Slashdot Mirror
Track Separation Detection for Streaming Media?
manavendra asks: "I have been using a couple of streaming audio rippers for about a week now (StreamRipper and StationRipper, most notably), but most of them seem to be afflicted with the same problem - inconsistent track separation. I've read about the Shoutcast Metadata Protocol, but I haven't properly understood how the silence-detection mechanism of track separation works. There have been users who have observed that since most tracks are skewed by a few seconds (depending upon the radio station), they advise adding provision to delay or advance the timing. Has anyone implemented a better mechanism, since basing breaks on silence detection seems dodgy in first place? Can someone can shed some light on the inherent problems of reliable track separation?"
How do YOU know the difference between two tracks? You talk like there HAS to be SOMETHING that identifies track seperation, but this simply is not true. I bet if you pop in Pink Floyd's: Dark side of the moon, you can't tell when it is the next track, without looking at the track indicator. This is because you look for a pause... an inconsistancy in the flow of sound, or perhaps a seperation of audio by silence. Eliminate these, and you have nothing to work with, but again, you can't count on these.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If you really care about the music being offered then you'd manually do the track editing yourself. And if you care that much you should be paying for the stuff, or, if it's something truly unique then the extra effort that it takes to do the splitting manually is the price you have to pay. What happened to people loving music?
Of course I personally dislike many of those radio stations that just sequence a playlist on winamp and let it run. Gaps between tracks just doesn't make good radio, it's lazy on the part of the 'DJ'.
Yes there are better ways, depending on the metadata protocol (shoutcast has a really broken metadata system) and on the source streamer. I wrote code for it a long time ago, but it was just at odds with any notion that I was a music fan.
Can you separate tracks based not only on audio but also on the title/artist data displayed?
If you had software that did that and combined it with a ripper, you could leave it running all day and have a repository of free (well, already-paid-for) legally owned music.