I discovered a new feature in Windows Vista last night that I'm not sure I really like, but maybe I'm just being paranoid.
When I got my new computer I was impressed with how Vista is quite intuitive with your files.
It puts your photo's into a photo section and immediately gives you info and options to sort, edit and print your photos.
With music, the files are recognized as music and sorted in a pretty cool way. Album covers are automatically added to each file. It's a really nice setup for a variety of reasons.
But now here's the slightly frightening part.
Last Saturday I did a show for two hours with FireFly. I recorded the show and when it was done I cut it into two equal one hour parts to put on a couple CD's.
The files were originally on a computer running Windows XP. They were raw files that I ripped from the radio stream. They had NO ID Tagging and were simply titled with a show name and date.
So I transfer them to the computer with Windows Vista but for some reason I can't find them when I look for em'. After some searching I find that they have been moved to the music folders and Vista has given them each an ARTIST NAME, SONG TITLE and ALBUM NAME, even though the files are each an hour long.
THE WEIRD THING IS Vista CORRECTLY identified the FIRST SONG PLAYED on each of the segments and titled it accordingly!
This freaks me out a little! Vista actually recognizes the sound imprint and apparantly compares it to some database on the internet to identify what song it is!
Is it just me, or do you guys think this is a little creepy too?
I feel like anytime I play a song on my personal computer, even if I didn't tag it, big brother knows exactly what I'm playing/listening to.
"Tell me, does it move you, Does it soothe you, Does it fill your heart and soul with the roots of rock & roll? When you can't get through it you can listen to it with a 'na na na na', Well I've been there before" -"Been There Before" by Hanson
With large digital music libraries, tracks usually come from a number of different places, with varying levels of accurate media information (metadata). It's often hard to ensure all of your tracks are tagged appropriately. In addition to automated metadata tools that run in the background, Windows Media Player 11 now includes audio waveform matching that builds on existing media information features and precisely pinpoints the exact album information for your tracks.
How does this work? As you start ripping CDs into Windows Media Player 11, information is compiled through a database and waveforms are matched to identify the song. Information is verified and then attached to the song or album.
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I found the above information on it, but this suggests it is done when you rip a CD into your computer, which I can understand.
But I didn't rip a CD. I just placed a sound file in my computer that was titled something totally unrelated to the artists, and it basically said, "No, you're wrong, we listened to it and it's actually this artist and song"!
"Tell me, does it move you, Does it soothe you, Does it fill your heart and soul with the roots of rock & roll? When you can't get through it you can listen to it with a 'na na na na', Well I've been there before" -"Been There Before" by Hanson
I think it's a pleasant enough looking OS, and I do like the filing system, although it took a while to get used to it because I was so used to the XP way.
The only real complaint I have, and it's a major one, is the lack of compatibility with so many of my programs.
I never like when Windows thinks its smarter than me and tries to change things I don't want changed.
Having said that though, I do think the way it is able to look at the data and figure out what song it is is pretty darn cool.
Yeah, I agree Web. Part of me thinks it's really awesome. It could be really useful.
IN FACT, it will auto-fix tags on songs that are mislabeled. We know from experience that would be REALLY helpful if the broadcast computer were running on XP.
I guess it just makes me nervous about just what they're capable of and how much may be going on behind the scenes of my computer that I don't know about.
I can see a problem with it not having data on the more obscure/unknown songs. I'd be curious where it gets is sampling from . . . Is Windows doing it, or is it user submitted?
The next thing I would worry about with using it on like the broadcast computer is that is this Windows. What if it broke and suddenly decided that every song on your computer looked like Van Halen's "Jump" and redid all the tags to that?
I think it's a pleasant enough looking OS, and I do like the filing system, although it took a while to get used to it because I was so used to the XP way.
The only real complaint I have, and it's a major one, is the lack of compatibility with so many of my programs.
Lack of compatibility is one reason. It's just not really an improvement, and is giving techs a lot of trouble.
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"Tell me, does it move you, Does it soothe you, Does it fill your heart and soul with the roots of rock & roll? When you can't get through it you can listen to it with a 'na na na na', Well I've been there before" -"Been There Before" by Hanson
I think it's a pleasant enough looking OS, and I do like the filing system, although it took a while to get used to it because I was so used to the XP way.
The only real complaint I have, and it's a major one, is the lack of compatibility with so many of my programs.
Lack of compatibility is one reason. It's just not really an improvement, and is giving techs a lot of trouble.
It looks like a huge RAM hog. At work, they keep asking my opinion if we should switch, and I keep adamantly saying no.
