(Legal) Song Downloading/Uploading program

[coolguy567]

So here's my take on the age-old request of the in-game system for downloading and uploading songs. The difference is that it's completely legal so it can't be shut down (...I hope). It could be either an external program or built into FoFiX.

When you upload a song, you upload only the notes.mid and song.ini. The song.ini must have the Title, Artist and Album filled in.

When you go into the download section, the program scans your computer's iTunes/WiMP/whatever library and searches for songs within your library within its database of uploaded charts. You pick one of the songs to download a chart for and it displays all the charts that are available, along with what instruments and difficulties are charted and a rating for that chart (based on user votes). You pick it and it downloads this chart (which should be very fast, considering it's just the mid and the ini), then converts the song from your library into an ogg, and puts the mid, ini, ogg and the album art from your library together into a single, game-ready folder which is placed in your FoF songs folder.

Now your probably planning to say that the sync will be wrong, and I have thought about this. Next it would go to a syncing screen. There would be a watered-down EOF-like interface, ideally with the song's waveform, showing the chart. You just drag the first note back and forth (the whole chart moves with it) and play it through a few times until the first note is approximately in the right place. Assuming the original chart is in sync, then you only need to get the first note right and the rest will fall into place. Then there'd be a second stage to get the sync more precise:

* If the program was part of FoFiX (and not an external program) then the song would start and you can play it (possibly at a slower speed, and/or on an easier difficulty, if one is present). It keeps track of how early or late you played each note, and tries to find a trend. Obviously, if it finds that you played most of the notes too early, it will conclude that the chart must be too late, and will lower the delay in the song.ini to compensate. The game would interrupt you as soon as it has enough data to make a reliable conclusion. (the slow speed and/or easier difficulty would minimise the effect of inaccurate playing on this conclusion)
* If it is an external program, then the same sort of thing would happen in a (very) watered-down version of the game (i.e. just 2D or EOF-like 3D graphics, and no fretting; just strumming).

As well as being perfectly legal, there are other advantages over Tune Posting:
* Low download size (just the mids and inis) - this makes a big difference in countries that still have download caps, like where I live
* Searching your music library ensures that you'll find music you like
* More convenient than Tune Posting (well, I think so).

Obviously Tune Posting would remain for career packs, songs like those from Smart Apple (is that the right name?), and people who can't be bothered with being legal.

Am I just being naive to think that people actually care about legal issues and want to minimise download costs and are prepared to spend a minute to sync each song?

[death_au]

Am I just being naive to think that people actually care about legal issues and want to minimise download costs and are prepared to spend a minute to sync each song?

Quite possibly.

I kinda like this idea though, as a possible extension to nwru's songdb. (Well, a standalone program that grabs data from nwru's songdb in any case)
There are potential issues with this though. For example I believe some songs are edited to put some lead-in gap (you could do this in the program too, most likely), and others are edited to make shorter fade-outs or similar, which may be an issue syncing endings. I don't know how much editing other people do of the audio files, but pretty much any editing will screw the syncing up more than a delay can compensate for.
Similarly, you may have a song that matches title and artist to the chart you downloaded, but it's a slightly different version (a radio edit, or album version or something) and that would not sync either. depending on how subtle the differences are between the versions, people may just put it down as a badly synced chart when it was in fact synced perfectly.

Other than that, The theory is good.

[Azzco]

Am I just being naive to think that people actually care about legal issues and want to minimise download costs and are prepared to spend a minute to sync each song?

Quite possibly.

I kinda like this idea though, as a possible extension to nwru's songdb. (Well, a standalone program that grabs data from nwru's songdb in any case)
There are potential issues with this though. For example I believe some songs are edited to put some lead-in gap (you could do this in the program too, most likely), and others are edited to make shorter fade-outs or similar, which may be an issue syncing endings. I don't know how much editing other people do of the audio files, but pretty much any editing will screw the syncing up more than a delay can compensate for.
Similarly, you may have a song that matches title and artist to the chart you downloaded, but it's a slightly different version (a radio edit, or album version or something) and that would not sync either. depending on how subtle the differences are between the versions, people may just put it down as a badly synced chart when it was in fact synced perfectly.

Other than that, The theory is good.

Yeah about the lead in gaps, there's a delay feature for this that can be used in the song.ini, I've mentioned it a few times but most times I've just been ignored. Editing the audio seems easier than entering a number in a text file it seems. =/

About endings, I don't think that it does a lot if the song is slightly longer. If notes are cut out on the other hand... But that shouldn't really be a problem.
Different versions, well I guess there's nothing that can be done about that really. Maybe just get everyone to stick with album versions?

In any case, this is theoretically possible and could be practical too if everyone were to follow the rules. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and it's hard to make something like this without a standard from the start.

[death_au]

Yeah about the lead in gaps, there's a delay feature for this that can be used in the song.ini, I've mentioned it a few times but most times I've just been ignored. Editing the audio seems easier than entering a number in a text file it seems. =/

I was under the impression that was only for the midis. In this case it's a non-issue. Even if the original charter edited the sound file to put a delay in at the start, you could still compensate for this in the program by updating that value in the ini.

In any case, this is theoretically possible and could be practical too if everyone were to follow the rules. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world and it's hard to make something like this without a standard from the start.

That's why I suggested it as a possibly connecting to nwru's database. If that database stored the notes.mid and song.ini as well, the program would just connect to that. It would also be easy for charters to update their charts (either to fix things, or to add new instruments / difficulties, etc)

[raynebc]

Yeah about the lead in gaps, there's a delay feature for this that can be used in the song.ini, I've mentioned it a few times but most times I've just been ignored. Editing the audio seems easier than entering a number in a text file it seems. =/

I have only had to add audio if the chart starts less than one beat from the beginning of the audio. It's not necessary, but I like to do it so that at least the first couple beats lead in with a steady tempo. I don't think I've seen anything about specifying a negative chart delay, so modifying the audio for this purpose is still necessary.

[Azzco]

I don't think I've seen anything about specifying a negative chart delay, so modifying the audio for this purpose is still necessary.

Hmm might be worth looking into, I was under the impression that negative values did work but I don't remember having tried it myself.

[lordhardware]

I don't think I've seen anything about specifying a negative chart delay, so modifying the audio for this purpose is still necessary.

Hmm might be worth looking into, I was under the impression that negative values did work but I don't remember having tried it myself.

im fairly certain they do

[evilbobthebob]

Negative delays work for sure. This is a very workable idea, if the back end is put in place correctly.