[lug] audio questions

[dio2002 at indra.com]

> the amarok gui makes retagging easy, it also has a "Script Manager" but 
> I've never explored what it does/how it works.
> 
> for a command line oriented approach, I've used ogginfo, tagmp3, perl 
> with the MP3::Info module, and metaflac to retrieve existing tags.

good to know.

> If the tags aren't there, those tools can also be used to put them there.
> 
> amarok does have a metadata db which supports sqlite3, mysql, and 
> postgresql.  It writes the standard tags to the files themselves, but 
> rating/ranking/last time played/etc. are stored in the db.

that makes sense.  since it's pretty clear that the tags are inserted 
into the files themselves, it's pretty obvious that playlists are 
implemented in the metadata db of the given tool too, just like 
rankings, etc.

it would seem logical then that if you start moving files "outside" of 
the interface provided by the medialib tool, you're going to screw up 
the file pointers in the db for playlists and rankings.  which probably 
means if you move collections from one device to another, that usually 
requires a new import and recreation of playlists right?  or do the 
tools have some intelligence to at least partially automate and recreate 
the metadata like playlists, rankings when the underlying files are 
moved around or to different devices?

i'm also assuming most of these tools have the ability to export or 
backup playlists that have taken lots of time to create.  but maybe not. 
  preferably this functionality is built into the interface via an 
'export" option in addition to manually backing up a db in the 
filesystem.  i was recently playing around with winamp and it looked 
like you had to go out to the cmdline to do this.  on linux not a 
problem but a pita on windows since it's harder to autoscript this.