Re: OT: CD index software

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 12:08:30 +0100, Pip
<gingerblokeNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Following a recent scare on the house security front (which is why
I'm still here rather than getting pissed and pissed on in Derbyshire)
we decided that we'd better list stuff for insurance purposes should
it all disappear one night.

Most stuff isn't an issue, but I'd like to make a definitive list of
music CDs. Writing them all out would be a severe PITA, so what I'm
after is a free or at least cheap piece of software that will do what
my old Audio Librarian used to do, which is read the info from the CD,
talk to cddb (now Gracenote) and come back with a spread***-type
format containing all the info on the disc.

Any ideas, oh FOAK? I've had a google around, but the world and the
web is chock-full of rippers and MP3 cataloguers and organisers, none
of which seem to have the relatively simple functionality (and
freeness) I'd like.

Well, it depends on exactly what info you want to record. If it's just
artist / album / tracknames, etc. then maybe your best bet is to rip
your entire CD collection to MP3? Then not only will you have a back
up copy of all your music you also have all of the descriptive
"metadata" embedded in those MP3's.

There is lots of software about that will read ID3v2 tags from MP3
files and do all sorts of weird / wonderful / useless stuff with it.
Alternatively, if (like me) your requirements are very simple I
knocked up a couple of perl scripts a long while ago to simply catalog
my music collection. You can point the first script at a directory on
your computer under which sits all your ripped to MP3 CD's. It
recursively reads all the MP3 ID3 tags into a hash and saves the hash
to a file (you can copy the hash to removable media should your 'puter
get nicked along with all your CD's). There's then a second script to
read the hash and produce a text or html listing of your music
collection including / omitting tracknames if needed. It's all a bit
slow and clunky but works OK for me.

Of course, you have to suffer the pain of ripping your CD collection
in the first place. Probably worth it in the long run though.

--
SimonM
GSX-R 1000 K5

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