AcoustID server release

I guess it’s time for AcoustID to have release notes when something gets released, so here is my first AcoustID server release blog post.

Chromaprint 0.5 released

A new version of Chromaprint has been released. The code library hasn’t been changed, but there are some bug fixes in the fpcalc utility and the Python bindings.

Acoustid database rebuilding

I’ve released a new version of the Acoustid server today. This release changes the way fingerprints are matched, so it required the database to be rebuilt, which means all previous “track IDs” will be lost. I’m expecting it will take at least a week before the database is back at the full size. This is probably the last rebuild and the IDs will stay stable from now on, but in case I discover some serious problems it might be necessary to do it one more time.

My story (as a programmer)

I started writing this as a bit longer bio blurb for the About page, but somehow it got too long before I was even halfway finished, so I decided to edit it a little bit and put it here instead. Not the usual stuff I post here, but not many people know how I got into programming and didn’t have the heart to just delete it. :)

Acoustid fingerprinter 0.4 released

I’ve just released a new version of the Acoustid fingerprinter. I’ve sneakily released 0.3 some time ago, but it was available only on Linux. The only change was support for reading of the PUID tags. This release brings that functionality also to Windows and OS X, plus a few bug fixes.

Acoustid submissions without MBIDs

I’ve released a new version of the Acoustid server that doesn’t require submissions to include MusicBrainz recording IDs. Applications can send textual metadata (track, artist, album, album artist, year, track number, disc number) instead and the server will try to match the tags to MusicBrainz by itself. The matching is actually not yet implemented, but the server is able to collect the data. The format of the metadata is described in the web service documentation.

Chromaprint 0.4 released

A new version of Chromaprint has been released. The main change is addition of an example application that uses the public C API and FFmpeg to allow externals programs to use Chromaprint without linking to the library. Other than this, there were some build system changes and added support for the latest development version of FFmpeg.

New Acoustid web service

Some time ago I realized that having the server code in Java keeps me away from working more on it. The original reason for writing it in Java was that I expected it would do harder work, but I really don’t need a “fast” language for simply running SQL queries. Additionally, since developing simple websites in Java turned out to be a pain, I used PHP to do the Acoustid website. I have no problem with PHP, but later I wanted to start integrating the website with the rest of the fingerprint database and it felt like a waste of my time to not share code, which is not easy if some parts are in Java, some in PHP. So, today I’ve released a new version of the server which is written completely in Python.