Vinyl & Data

I wanted to call this post "Return of the SID", but there is only so much nerdiness you can squeeze into one topic. But, I am going to talk about SID codes once again, so it is best to first read part 1 , part 2 and part 3 about SID codes if you are not familiar with them. SID codes are inherently tied to CDs, or CD-like media (DVD, Blu-Ray, and so on) and have not been used anywhere else. One thing I wondered: for how many releases in the Discogs database have SID codes been defined when it actually is a different format for which SID codes do not make any sense at all, such as vinyl, or cassettes? So I got the latest Discogs data dump (releases until November 1 2017), adapted my scripts , ran some tests and got quite interesting results: 332 vinyl records 151 cassettes 24 files (digital music files) 13 shellac discs 2 DCC releases 1 VHS release 1 Memory Stick release 1 Edison Disc Especially the Edison Disc made me chuckle, as it is such an ancient format, an...

And again it is time to dive into the world of SID codes. Before reading this post it is advised to read part 1 and part 2 . Before I used Discogs I had not heard of SID codes and never realized that they can (somewhat) be used help date a release, as SID codes were only introduced in 1994. I found out by accident when I was browsing through Discogs and found this release that I have had for many years. I bought it back in 1994 or 1995 and always wondered why it showed up in the shop (new) then even though it had supposedly been available already a number of years before. This year I found out  after learning about SID codes that my copy is a later repress . This made me wonder: how many releases in the Discogs database are there that have some SID code defined, but have the year set to something earlier than 1994? I added a check to my scripts and analyzed the latest available Discogs data dump (with data until November 1 2017) and found 3092 releases with a release dat...

Another round of digging into SID codes. Before you read this it is highly advised to first read part 1 about SID codes. In the first part I wondered how many releases have SID fields defined, but have something in there that isn't an actual SID code. For that it is important to know what a valid SID code actually means. Valid SID codes According to the IFPI specifications this is a valid SID code: "The SID Code consists of the letters 'IFPI', followed by either four or five additional characters, which may be alphabetical or numerical [...]" which seems very clear. There are a few extra restrictions: the additional characters in the mastering SID code always have to start with "L", and mould SID codes cannot use the characters "I", "O", "S" or "Q" (it is unclear from the document if this is just for mould SID codes, or also for mastering SID codes). With that background information I (partially) adapt...

One thing that I only learned about after using Discogs is the so called Source Identification Code, or SID. These codes were introduced in 1994 to combat piracy and to find out on which machines a CD was made. It was introduced by Philips and adopted by IFPI, and specifications are publicly available which clearly describe the two available SID codes (mastering SID code and mould SID code). Since quite a few months Discogs has two fields available in the " Barcode and Other Identifiers " (BaOI) section: Mould SID code Mastering SID code A few questions immediately popped up in my mind: how many releases don't have a SID field defined when there should be (for example, the free text field indicates it is a SID field)? how many releases have a SID field with values that should not be in the SID field? how many release have a SID field, but a wrong year (as SID codes were only introduced in 1994) how many vinyl releases have a SID code defined (which is impossi...