New Feature Idea, Anyone have the ability?

Cyque · 08-31-2004, 10:21 PM

I am not sure of the feasibility of this feature, but I thought I wold post it and see what the board thought. Someone on here may have some useful experience related to this.

I would really like to have the ability to show information about the song currently playing on my FM Tuner, much like XM does. I want to show things like song name, artist, album... I know that XM provides this info and FM does not. However, I thought of a potential method to allow this. Unfortunately, I have no experience in this matter and would like some thoughts on how possible you think this is.

What if there was a program/library that would listen to the current song playing(for the first few seconds, or as long as it took), analyze it (amplitude, tone, etc), and create some sort of unique id based off of this. We could then use this id to search a database of known songs for the information.

Just a thought. Any ideas?

Cyque · 08-31-2004, 10:22 PM

sorry to post back to back, but I didn't want an extremely long post. As a result, I posted some of the potential problems I see in a seperate post:

Problem #1: building the database
We could have the program analyze the mp3 libraries of users, strip the information from them, and add it to a central db. The central db could be placed online and updated daily by users at the click of a button.

If the abum is not found, the program displays a customizable message, nothing at all, or an info not found message.

Problem #2: analyzing the song
I am not sure how long you would have to analyze to get a fairly unique representation. Most songs are unique for the first 10 seconds, but 30 seconds or so may be necessary. Even so, I would love to have that info displayed for the song length - 30 seconds.

Bitoholic · 08-31-2004, 10:32 PM

Been done already... http://www.gracenote.com/gn_products/music_id.html

Quote: Originally Posted by Cyque

I am not sure of the feasibility of this feature, but I thought I wold post it and see what the board thought. Someone on here may have some useful experience related to this.

I would really like to have the ability to show information about the song currently playing on my FM Tuner, much like XM does. I want to show things like song name, artist, album... I know that XM provides this info and FM does not. However, I thought of a potential method to allow this. Unfortunately, I have no experience in this matter and would like some thoughts on how possible you think this is.

What if there was a program/library that would listen to the current song playing(for the first few seconds, or as long as it took), analyze it (amplitude, tone, etc), and create some sort of unique id based off of this. We could then use this id to search a database of known songs for the information.

Just a thought. Any ideas?

frodobaggins · 08-31-2004, 10:32 PM

This technology is available, but will be a ***** to impliment.

Cyque · 08-31-2004, 10:43 PM

Thanks, Hybrid. That is exactly what I had in mind.

Bitoholic · 08-31-2004, 10:46 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Cyque

Thanks, Hybrid. That is exactly what I had in mind.

No problem. I mean I was not shooting down the idea, it would be fun to implement, but very much a ***** as Frodo said.

I just figure if it is already out there and can be used, why not try to use that first.

Glad to be of help.

Cyque · 09-01-2004, 07:29 AM

I agree.

I appears to be free for "non-commercial" development. I will look into it further.

The Durango Kid · 09-01-2004, 08:13 AM

I tried building a system like this but scanning the song and building wave used 100% and made any music I played stop.. Plus finding a match in my database was a ***** once I stored a few hundred songs.. I was building it to store ID3tag info for songs with the wrong ID3tag information.. But I guess it could be used to scan any incomming sound..

Here's a screen shot..

god_of_cpu · 09-01-2004, 08:32 AM

Or you could just use RDS http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...&highlight=rds

fasternfaster · 09-01-2004, 11:24 AM

whats funny is.. my FACTORY STEREO in my 2002 SVT Ford Focus DID THIS!!!

when i switched stations it would know the names
my display would say "HOT 99.5" for example and it would scroll if the name was too long...
and at the begining of each song..it would display the ARTIST-TITLE of the song!!!!

granted it only did this for certain stations which led me to beleive that some radio stations actually BROADCAST some kind of "subliminal" lol data that my OEM receiver could decipher and print on the lcd display...

that was the ONLY nice thing about my indash 6 cd changer..everything else sucked (skipped, had amnesia attacks, forgot about CD's inside) etc.. i switched to a Pioneer deck really quick.. and now im gettin ready to put a CarPc in..

so..given the FACT that some radio stations BROADCAST this info.. there must be a way to listen to this?

anyone have similar experience???

Lev

edit- Pardon my ignorance...i just read the above mentioned thread and searched google for "what is RDS/RBDS" and got back lots of info.. and yes indeed it would be awesome to have this in a PC and i wonder why the hell my Pioneer receiver doesnt have it and costs 380 bux

Confused · 09-01-2004, 12:03 PM

fasternfaster,

That is a function of RDS. However, as you said, only some stations actually broadcast the song name, most (in the UK, anyway) just broadcast the station name, and that's it.

DAB radio (which is available in the UK/Europe) provides the technology to have high quality broadcasts (up to 256kbps MP2) along with text/images, but the BBC (again, in the UK) have stuck about 8-10 stations on each multiplex (when they should really be having 4-5), and put most of them on 96-128kbps datarates (which sounds even worse than a similarly specced MP3) and don't broadcast any extra data (track information etc) with it either

XM was the best, but with the demise of the XM-PCR, that is going to die, too

The only way to get this for FM (or equivelent) is to listen to the music for a few seconds, generate a hash somehow, and then query it against a database.

The FreeDB database, which is just a text list of albums and CD IDs is 250mb to download, and 1.5gb extracted. Adding hashes to all songs that have been made is going to be a BIG task, the only way I know of is using something like AudioBrainz, but there is no way (AFAIK) of getting the database for personal use.

Garry

fasternfaster · 09-01-2004, 02:15 PM

Thanks for the very informative reply confused!

Do they currently have USB fm receivers that can read and display the RDS (track/station info)? thats the real question.. and if they did i would definatly spend up to 50-60 bux on one. This whole idea with storing a database of all the songs isnt sounding too exciting to me for some reason... mainly because what ever radio feed you receive is not a digital signal, so any hash generated from it will be useless.. (if radio is going digital then it might not be as bad as i think).

Lev

kozmo · 09-01-2004, 02:42 PM

Its called high definition FM radio or something but its the next thing in FM radio song titles, station names, and other information alot of new car have it already

liquid_smoke · 09-01-2004, 05:20 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kozmo

Its called high definition FM radio or something but its the next thing in FM radio song titles, station names, and other information alot of new car have it already

yeah, its on the 04 Audi A4. Shows station name, artist, song title etc.

sdashiki · 09-03-2004, 02:26 PM

Radio Data System is already there for AM/FM.

Pioneer head units use it, the last three of mine did. And radio stations put something on a sideband attached to their freq. and it gives you whatever they want. Sometimes its always just the radio name like "Jammin 93.5" or KBBL 104.5 etc etc. Though on some "better" station they put the currently playing song.

So the resource is there with no database, your sound analyzing tool is something I thought I saw in a "name that tune" sort of database and works the same way you envision but thats not really something u can just "attach" to a fontend already. its more like a HUGe work unto itself.

guess this has been said before, but i like to repeat, gives me more carpal tunnel.