Hi Randy--
Thanks for the suggestion. It seems that Subversion's ability to
track changes in the states of things is one of its strengths. I
began to wonder if this applied to our needs and I came across this
passage, "People will sometimes use Subversion to distribute huge
collections of photos, digital music, or software packages. The
problem is that this sort of data usually isn't changing at all. The
collection itself grows over time, but the individual files within
the collection aren't being changed." Updating a record is a change,
but nothing as dynamic as Subversion is made for. I can see how
collaboration would be a good context for it. My shopping lists
change into kindling. Rob D.
At 8:50 PM -0700 4/21/10, Randy Perretta wrote:
>
>
>I just got caught up on this thread so maybe reading all the
>messages made me think of this. Why not just use Subversion? I know
>there's gotta be something wrong with this but off hand I can't
>think of anything. Wrap it up with a music specific Cocoa front end
>and voila! Archiving, version control, check in check out for
>collaborative work, metadata. Doesn't really care about file types,
>I've seen it referred to in Logic and Ableton forums. It's getting
>used in those apps. I know people who keep shopping and to-do lists
>and casual personal stuff on it. That may be just a little bent.
>The only downside I see is that Subversion likes to eat disk space
>when it's playing with binaries - big diffs.
>Anyone here using it in their DAW?
>
>--- On Wed, 4/21/10, Steve Pelikan
><<pelikan%40math.uc.edu>> wrote:
>
>From: Steve Pelikan <<pelikan%40math.uc.edu>>
>Subject: Re: [Nature Recordists] from metadata to archiving
>To:
><naturerecordists%40yahoogroups.com>=
m
>Date: Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 8:28 PM
>
>Yes Rob, I agree 100% that it'd be nice to have all this
>extraction/consolidation/im/exporting of data done automatically.
>
>My point was that even with that nifty technology available we
>still need to get people to record important data. And I think
>that's a much bigger problem than the software issue by far. It is
>hard and time consuming and it has to be done with thought and
>accurately to be worthwhile. All this is from the perspective of
>archiving for someone else's eventual use or for historical value of
>the audio data, not the recordist's convenience.
>
>Also as you say, there's also no doubt (say we develop a great
>template for data) that it'll end up getting dumped in a data base
>of some sort --- and I'd bet over 90% of people's use of it would be
>satisfied with a flat spread sheet functionality.
>
>I also agree with you that there isn't tremendous day-to-day need
>for the metadata data to be included in a file with the audio data
>itself, if that's what you're saying. Especially if people have been
>careful about naming audio files in a unique way.
>
>But there's a reason that museums insist that all collection data
>goes on a label attached directly to a specimen --- otherwise any
>accident that breaks the link between accession data and specimen
>makes the specimen essentially worthless. So from the perspective of
>long term value and archiving for other's eventual use, if I had a
>choice, I'd say add an extra block to the bwav/riff/whatever/ files
>and put the data there.
>
>Best!
>
>Steve P
>
>--- In
><naturerecordists%40yahoogroups.com>=
m,
>Rob Danielson <> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Steve--
>> You're going to be typing high quality data because that's the kind
>> of recordist/guy you are. If your going to have a template to "store"
>> and use, you need a full fledged-database. The template you use for
>> your DB "records" will allow you to discriminate things I'd never
>> think of,.. And you'll build that template out a basic template that
>> we'll have after the interlinked apps are in beta.
>>
>> Question. Would you like being able to add your high quality info for
> > your database at the same time you log, make excerpts and add
>> reliable "automatic" stuff like place, date, basic weather globally?
>> I'm saying use the time stamp from your SD, use the GPS info when
>> that becomes norm but add everything else in the consolidation app.
>> (Those with less sophisticated recorders can add the time stamp in
>> the consolidation app). Your java code/function can go into the
>> database.
>>
>> I'm not seeing a use for data "attached" to a sound file once its
>> extracted by the consolidation app and related to everything else in
>> a database. Help me! I must be overlooking some need that others are
>> seeing. Rob D.
>>
>> =3D =3D =3D =3D =3D
>>
>> At 2:19 AM +0000 4/22/10, Steve Pelikan wrote:
>> >Friends:
>> >
>> >I agree that one could/should construct
>> >free/cross-platform/easy-to-use software for manipulation of
>> >metadata. I'll share all my java library code and python scripts
>> >with anyone who wants to do it.
>> >
>> >But I think the real problem is much closer to what Vicki was saying
>> >a few messages back: people actually need to take the time and
>> >exercise care and understanding to produce good documentation and
>> >metadata. This can't really be done automatically.
>> >
>> >Even high res and high tech fixes won't do, I'm afraid. As an
>> >example, consider something simple like a recording of a single
>> >bird's song: maybe GPS and chronometer data that's automatically
>> >recorded say when and where to milliseconds and meters. But was the
>> >bird identified by sight or could it be a mimic? Was it an adult or
>> >immature? Male or female? What was it doing while making the sounds?
>> >What conspecifics were present? Where thate predators around? Or
>> >prey? etc. etc. None of this could be logged automatically ---
>> >someone has to notice it, know it is significant, and record/enter
>> >it.
>> >
>> >And of course the potential questions to be answered about a
>> >"soundscape" are this multiplied many times over.
>> >
>> >So I think discussing software is fine --- I even wrote some a while
>> >back for my own use --- but the real issue is spreading an
>> >understanding of the importance of such ancillary data and
>> >encouraging each other to make ever better efforts at recording and
>> >preserving it.
>> >
>> >If we were going to do anything high tech at all here I'd propose we
>> >work towards developing a template ( perhaps an XML format (DTD or
>> >schema)) we could all use to record all the significant facts about
>> >a cut. Anyone implementing a metadata manipulation program would
>> >benefit from such a standardization and in the mean time we could
>> >all work towards including all the important data in our
>> >documentation in some "exportable" form.
>> >
>> >--- just my $0.02 worth
>> >
>> >Steve P
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>
>------------------------------------
>
>"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
>sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
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