Portable/Cloud Store of Media Library Metadata

[mmontag]

Hello All,

I would like to open a new discussion about Media Library problems that arise when listening to your music on several machines, different Winamp installations, and different physical file storage configurations.

If you use Winamp on more than one computer, you don't get the same favorites, rankings, etc. To me, this is a serious problem. Here is a typical thread on the subject, started in 2005 and recently active. http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=207373

I want to propose a solution to this and get some feedback on implementation feasibility, and maybe it's possible to implement these proposals in a plugin.

Right now Winamp Library links metadata with file paths for each song. The ML data records look something like this (with omissions):

code:
filename                 title           artist            playcount     rating

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

c:\music\britney.mp3     Hit Me Baby     Britney Spears    5             4

d:\songs\hitmebaby.mp3   Hit Me Baby     Britney Spears    8             <NULL>

I would propose something like the following. File contents should be hashed (in a format-agnostic manner, maybe in a way that metadata like ID3 is ignored) and play statistics should be associated with the hash in a separate table. Media Library records are then each linked with one hash record. This way the user has freedom to move files or add from different locations and maintain consistent playback statistics. Even when the entire Media Library is purged, playcounts could still be maintained in the hash table.

code:
filename                 title           artist              hash_id

---------------------------------------------------------------------

c:\music\britney.mp3     Hit Me Baby     Britney Spears      384

d:\songs\hitmebaby.mp3   Hit Me Baby     Britney Spears      384



hash_id   hash                    playcount     rating

-------------------------------------------------------

384       3BCA41FA62239D          13            4

The hashed table portion of the Media Library could be made portable, so that users can store it online, carry it on thumb drives, sync across many Winamp installs, etc. It could work out pretty great. I would like to hear about the history of this Media Library issue, discuss objections, and talk about the hurdles involved.

Matt