Renaming Zip Files

Harryoke said:

In the course of working with zipped MP3G files, when you find one that is named incorrectly, what is the best method to rename the files? If you merely rename the zip folder, that wont help you by renaming the files inside, and your search engine probably wont find the proper name.

For example, when ripping Pioneer disc one, which changed lineups (thanks Pioneer) and now half the songs are misnamed....

What is the best and most painless way to deal with this?

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I believe MP3+G Toolz has the capability of renaming files as they are zipped up....

If you are using AutOKdj simply renaming the zip file actually will do the trick... since if using zips winamp reads the file name in the absence of ID3 Tags...

Or there are various renamers out there that will work in bulk.... if it's just a handfull of files unzip and rename manually also take the time to correct the ID3 tags.... just in case you decide to go back to unzipped files.... which is what I did.... because it just works better.

You can also look for a freeware app called "Zip Contents Renamer". You rename the zip file, then run ZCR and it will rename the mp3 and cdg files in the archive to match the name of the archive.

Harryoke said:

That may have been the genesis of some of the problem actually... I found that Pioneer 001 was mislabeled, so I converted the zip to bins, renamed the bins, then reconverted to zips.

When I converted to the zips, I allowed MP3gtools to go online, and it started renaming the corrected files BACK to the wrong names. After the third one, I stopped it...corrected them again, and then used MP3gtools again WITHOUT allowing it to go online. That worked, but was time consumptive.

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Yeah, your probably right cause it uses the same FreeCDDB that almost all rippers use to look up CD information on... and if it's wrong there it's going to be wrong in your files too.

I'd look for a renamer that renames based on the zip files name as was mentioned in an earlier post...

YouTube - AutoKDJ File Format Help
YouTube - Convert karaoke zip files to AutoKDJ format

Unzip the files and leave them unzipped. You computer will thank you. The best way to solve a problem is by not making it in the first place.

exweedfarmer said:

Unzip the files and leave them unzipped. You computer will thank you. The best way to solve a problem is by not making it in the first place.

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My first reaction to this was to scoff, but then I thought about it... The reason we zipped files in the past is so we could fit more songs on our piddly 100 or 120 GB hard drives. Zipping nearly cut the size of the song (actually just the CDG file, not the MP3) in half. What was 10-15 MB before became 6-8 MB after zipping. That meant going from ~10,000 songs to ~16,000 songs. But now with terabyte drives being affordable, zipping means going from ~100,000 songs to ~160,000 songs...except that I don't even have 100 thousand songs in the first place! (are there even 100k songs available??) So why should I waste my time zipping them and then devoting CPU cycles to unzipping them every time I play them?

Hey Tim,

I can think of one good reason. Call it a "in the future" of karaoke.

I think in a few years, a lot of the stuff i'm doing now is going to be more plug n play (easier for the masses) Karaoke will be more than music and lyrics, maybe they'll be multitrack (vocoder synths) with midi tracks for controlling effects, bringing the karaoke experience closer to what the real rock stars use.

Zip is a decent container format. It might not be the best container format, but it's widely used, and since it's pretty much become a standard format for karaoke already, when we start seeing the stuff I mentioned in the preceding paragraph happening people won't be re-inventing the wheel for it. Most likely zip will continue to dominate karaoke as the standard container format.

Toq: Why would you need to contain a computer file? Anything that you do to a file you have to undo before you can use it. As Tim said, you don't gain a lot by compressing an MP3 file (about 8%). The CDG file ususally compresses 80-90% but that's because it's mostly garbage (filler bytes for timing purposes) in the first place. Now add to that the fact that the graphics data is 1 bit and you don't have a robust format in the first place, adding an unnecessary process such as zipping, any unnecessary process, is just plain stupid.

exweedfarmer said:

Toq: Why would you need to contain a computer file? Anything that you do to a file you have to undo before you can use it. As Tim said, you don't gain a lot by compressing an MP3 file (about 8%). The CDG file ususally compresses 80-90% but that's because it's mostly garbage (filler bytes for timing purposes) in the first place. Now add to that the fact that the graphics data is 1 bit and you don't have a robust format in the first place, adding an unnecessary process such as zipping, any unnecessary process, is just plain stupid.

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I think Stupid is an awefully strong word to use.... for one thing with AutOKdj and many other Karaoke Host programs the data bases used for song search are either based on the actual file name or the ID3 Tags.... and since most KJ's don't take the time to make sure their Tags are correct it is much simpler to just Zip the files and allow the program used to determine the file informatioin from the file name.

I myself took the time and effort to tag my karaoke mp3's but most wont. So to say it stupid is really a bad choice of words.

Toqer is correct Zip is a good container... as karaoke hosters evolve you would be able to add other files pertaining to different functions within these new and wonderful programs... Just look at OtsAV this is exactly what they do... and it allows for better tagging then ID3 could ever offer.

Next time think before you post.... thanks.

exweedfarmer said:

Toq: Why would you need to contain a computer file?

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AVI is a container format. So is .mov, so is mpeg, hell, even word .doc files are container formats when you embed stuff in them. Having a container format just makes it easier to manage all the files within the container.

So zip can be thought of as the poor mans container format for karaoke. It wasn't intentional, but it's not a horrible container format either. Right now the container is used to keep .mp3 and .cdg all nice and neat. When/If the day ever comes that .mp3/.cdg is paired up with more files, I.E. additional audio tracks or effects timing, I'm just saying I doubt anyone is going to re-invent that since it's already so widely used.

