Klarinet Archive - Posting 000281.txt from 2006/01

From: "Bryan Crumpler" <crumpletox@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] RE: (OT) Barcodes and CDs
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:14:09 -0500

>Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 23:32:16 -0500
>From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
>Subject: (OT) Barcodes and CDs
>
>Utilities like Winamp and Windows Media Player seem
>to be able to access a data registry of some kind - I assume the
>information
>they scroll across the display comes from an online source because the
>programs complain if for some reason I'm not online when I put a CD in the
>drive.

The data that these programs get always comes from an online source. It's up
to a customer, the label, or the artist themselves to submit that
information to the CDDB (CD database) in order for it to be retreivable...
Call it a wikipedia for CDs. Gracenote, as was previously mentioned, has
been the most recommended submission and retreival tool that I've heard of.
And Windows Media, Winamp, Itunes and all those other music programs
connected to CDDB pull artist and track information from there. Whether that
information is independently retrieveable is beyond me.

>So, (1) is there any database that connects the UPC on the box and the
>content of the recording that would useful for this?

The only database I know of that is the most comprehensive is SoundScan, but
I don't think that's an open database that just anyone can access, and I
think all they track is sales, the artist name, album, & release year. As
for the content of each album (i.e. the individual tracks), I'm not sure if
they store that. All I know is that they're the ones that determine which
artists are in the billboard charts, since that's linked 1-1 with sales from
retailers (not including internet sales or concert sales unless those venues
and sites are independently registered reporters to soundscan).

I think this is the same company that calculates ratings for TV shows as
well. Their reports are scanned frequently by major labels like Sony,
Arista, EMI, etc to identify which peanut artist is selling CDs so they can
find and sign the ones who are selling reasonably big on their own with the
hopes of morphing them into some Joshua Bell playboy to make them even
bigger and (probably) make their label millions.

>Or (2) can I somehow pull the information from Winamp out to a disk file
>that I could later
>import into Access?

Don't know about that... but I doubt it can be done in a straightforward
manner.

Bry

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