Topic: Support for FLAC Tagging? (Read 26770 times)

JimH · « **Reply #50 on:** February 19, 2004, 11:13:06 pm »

Walter,
Thanks very much for your work on this. We really appreciate it.

Jim

xen-uno · « **Reply #51 on:** February 20, 2004, 09:08:18 am »

My sentiments exactly...

Oblong,

0.5 broke the Comment tag (worked in 0.41) in MC. Displays Comments as empty which were all tagged "EAC=>FLAC 1.1=>...." when encoded originally.

We still need someone to test 24 bit flacs...correct? If no-one here can do it, I'm sure we can find someone over at HA to test.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #52 on:** February 20, 2004, 09:23:52 am »

xen-uno,
I'm guilty of breaking the comment tag, 0.5 maps the MC MF_COMMENT tag to the Vorbis "DESCRIPTION" tag.
Is this a big problem for you?

re:24 bit
Yes, I still need a tester for 24 bit playback.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #53 on:** February 20, 2004, 09:42:32 am »

Well...not really other than having a ton of flacs that are encoded with comment = comment...and MC maps ogg's "Comment" tag to "Comment" and is historically standard practice. Why the change? IMHO...we should revert back to 0.41's handling of Comment as it's consistent with other formats' tag mapping...don't you think?

10^-27

edit: I'll post something over at Hydrogen later today (or this weekend) in regards to 24 bit flac testing.

Oblong · « **Reply #54 on:** February 20, 2004, 09:51:37 am »

re: MC maps oggs comment to comment.
I didn't know that. I don't actually have any ogg files.
Do you (or J River?) have a reference to MC's mapping of Vorbis tags in ogg files?
I could determine through process of experimentation but...

I have no problem changing the handling of comment tag mapping, I'd just like to kill as many birds with one stone as possible.

So:
MC Comment <-> Vorbis Comment
MC Name <-> Vorbis Title
MC Track # <-> Vorbis Tracknumber

What else?

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #55 on:** February 20, 2004, 10:28:22 am »

xen-uno,

Never mind,
I got vorbistools, converted a flac->ogg and put it to the test.
Looks like I've got a number of changes to make.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #56 on:** February 20, 2004, 12:49:23 pm »

Oblong,

I've got a thread started at Hydrogen Audio here...

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showtopic=18905&hl=

As mentioned in that thread, I tried to install the *.mjp in MJ8 (B388) where it failed with the error dialog MJReader - Failed to connect to server. I take it you've got a redirection in the install script so that it pulls the plugin out of the mjp, rather than downloading like the error message (erroneously?) says? I will test some 8 bit flacs later today (unless it's not needed).

10^-27

edit: Maybe you can clear this up...
Does a 24 bit file imply a 96 kHz sample rate? The two seem to be synonomous as the term 24 bit / 44.1 (or 48) kHz sounds weird.

Oblong · « **Reply #57 on:** February 20, 2004, 01:09:16 pm »

xen-uno,

Thanks for the Hydrogenaudio post.

Regarding the MJReader error. It's likely due to the fact that I've temporarily pulled the plugin from my site.
After reviewing J River's source code for the OggVorbis plugin, it's clear that I need to make substantial changes to the tag handling in my plugin.
The good news is that I should be able to re-use most of the code from the OggVorbis plugin.
The bad news is that it will change the tag mapping, and early adopters of my plugin will probably find a lot of tag values "missing" when I release the new version.

I hope to have a new release this evening.

Regarding the 24 bit / 44.1 question.
The two sould be independant of each other. I've got a sample FLAC from etree that's 24 bit, 48kHz.

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #58 on:** February 20, 2004, 03:01:58 pm »

I've released v0.6 of the plugin.
This version changes tag mapping (once again). Please see the revision history on my site for details.
The MC <-> Vorbis tags mapping now matches that used by the MC OggVorbis plugin.

See http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #59 on:** February 20, 2004, 04:26:00 pm »

Something isn't jiving...

0.6's mjp initiates the DL fine and appears to install, but then the error dialog "Information - Cannot load plug-in...<plug-in path>" and after that one another says "Failed to install package". This occurred on both MC and MJ. BTW, MJ install prob was cause the file wasn't available. Note that the in_FLAC.dll is indeed placed in the proper directory.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #60 on:** February 20, 2004, 05:02:53 pm »

xen-uno,
Looks like I inadventantly picked up another runtime lib dependancy (MSVCP71.DLL) with that last build.
So, I figured out how to staticly compile and link the plugin. The results, only the DLL is required (no more MSVCR71.DLL either.)

I've just released 0.61

Changes include:
Removed dependancies on MSVCR71.DLL and MSVCP71.DLL

See http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC

Walter...

