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[sonicbox]

I'm attempting evaluate Media Center 11.  I normally use Windows Media Player 10, which I find very usable.

I depend on Album Artist to organize my content and use WMA Lossless and MP3 interchangably.  MC 11 does see my WMA Lossless content's "Album Artist" data (stored as WM/AlbumArtist) thankfully, but my MP3 content (stored as ID3v2 TPE2) isn't read.  Am I missing something?

MC 11 also only sees the first entry for multiple names entered under some fields.   (WMA's metadata is not limited to a single name per field.)   I have multiple names in the Composer field (WM/Composer), as well as many track Artist fields (I think Author internally, one for each additonal name.)  I depend on this to find specific track artists and composers.

(No, I don't want combine them into one giant entry -- it's really bad for tracks with many contributors.)

For MP3 ID3v2, WMP 10 uses / as a delimiter between multiple names in the ID3v2 tags.  (This is documented in the ID3v2 standard - it's not as elegant as it could be.)  MC 11 shows these, but treats them single as a single item.  This is not optimal for me, but at least I can see all the names... unlike WMA.

(FYI: WMP 10's GUI displays multiple names with semi-colons between them if displayed on a single line.)

I was hoping MC 11 would be a decent alternative, considering it's other advanced features.  Is there anyway to get the same functionality in MC 11?

Thanks.

[sonicbox]

No, that's not a typo.  The field is called TPE2 internally in ID3v2.  Anyone else, maybe some at JRiver that knows the product intimately? I'm just trying to get the same functionality and retain compatibility.

Note that I can't change the tag formats too much, as I still want to use WMP 10 & Media Center Edition, too.   I also like to use Windows Media Connect UPnP which works well with the tagging as I have it.  Yeah, I know JRiver has a UPnP server, but WMC UPnP works much better/faster for my Roku SoundBridge M2000. 

[JimH]

Anyone else, maybe some at JRiver that knows the product intimately? I'm just trying to get the same functionality and retain compatibility.

Many of the MC users who post here know the product details as well as, or in some cases, better than the JRiver team.

[sonicbox]

I'll experiment, but the bigger issue is MC not reading some of the tag info I already have... the MP3 "Album Artist" in MP3 stored as TPE2 and any multiple names stored in the WMA file metadata.

[sonicbox]

Ok, I guess nobody has a clue....

It seems "Album Artist" in Media Center 11 is not mapped to MP3 ID3v2 TPE2. It gets stored in a proprietary comment tag inside the file. This is an issue for me since it screws up sorting on all my MP3 content.  I don't want to manually add the additional proprietary Album Artist tags - it would take quite a long time, not to mention adding redundant metadata.  The data is in the MP3 file, but I just can't get at it with MC 11.   

MC's "Album Artist" does map to WMA's WM/AlbumArtist, though.  So editing it in MC sets the correct "Album Artist" metadata in my WMA files.  If I stick with WMA, MC 11 works closer to what I need.

Initially I'd need MC 11 to at least import MP3's ID3v2 TPE2 tags (which some users refer to as the "Band" metadata) as MC's Album Artist... writing it would be cool, too.  (If necessary, this behavior could be an "optional" feature -- "Use ID3v2 TPE2 tag as Album Artist -- On/Off".)  Could this be added in a future version?  It looks like MC 11 won't fly for me until this happens.  Can I submit an official feature request?

Microsoft's media documentation maps WM/AlbumArtist to MP3 ID3v2 TPE2, so this is the behavior products like Media Center Edition, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Connect follow...

This doesn't solve my multiple name issue, but it gets me closer... THANKS.

[Alex B]

Ok, I guess nobody has a clue....

It seems "Album Artist" in Media Center 11 is not mapped to MP3 ID3v2 TPE2. It gets stored in a proprietary comment tag inside the file. This is an issue for me since it screws up sorting on all my MP3 content.  I don't want to manually add the additional proprietary Album Artist tags - it would take quite a long time, not to mention adding redundant metadata.  The data is in the MP3 file, but I just can't get at it with MC 11.   

MC's "Album Artist" does map to WMA's WM/AlbumArtist, though.  So editing it in MC sets the correct "Album Artist" metadata in my WMA files.  If I stick with WMA, MC 11 works closer to what I need.

Initially I'd need MC 11 to at least import MP3's ID3v2 TPE2 tags (which some users refer to as the "Band" metadata) as MC's Album Artist... writing it would be cool, too.  (If necessary, this behavior could be an "optional" feature -- "Use ID3v2 TPE2 tag as Album Artist -- On/Off".)  Could this be added in a future version?  It looks like MC 11 won't fly for me until this happens.  Can I submit an official feature request?

Microsoft's media documentation maps WM/AlbumArtist to MP3 ID3v2 TPE2, so this is the behavior products like Media Center Edition, Windows Media Player and Windows Media Connect follow...

This doesn't solve my multiple name issue, but it gets me closer... THANKS.

In MC TPE 2 will correctly show up in the Band field as defined here long before microsoft added MP3 tagging to WMP:

From: http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0.html#TPE2

TPE2
The 'Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment' frame is used for additional information about the performers in the recording.

MS has made its own proprietary use for the tag.

You could just use the Band tag instead with MP3 files, but because the Album Artist field has special and very clever functionality in MC you could copy the Band field contents to the Album Artist field. MC can do that for all of your files at once with the Move/Copy Fields tool.

You shouldn't worry about that tiny amount of "redundant" metadata when having the information in the both fields. It is negligible when compared with the media data. You can also let MC move the data instead of copying. If you later need the information in the TPE2 field it is easy to copy it back.

[sonicbox]

Ok, I guess I didn't dig around enough.  THANKS.  The workaround for my Album Artist (aka Band) metadata will work.  (Simply copying what MC sees as Band to "Album Artist" for MP3 content.)   I dread adding more crap to each file in my library, but it will work.

The use might be somewhat unique to Microsoft, but ID3v2's TPE2 is at least a standard non-proprietary tag and it's use as Band or Album Artist for sorting makes sense.

I still do wish MC mapped it's Album Artist to MP3 TPE2.   That way it has a fighting chance to be seen by other ID3v2 compatible media players (and tag editors) in addition to Windows Media Player, Windows Media Connect & Media Center Edition.  As I mentioned earlier, a "Use ID3v2 TPE2 tag as Album Artist -- On/Off" feature would make everyone happy. 

Now if someone can only solve my multiple names issue with WMA:  I still can't see more than the first entered names in the metadata for both Composer and Artist.  Help me find my metadata!   

Regarding multiple artist support for MP3: the ID3v2 specification does say to use "/" internally to seperate multiple names in MP3 text tags.  So Microsoft is doing the right thing when storing the multiple names in MP3.  MC 11 doesn't seem to support this, so it treats all the names as a single item.

Someone really needs to work on interoperability.  It's really pretty poor between all the players in this field.   

[sonicbox]

Still looking for a "solution" to reading my multiple artist tags for WMA Lossless.  MC 11 still only sees the first Artist tag (WMA tag: Author), first Composer tag (WMA tag: WM/Composer), etc.  for all WMA files.  The rest are ignored.     Help me get my metadata!

Yes, I know I can tediously manually enter the data just for use in MC 11... but I'd rather not.

(I didn't check, but other formats like FLAC also support multiple name tags... Are these parsed correctly in MC 11?  Is this a WMA only problem?)