PS. You can get some speed gains by zipping without compression. Still keeps things nice and neat.

To quote the sage Forrest Gump "Stupid is as stupid does." I would and did call something which complicates a process to no advantage whatever, stupid. It's like keeping pencils up you nose. Take them out to inhale, put them back, take them out to exhale, replace, ad infinitum. The arguement in favor of this practice is that this is the way it has always been done and should you need to jot something down....

Bottom line is that there is no advantage to compressing or merging. It's a lot easier to open two disk files than it is to sort one file into two and then use the result, let alone decompressing them.

"if((infile=fopen(filename,"rb"))!=NULL)" That's all there is to opening a disk file in the C language. Now go google the source code for an unzipper.

Exweed... tread lighter my friend.. what you say makes sense however, what we are talking about is a standardized system... nobody says you have to use any compression at all. Sure there are other container formats available that would do the job better than zip but currently they are not supported by the vast majority of programs...

I too run unzipped but to say that folks using zipped are stupid is crossing the line.

jokerswild said:

Exweed... tread lighter my friend.. what you say makes sense however, what we are talking about is a standardized system... nobody says you have to use any compression at all. Sure there are other container formats available that would do the job better than zip but currently they are not supported by the vast majority of programs...

I too run unzipped but to say that folks using zipped are stupid is crossing the line.

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I fear you are taking personal offense from a purely accademic discussion. As for stupidity in general I know where-of I speak for I have vast experience at being stupid and acting stupidly. Therefore, I know that the first step towards ending stupidity is to admit that what you are doing is stupid. It's only a word. Do not be afraid.

Well I guess apple, the mpeg group, whoever invented AVI and all the other container format people are stupid too. Sorry the point went over your head weed.

Yes Toqer, it is true. Completely over my head. The advantage of a container is what exactly??? The advantage of admitting you're stupid is that there is always room to learn from someone else. So then Prof. Toqer, if you please.

Oh man, we're pulling the gloves off aren't we weed. OK, let's tango then.

MP3 is limited to 2 channel stereo. So is wav, so are most other audio formats. If you want to do something with multichannel awesomeness automatically like let's say...
YouTube - Freestyle Don't stop the rock, Reaper Reavocode
THIS!

You'll need to step into the realm of multiple files, or even multiple file formats.

Now sure, you can store these files in subfolders, easy enough. Even from a programming perspective, it's much easier to not have to demux some container before sending **** out to your decoders BUT..

End users want:
awesomeness automatically

Automatic awesomeness will not happen if I have to tell my end user "Hey, you have to download this file here, and this file there, then assemble the files all together in this directory" Nah, they just want to deal with one file, and it it only takes another week or two to support a container format, then from a end user usability standpoint, it shouldn't matter what my technical opinion is. Not everyone is as smart as me, and I shouldn't expect them to be either.

Now let's get back into the mp3+g zipped realm of today,

In most media players, they use a flat file database with no relational tables. Winamp is an awesome example of this. This is fine if you're just going to cue up songs. On the other hand, if you want to truly expose the winamp UI and API system for something like uhhm, putting a persons name on the Winamp Playlist next to thier song, you have to play by Winamps rules.

So in a flat file database we have..

c:\music\america.mp3 bob
c:\music\amazing.mp3 grace
c:\music\anarchy.mp3 frank

What happens if frank decides to sing america as well? In a flat file, non relational database you get screwed, thats what.

On the other hand, if you had these files in a container format, then copied the mp3 from the container to a temp directory, the flat file database stays happy because you can do things like

c:\temp\frank\09td953\america.mp3 frank
c:\temp\grace\0gfd44s\america.mp3 grace
c:\temp\bob\gy435fdv\america.mp3 bob

I'm also going to point out that of all the Winamp based hosters, we were the only ones that took into account how to work with winamp, keep the winamp skin/look/feel. Sure, we could have taken the short route of making a hosting system with a non relational db outside of the winamp media library DB, but we felt that this was cheating the end user by telling them "You have to run 2 apps, winamp and my butt ugly frontend"

End users don't want to have to run a bunch of things to host karaoke. They don't want to have to worry about multiple file pairs. It's just easier. For us, there's not really a performance hit either. It's not a huge annoying thing to code it if it makes the end users happy. If you want to keep arguing it though thats cool, i'll be home all day watching my kid tomorrow so I got plenty of time to fire posts back and forth.

I hadn't thought about the "future proof" aspect of it. But honestly Toq, don't youo figure record execs/karaoke manufacturers/ "the Man" or who ever is going to come up with their own file format? You know, MTK (Multi-Track Karaoke) files? It just doesn't seem reasonable to expect anyone in the music industry to do something logical like sticking to existing defacto standards.

Tim_Myth said:

It just doesn't seem reasonable to expect anyone in the music industry to do something logical like sticking to existing defacto standards.

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No, and why not? MP3 is pretty much the standard music format, period. Sure you have wav, mp4, flac, ogg, and many others.... but name more than 5 mainstream players that recognize all of them as a standard file format.... I can name none... they ALL recognize mp3 as the standard.

Flawed as it might be and as defacto as it might seem it is the standard.... zip is no different. Is it the best, no. But the majority of karaoke hosters out today recognize mp3+g zip files and will play them.

Toqer is right some sort of container format will be used be it zip or something else as it stands the chances of it being something else and then being adobted by everyone is next to nil. And that's the point.