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Author Topic: better ID3v2 support  (Read 3210 times)

justanother

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better ID3v2 support
« on: June 05, 2005, 12:58:53 am »

In case a v2 tag contains multiple pictures (APIC frames) MC seems to tread the first APIC frame found in a tag being the cover art. Nice attempt, but totally wrong. Since it could be any art, therefore an identifier is stored in each APIC frame indicating what sort of artwork it is. Displaying artist pictures (#7) for some albums against using the cover (#3) looks simply weird.
Another one. Track is a text field allowing for current track / total tracks (per album). When correcting tags (taggin) MC wipes that field and replaces it with a single number entry. As it was in the old days ov ID3v1.0. This means it wipes the work one invested into getting the data in the TAGs. it should preserve frames it can't handle.

And there's lots more frames one might like to use / is used to use, for better filtering. They aren't implemented at all. (as in 99% of all programs such as MC, so that's not something unique to MC but a common problem.

Is there a chance MC will get a more complete implementation in a foreseable time ?

Apart from the fact that I also miss a dead simply skin which makes it look like an ordinary windows XPish / NTish app.
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PeterHamburg

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #1 on: June 05, 2005, 04:37:28 am »

You are right. MediaCenter has some nice advanced features.
I would purchase it instantly after correct handling TRCK & TPOS frames. But it seems to me that this will not occur...I moaned about deleting my TRCK entries more than one year ago  :'(
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #2 on: June 05, 2005, 04:59:14 am »

Apart from the fact that I also miss a dead simply skin which makes it look like an ordinary windows XPish / NTish app.

Just curious, why would you want that?
Theres a skin that makes it look like Media Player...which is cool...
but just windows why so boring!
Most of the skins aren't obtrusive, most look quite professional.
If you do alot of diggin theres quite a lot of them out there.
May even be a windows one if you search hard enough, if not you could
always create one!


justanother

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #3 on: June 05, 2005, 06:04:25 am »

@PeterHamburg: must be hard to read specs if it takes a year to correct. Well as long as skin support is implemented it seems to sell a lot better, means that's more important to the masses.
Like selling cars to women ... as long as the color fits, the technical aspects aren't important ;-)

@Mr ChriZ: There's a big difference between a boring and a consistent look. If we talk about fullscreen more, ok, I really like MC in this mode .... but when using windowed besides other programs I tend to like programs looking similar from the frontend point of view. Some call it boring, I'd call it professional looking.

 
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Branxx

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #4 on: June 05, 2005, 06:26:27 am »

I agree with justanother on this point. Why is a standard XP-type skin not available as default, rather then plethora of toys-r-us gimmicks?
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KingSparta

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #5 on: June 05, 2005, 06:34:56 am »

Quote
but just windows why so boring!
I don't like Most of the MiniMe skins

Aruba: Hurts My Eyes
Green Eyes: Hurts My Eyes

The rest of them are ok

But Use PicOs because i can understand it and it is simple
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #6 on: June 05, 2005, 06:37:23 am »

Neh I'm sticking with my original guns here,
It's boring.  I'm currently using the Pegasus skin (thanks to ToMy00)currently which contrasts perfectly Black Luna for Trillian.
Yet still looks perfectly professional sat next to a Denon Amp.
Running on Win2k so no XP duplo look here, and still looks fine  8)

If I were one of the excellent artists that makes these skins,
I know what I'd prefer to put my name on!

To be fair tho, I've never been a "uniform" person.
Like individuality, but I'm currently in trouble for bypassing the
no wallpaper security settings at work.  :P
Each to there own  ;)

LonWar

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #7 on: June 05, 2005, 08:06:12 am »

Check out the WinDoz stuff here,

Not sure how well they work with v11

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=15326.0
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justanother

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #8 on: June 05, 2005, 09:50:13 am »

the tagging debate will go nowhere just now. It's been tried many times before. might be worth suggesting right at the start of the next beta cycle, but don't build your hopes up.

Well in that case ... makes it as senseless as iTunes for the moment. Though ... it's faster and comes with some real nice solution but as PeterHamburg said ... as long as it destroys information stored in tags which took time to add them into, it's as if you got a virus or trojan doing harm to data you tend to remember being archived. As long as that's transparent and visible it's all ok, but a program should at least consider to archive the main principle. it should try to modify things it can't handle according to the specs, thus if it tries to modify something within an ID3v2 frame it should either be able to do so according to the specs or preserve it's content. This is pretty simple and ensures that information is maintained and not lost.

ok, there's likely a v12 some day ... perhaps it becomes more compatible till then.

@imjustagamer: thanks for the links .... looks as if v9 compatible, but I'll have a try
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PeterHamburg

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #9 on: June 05, 2005, 10:14:06 am »

I don't understand the programmers. Maybe they want to prevent loosing MediaCenter users because using another program will be a mess with these strange tagged tracks.
On the other hand for new users with a well tagged collection this issue spoiling the TRCK frame and not recognizing the TPOS at all could be a k.o. feature. It's really a pity because MediaCenter looks good after all.
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hit_ny

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2005, 01:21:00 pm »

In case a v2 tag contains multiple pictures (APIC frames) MC seems to tread the first APIC frame found in a tag being the cover art. Nice attempt, but totally wrong. Since it could be any art, therefore an identifier is stored in each APIC frame indicating what sort of artwork it is. Displaying artist pictures (#7) for some albums against using the cover (#3) looks simply weird.
Another one. Track is a text field allowing for current track / total tracks (per album). When correcting tags (taggin) MC wipes that field and replaces it with a single number entry. As it was in the old days ov ID3v1.0. This means it wipes the work one invested into getting the data in the TAGs. it should preserve frames it can't handle.

