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

[anatsuno]

Oh! Sorry, I said I'd post this one and then I sucked at it. I(m like Jay smooth in that; whenever I say I'll do something I end up not doing it. sigh.

So! answering. I need metadata to be consistent because I use it not only to know what things are and find what I want when searching (extensive libraries really benefit from being searchable!), but also because I rely on them to create smart aka automatic playlists.

I use iTunes, and I listen to podfic on my desktop computer as well as on two different ipods (a 6yo 40gb one and a new 4gb shuffle). The playlists are a big part of the iPod experience for me.

I re-tag everything I download:

Artist: Reader's name only - no (reader) mention in brackets. The reader counts for me as much as if not more than the story.

Name: Title of the story

Composer: Author's name - no (author) mention.

Album Artist: iTunes has this field, not sure if it's a set ID3 tag or not - I put the name of the cover artist for m4b files there, when I have it. Again, with no (cover artist) mention to explain; I know what goes there, so.

Album:
* If the story is part of a series, the name of the series goes there to allow their grouping/ordering. For example I have an 'In the city of the Seven Walls' album because jinjurly recorded at least three files belonging under that same umbrella, or 'a Farm in Iowa' album or 'Crack AUs and the People who love them' etc.
* If the story is not part of anything like an 'album', the name of the fandom goes there, like 'SG:A Fiction', 'Holmes Fiction', 'Merlin Fiction' etc. Or the name of the challenge! I have an Amplificathon 2009 album, for example. :)

Grouping: iTunes has this tag, which is also probably part of the normal set of ID3 tags but I'm not exactly certain about that. This is where I put the fandom in a systematic way (which means I have that info redundantly for most files who do not also belong to an album, yes) - I write it differently there, to help myself remember which field is which, and use both to create filters/playlists. So here you'll find 'SGA Fic' and 'Merlin Fic' and 'Holmes Fic'. :)

Genre: I tag all podfic as 'podfic'. All of it. It's important for my filters.

Notes/Comments: I expect the URL of the story to be there - I don't hunt it down to find it and put it there when it's not, though, on files I have downloaded but not recorded. :)

I religiously use the fields that allow to order tracks that belong together in the same album, numbering every track that needs it.

Newer versions of iTunes allow you to mark as Audiobook a file that is not an m4b file - in the options, you can 'set' that this file is/should be counted as an Audiobook, AND also check a little box to make iTunes (and assorted iPods) remember your position in the file when you pause/stop.

This solved the main problem I had, which was that a part of my podfic collection was listed as Audiobooks (m4b files only) and the other belonged in Music (mp3, mp4, whatever other formats).

Since I have over 400 podfic files (~13 GB), which iTunes tells me it would take over 13 days to listen to *g*, playlists are really the only livable way to use them on the iPods.

I use iTunes' rating field (0 to 5 stars given to any track) to mark my favorites, and sometimes filter on the Playcount, too. Thus I can make playlists with only podfic I haven't listened to before, podfic I haven't rated yet, only SGA podfic with 4 starts or above; only podfic that doesn't belong to a particular album (stand-alone tracks with only the fandom info in the Album field); podfic coming out of the Amplificathon, etc. The possibilities are endless, and really handy. :)

Wow

[jesse_the_k]

Are you a librarian?

This system is exceptionally pleasing.

Re: Wow

[anatsuno]

I am not! But I have, let's say, librarian inclinations. *g* I like systematic things - although FAR from all my stuff is organised; IRL my things are somewhat organised but also all over the place, and a lot of my digital data is actually badly put away. I try though!

[were_duck]

Oh this is wonderful! I might have to adapt your system for my purposes.