Music video cataloguing

Music video cataloguing identifies an audiovisual production and relates it to music credits without equating it with the sound recording alone.

A music video combines sound with a particular visual production. Its soundtrack can use a familiar studio recording while its pictures, editing and production credits identify another resource.

The fictional song River Lights illustrates several possibilities:

Video Sound relationship Video relationship
Promotional film Uses the studio recording A staged and edited audiovisual production
Concert clip Captures a live performance A recording of that concert presentation
Lyric video May reuse the studio recording Another visual presentation with rendered words

These videos can express the same musical work without being identical recordings. The promotional film and lyric video can even share the same sound while having different video content.

IFPI's music-video identifier guidance makes that distinction explicit: a music-video recording has an identity separate from a sound recording, including when the latter supplies its soundtrack.

Credits describe different contributions

The songwriter and composer belong to work context. Musicians and vocalists describe the represented performance. A video director, editor or cinematographer describes the audiovisual production.

Copying the audio track's credits can therefore supply useful music information while leaving the video's production unexplained. A video title plus artist also may not distinguish several edits of the same promotion.

Useful edition labels describe the actual choice: original promotional edit, live at the harbour or lyric video. Codec/resolution labels describe alternate technical sources of one production instead.

Album associations need a reason

A video can promote an album, feature a song later included on several products, or represent a performance never issued on that album. An album relationship is not established solely by a soundtrack match.

Emby's Music Naming documentation describes music-video libraries and artist/album associations. Those associations help connect browsing contexts. The video still needs its own audiovisual description.

A rendered lyric video is also distinct from timed lyric data. Its text is part of the video image. A sidecar lyric timeline gives an app text and timing that it can render separately.

See Also

References