Tagging

[zvi]

What kind of metadata/id4 tags do you guys wish podficcers would use? Are you retagging stuff after you download? If you podfic, what tagging scheme do you use?

The one thing I really wish people would do which I'm really not seeing is, if they record a series, I wish they would tag all of the parts as belonging to one album and set the track numbers so the series plays in order.

Some other stuff I long for: the reader to be set as the artist (I usually set the author as the composer). The genre to be set to speech, which makes my mp3 player more likely to recognize something as an audiobook. Something to be put in the URL field, either the amplificathon announcement, the audiofic archive listing, or a text version of the story.

What would make podfic work better on your listening device of choice?

Comments

[dmarley]

I always re-tag things after I download them, because I sort all my podfic into a ginormous smart playlist and need it all to be in the "podfic" genre. I also like to sort by author and fandom, so I have to make sure that the author is in a consistent field and the fandom as well. (Usually the album field, since, as has been observed, few podficcers use it for other things. I may have to alter this strategy if more podficcers start using it for long stories, as well they should. :))

I've always done a bit of a reverse and put the author in the artist field and the reader in the composer field, but it always felt backwards and I think I started it only because the first few podfics I downloaded put the author in the artist field and it was easier to just keep sorting that way. I think it makes a great deal of sense to put the reader in the artist field and the author in the composer field, since the listener can sort by either, and I'd be thrilled if podficcers did that consistently.

When I tag podfics I've made, the artist/composer field isn't an issue because I've only ever recorded stories I've written myself, so both fields are always me.

One thing I do that I really, really wish more podficcers would do is use the notes to put a link to the story text or the author's website or the podficcer's archive (or include that information at the end of the story). Once you've downloaded a podfic, all the surrounding context vanishes, and if you want to find more stories by that author or podficcer you're at the mercy of your own memory (or Google). Granted, at the moment there aren't that many podfic sources, so it wouldn't be that hard to track down where you found a recording, but that might not always be the case and I've come to value having pointers built in.

[lunate8]

One thing I do that I really, really wish more podficcers would do is use the notes to put a link to the story text or the author's website or the podficcer's archive (or include that information at the end of the story).

This, totally. Most of the audiobooks I initially downloaded were compiled by Cybel who puts a link to the story text in the Comments field, and I've adopted that myself. Looking up-thread, I didn't even realize there was the URL field that Zvi mentioned, since I can't seem to find it in iTunes. I did just find it in the ID3 tag editor in Audion, though.

Based on how iTunes sorts audiobooks on my iPod, I've started retagging the "Album by Artist" field on the files on my player to make the more, um, explicit podfics a little less obvious/accessible. (This after loaning my iPod to my parents for some time-passing solitaire and praying they didn't decide to explore my audio collection.)