And there's lots more frames one might like to use / is used to use, for better filtering. They aren't implemented at all. (as in 99% of all programs such as MC, so that's not something unique to MC but a common problem.
Which tagging app / audio client makes use of the tags you mentioned above ?

I'm still trying to understand what data you lost here. Was it
- track# /total became only track# now 

...i have been wondering how to get track totals ..could be quite useful,

Is this possible with the new expressions ? cos i have no clue how to get them.


The art one is trickier, MC can play all the album art associated with an album.
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PeterHamburg

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2005, 02:35:52 pm »

MC note: a complete album has sequentially numbered tracks, from 1 to n.

So please tell me how MC knows that an album only consists of n tracks?

When the last three tracks are missing MC knows that the album is only tagged from 1 to n-3?

MC is not reading the TPOS frame. Therefore for all albums with more than one CD MC is showing track# several times.
That's not what I want.
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2005, 05:11:36 pm »

MC note: a complete album has sequentially numbered tracks, from 1 to n.

So please tell me how MC knows that an album only consists of n tracks?

When the last three tracks are missing MC knows that the album is only tagged from 1 to n-3?

MC is not reading the TPOS frame. Therefore for all albums with more than one CD MC is showing track# several times.
That's not what I want.

You ordered folk again  ;D
I like my music to be a tad random!

All you've got to do if this is causing you problems,
is to select the tracks and use the fill in track numbers from list order function,
by right clicking on the list and selecting Library Tools and then
fill in track numbers from list.

PeterHamburg

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #13 on: June 05, 2005, 05:59:03 pm »

There's no need to tag the track numbers a second time....they are ok. What's not ok is that MC is spoiling my tagged tracks:
track#/total -> only track#.
The second problem is that MC cannot read my TPOS because MC is using a custom frame.
I looked to MC a second time after two years because of it's ability to import cue-sheets showing sub-tracks.
But I prefer living with slight incorrect cue-points than to loose my tagged TRCK entries and to have to tag CD# a second time to MC's custom fields...that's wasted work in my opinion  8)
Thanks for trying to help me.
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Johnny B

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #14 on: July 27, 2005, 06:11:21 am »

I am in the very same position. I've been using Winamp for years but I would like to move to MC completely. I have a huge collection of MP3s - all of them tagged with ID3v2 tags. All tracknumber fields are filled the way "tracknumber/number of all album tracks". Unfortunately MC does not see the "number of all album tracks" information (why?) but MC deletes this information.

I also noticed there is a field "complete album" which behaviour is really weird. In my opinion MC should behave like this (when tagging):

1) let the user fill the "number of all album tracks" into specific field (that could be visible)

2) once this number is the same as the amount of all tracks within particular album, THEN and ONLY MC should fill the field "complete album"
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Alex B

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Re: propper ID3v2 support some time ?
« Reply #15 on: July 27, 2005, 06:36:18 am »

the tagging debate will go nowhere just now. It's been tried many times before. might be worth suggesting right at the start of the next beta cycle, but don't build your hopes up.

As marko said it would be more useful to wait and see if J River shows green light for any ID3V2 changes.

Also, the ID3V2 tags are only for MP3 format. MC harmonizes the user view and lets the user have similar library with all file formats.

I have been quite happy with the tagging system. I use MC as my main organizer and for me it is enough that the basic tags are in standard format for occasional use in other programs or devices.

If the files are initially tagged with other applications it is possible to disable tag writing individually for each library field. Track numbering can be disabled, but e.g. the name, artist and album fields allowed for quick fixes in MC.
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Alex B

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #16 on: July 27, 2005, 07:28:54 am »

There's no need to tag the track numbers a second time....they are ok. What's not ok is that MC is spoiling my tagged tracks:
track#/total -> only track#.

I just tested this and found that it's not true. I found that MC leaves the /xx part intact when the track number is changed in MC. I changed 1 to 7 in MC and the TRCK file tag changed from 1/10 to 7/10.

It is true that MC does not use the total number of tracks.
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Johnny B

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Re: better ID3v2 support
« Reply #17 on: July 27, 2005, 03:56:57 pm »

I just tested this and found that it's not true. I found that MC leaves the /xx part intact when the track number is changed in MC. I changed 1 to 7 in MC and the TRCK file tag changed from 1/10 to 7/10.

Hmm - you are right and I must apologize to MC team: in MC11 "/xx" part really stays intact. But I am sure that MC10 did delete that part...
Still - it si not possible to fill this information in MC11, right?
Anyway in my opinion this field is definitively missing in MC and it would be very useful - especially in connection with "complete album" field...
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