I sat down to breakfast this morning and kept thinking about my media and the problems I face when trying to get things properly cataloged, and realized the tools still aren’t out there to do things correctly.

Current media players (such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, etc.) are good for playing music, or for playing video, and are fairly good when it comes to cataloging audio, but they have a ways to go when it comes to cataloging video or – and this is the most important thing – cataloging MEDIA.

Let me explain myself. Audio files are one type of media. Video files are another. Writings are yet another. So are photos or graphics. Web pages can use all types, and they can be though of as another media type as well, a hybrid, so to speak. There isn’t a media player out there that combines the ability to play and properly catalog ALL of these different types of media, and in particular, to correlate them in meaningful and flexible ways. Here’s are a few example that illustrate the current shortcomings:

• I have a song by a certain artist, but I also have his or her music video for that particular song. They are seen as different files by the media player, and they come up as two different search results, when really, a common container should be created for that particular piece, and within it, the two pieces should be displayed together. While playing the song, I should be able to switch seamlessly between the audio version and the video version, without having to restart the song. The lyrics should also be stored as a third piece within that container, and if I want to, I should be able to display the lyrics onscreen for either the audio or the video version of the song.
• If I have a video file, I should be able to properly catalog it within the media player, but I have yet to find a player that will do it right. iTunes has recently started to offer the ability to view and store videos within its library. It also happens to be my favorite player. Skipping right over the misnomer inherent in the name of the software – Tunes means songs, not videos – it doesn’t allow me to catalog the videos correctly. I can enter tags for the videos, just like I can for the songs, but the same fields that apply to songs (Artist, Composer, Album, etc.) are provided as tags for the videos. That’s wrong. Appropriate, but parallel tags should be provided, such as Actor, Director, Studio, Series, etc.
• Lyrics can be entered for songs, but they cannot be entered for videos. That’s a clear shortcoming. What if I have a video interview. A transcript is also provided for that interview, in text format. I should be able to store that transcript right alongside the video, so I can access it as needed.
• Let’s look at books. The audio and written version of books should be stored in the same container in my media player. I should be able to switch between both. Also, if a movie was made of the book, and I have that movie in my library, it should be stored in that same container as well. If I’m reading a paragraph in the book, I should be able to switch directly to the movie scene that deals with that subject if I want to do so. If I want to access a list of the photos (provided with the book), I should be able to browse just the photos.
• Similarly, if I have an album by an artist, I should be able to see all of the cover art and photos for that album by switching to it while I’m playing the song.
• In my photo library, I should be able to store audio narration for a single photo or group of photos that I have taken, or have received through email from one of my friends, or have purchased or downloaded from the Internet.
• These containers that store the different media types for a piece of information, should be easily importable and exportable as a whole or in pieces. If I have two computers at home, I shouldn’t have to re-create each container by combining the pieces. If I want to copy a container from one computer to the other, I should be able to do so without problems, even if one of the computers is Macintosh and the other is Windows or Linux, as long as the media player was written for each of these operating systems.

The good news is that we can do this with the current technology. This isn’t some fairy tale. It should only take about 6 months to 1 1/2 years or so to develop the product. Yes, some of the media types will have to be re-tooled to allow for syncing of text and audio/video, but this CAN be done, and an amazing product awaits at the end of the tunnel.