kjam's use of xml

[pietro79]

Hello

When I import MPG's, XML's are created

I was wondering, in practical terms, how Kjams uses XML's?

Or what happens if I delete them

Thanks!

pietro

[dave]

they contain meta data for your song. date added, label color, publisher, encoding format, duet, language, key, vocal channel, volume, rating, etc etc, you can add whatever meta data you want. if you delete it, you'll reset whatever meta data that was in the file back to zero or NULL or nothing or whatever makes sense.

[pietro79]

alright
thank you for enlightening

pietro

[dave]

[SWLinPHX]

Question: Why are .xml files created for zipped files and also cdg/mp3 pairs also? Is meta data stored here for all formats or within the file like standard mp3's? I can understand with the mpg's and mp4 movies but a little confused in this case. Is it if I change the meta data from what it was originally, thus saving my changes outside the file in an accompanying .xml?

[dave]

mp3 has it's own internal meta store: "ID3". Vorbis has "Vorbis Comments". QuickTime .mov has "QuickTime MetaData", these are all stored WITHIN the media of the file itself. However, even the best of these formats don't store things like label color, start/end trimming, volume, key changes, whether it's a duet, etc etc. So I use the .xml as a sidecar file to store all that info. i store it OUTSIDE the zip file so it doesn't have to be unzipped in order to read the meta data.

[SWLinPHX]

Gotcha, exactly what I wanted to know. What confused me is that iTunes also has all that extra meta info too that cannot be stored in the file's tag, but instead of being in an .xml sidecar file it stores it in the iTunes Library file I suppose, right? I was never sure which data was not in each song file and only in the iTunes Library file.

[dave]

Right! But if you reinstall your system, or lose your iTunes database file, accidentally delete it, or need to rebuild it from scratch due to corruption or just cuz you want to start over, you will LOSE all the extra meta data. with sidecar files, the data lives WITH the music, so you never lose it (unless you've lost the music, in which case it doesn't matter).

[SWLinPHX]

Makes sense... I like it!

[dave]