
figuring that out is the next step, once the basic guidelines are settled
@reosarevok, do we want to also tackle how to (or how not to) clean up titles on these releases in this round? like if a video included “MV”, “Lyric Video”, or similar in the video title?
I’m fine saving that for later, if you’d like, but it is very common in my experience
That’s why the idea of this was going bit by bit - as long as we can get something that works for most of the stuff most people want to document, we can get to the edge cases later.
Do you have examples?