What is the CDArchiv?

The CDArchiv is a new project (started early 1999) with the ambition to build up a huge online archive for CDs. This archive is used by Hitbase to identify CDs and can be freely used by any other cd-player/program.

You might say: "Well, that already exists. So why do I need a new one?"

You are right with that argument but there are several reasons for building up a new archive:

1. The CDDB CD-Archive, which was free of charge for all users so far, no longer is accessible for free. You have to fulfill several using conditions which are not sustainable for Big 3 Software, which is why Hitbase will not support CDDB in further versions.

2. CDDB contains only a sparse amount of information about the CD itself and its songs. Detailed information, e.g. if the CD is a sampler or if it is a Rock/Pop-CD from one artist, is missing. Our CDArchiv is able to store this information (category, comments, BPM,...).

3. The uniformity of the CDDB is in some sense dissatisfying; any user can add a CD in the way they want to. Some people type everything in capitals, some don't. Some add the title and artist of a CD inside the songtitle, others don't. This is due to the fact that everybody has their own style of storing CDs. For a global archive, it would be useful to have standardized data.
   Because CDDB is an American project, many German CDs are cataloged incorrectly, with missing or incorrect accents, like umlauts.
   These facts induced us to put these discrepancies to a minimum by doing centralized and controlized updates to the archive.

4. Each Hitbase CD has an up-to-date snapshot of the CD-Archive included as of the date of it's pressing.
   It is not possible to update this local copy at the moment but it is planned in the near future that you can update your local CD-Archive frequently (each CD that finds it's way into the Archive is registered by date. So you have the possibility to do frequent updates e.g. every 4 weeks).

    

If you have further questions about the CD-Archive project, feel free to drop us a line.
 

(C)opyright 2000-2005 by Big 3 Software, Gebr. Schmitz GbR. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Bei Fragen und Unklarheiten wenden Sie sich bitte an: webmaster@cdarchiv.de.

Stand: 09.07.2006