• Registered: 2012-02-18

Topic: Track times off by a second from CD case and Amazon - problem, or not?

I was recently looking over a release I submitted to MusicBrainz a few years ago: http://musicbrainz.org/release/c1e0294e … 30048784fe , and wanting to clean it up a bit to bring it up to NGS standards of quality. The first thing I did was search for it on Amazon to see if there was an MP3 release I should add. I found it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00370C7YW -- but then I noticed something. The times that Amazon lists for each song are slightly off from the times that I listed when I first created the release entry. A few songs match, but most are off by about 1 second, in a consistent direction: if the times are off, then the Amazon-listed time will be 1 second less than the time I entered. (E.g., I listed track 2, "Tom Bombadil", as 4:44 long, but Amazon lists it as 4:43 long.)

I don't remember where I got the track length info back in 2009 when I submitted the release, but it was probably from the back of the CD case. My question is: should I update the track length to match what Amazon is showing? Which is more likely to be correct: the info from the CD case (presumably entered by the artist) or the info from Amazon (presumably entered by software that measured the length of the corresponding MP3)? And if I've gotten the times slightly wrong, what will that do to CD ToC-matching algorithms: will they be able to adjust to a one-second-off difference on most tracks, or is that likely to lead to someone putting their CD in the drive and having Picard (or another MB-enabled tagger) tell them "I don't recognize that disc, it must not be in the MB database"? Sadly, I don't have my CD of this release around at the moment, so I can't test that last question for myself.

Actually, that's more like three questions. Basically, I think I'm asking: should I worry about this, or not?

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: Track times off by a second from CD case and Amazon - problem, or not?

I would say that Amazon is no more or less reliable than a CD case; and track lengths on CDs regularly vary by 1-2 seconds. It really is no big deal; and besides CD media is different to Digital Media. One can't ever say that the lengths match each other exactly; when accounting for silence added; slight differences in cuts/fades etc.

CD TOC matching algorithms mainly work by looking for a precise disc ID being attached. The times implied by the disc ID do not have to match the times on the release exactly; so it does not affect the Picard type algorithm. Normally a couple of seconds out on tracks is fine/normal/expected. If there the disc ID is not manually attached to a release, the user can attach it by way of a fuzzy match by track lengths in the search.

So no, I don't think you should worry about it at all.

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • From: Czech Republic
  • Registered: 2008-03-17

Re: Track times off by a second from CD case and Amazon - problem, or not?

The track times of the release in MB correspond to the track times of the attached CD TOC: http://musicbrainz.org/cdtoc/DK9.9dAoMA … 6KJtLHb.M0-
So they could have been set from the CD TOC or from files ripped from the CD. Unfortunately I am not able to find any edit related to the CD TOC.
MB searching experts: Is it possible to find any?

rmunn, AFAIK disambiguation should not be added just to distinguish releases on various media formats. The media format is already in the DB. I add the disambiguation only if there are releases of the same name on the same media.
BTW here http://musicbrainz.org/release/b480a4cd … db74c3084d the media format should be "Digital Media".

pabouk's Website

  • Registered: 2012-02-18

Re: Track times off by a second from CD case and Amazon - problem, or not?

pabouk wrote:

BTW here http://musicbrainz.org/release/b480a4cd … db74c3084d the media format should be "Digital Media".

Yeah, I realized immediately after adding the release that I'd forgotten to change the format from the default of CD (I think it defaulted to CD because I based it on the previous CD release). I've already got http://musicbrainz.org/edit/16660254 outstanding to make exactly that change.

Feel free to vote for that edit to make it go through sooner. ;-)

Also, as far as disambiguations go: I put them in because I'd forgotten to set the MP3 release's format correctly, so they were needed to distinguish between the two releases. Once the format change for http://musicbrainz.org/release/b480a4cd … db74c3084d goes through, I'll remove the disambiguations.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: Track times off by a second from CD case and Amazon - problem, or not?

The disc ID may have been added by rmunn at the same time as submitting the release? IIRC that didn't show up as a separate edit pre-NGS.

voiceinsideyou's Website