Bryan · « **Reply #61 on:** February 20, 2004, 05:03:57 pm »

Walter.. Sorry for the wait, had some things come up that needed attending to.. I downloaded the 24 bit flacs and upgraded to 10.0.74 MC and the latest plugin 0.6 and I can't get the plug-in installed now.. Same problem as before - "Cannot load plug-in". I verified the msvcr71.dll is in the right place and is the latest version.. I tried the MJP and manually registering it..

I'm ready to test the 24 bit files if I can get the plug-in installed..

Bryan

Oblong · « **Reply #62 on:** February 20, 2004, 05:08:56 pm »

Bryan,
Sorry about the probs with v0.6.
I just released an update to 0.61 which should solve (actually remove) the dependancy problems.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #63 on:** February 20, 2004, 05:58:57 pm »

Excellent!

0.61 installs fine in MC and all tags show correctly in the Library View. Still does not want to install in MJ ("Cannot load plug-in").

Weird problem, the following file will not import or play ("Please select a file" from Open Media File) in MC...

S:\flac>metaflac --list "Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies - 05 - Whale & Wasp.flac"
METADATA block #0
type: 0 (STREAMINFO)
is last: false
length: 34
minumum blocksize: 4608 samples
maximum blocksize: 4608 samples
minimum framesize: 1697 bytes
maximum framesize: 13217 bytes
sample_rate: 44100 Hz
channels: 2
bits-per-sample: 16
total samples: 6923700
MD5 signature: 4d3dbcf8eac252c82962d98f5d8dd765
METADATA block #1
type: 3 (SEEKTABLE)
is last: false
length: 270
seek points: 15
point 0: sample_number=0, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=0
point 1: sample_number=460800, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=1003710
point 2: sample_number=921600, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=2022025
point 3: sample_number=1382400, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=3050904
point 4: sample_number=1843200, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=4028024
point 5: sample_number=2304000, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=4990114
point 6: sample_number=2769408, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=6004458
point 7: sample_number=3230208, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=7030483
point 8: sample_number=3691008, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=8069789
point 9: sample_number=4151808, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=9157306
point 10: sample_number=4612608, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=10253558
point 11: sample_number=5073408, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=11330964
point 12: sample_number=5538816, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=12392616
point 13: sample_number=5999616, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=13443857
point 14: sample_number=6460416, stream_offset=0, frame_samples=14432283
METADATA block #2
type: 4 (VORBIS_COMMENT)
is last: false
length: 197
vendor string: reference libFLAC 1.1.0 20030126
comments: 7
comment[0]: artist=Alice In Chains
comment[1]: title=Whale & Wasp
comment[2]: album=Jar of Flies
comment[3]: comment=EAC=>FLAC 1.1=>Vorbis 1.01 @ q8
comment[4]: genre=Rock
comment[5]: date=1994
comment[6]: tracknumber=5
METADATA block #3
type: 1 (PADDING)
is last: true
length: 4096

Funny thing is that it checks out with Coalson's Flac Frontend (using the test function). I thought it might be the ampersand in the filename...not (other files have them, too). I'll have to compare to an importable flac...thought maybe something here may catch your eye.

10^-27

edit: it's not the artist tag...though it looks corrupt...that's just a YaBB display issue

Bryan · « **Reply #64 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:13:02 pm »

Ok I got it installed and I only get hiss from the speakers when playing back one of those files.. I tried ASIO also .. Interesting note is watching the M-Audio panel, those files appear to be 48Khz sample rate. I tried playing with the playback settings in MC, switching output modes and playing with the DSP output settings and I only get different levels of hiss. Playback is occuring though but no audible sound.

If there's some specific settings in either M-Audio's control panel and MC that I should be trying let me know and I'll give it a shot..

Bryan

Oblong · « **Reply #65 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:19:54 pm »

Bryan,
Thanks for trying it out.

I'm going to post a message over in the developers forum begging some assistance from J River (Matt?) on the matter.
I don't wan't to junk up this thread with source code snippets.

In the mean time, if you don't mind trying at a little hack, download a test version at:

http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC/in_FLAC.dll

And overwrite the version in your MC plugin directory. This version lies to MC and identifies 24bit files as 32bit files. On my system I can get what seems like extremely distorted playback.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #66 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:23:43 pm »

Yeah...apparently they are 48 kHz files.

More on the bad flac file problem...

I just removed it and re-imported it into the WinAmp library. It not only imported but played back fine.

Baffled in Blue Grass

Oblong · « **Reply #67 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:26:20 pm »

xen-uno,

I'm a bit confused. To clarify:

The file will import and playback in WinAmp but not in MC?

Could you e-mail me the file for testing?

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #68 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:48:29 pm »

That is correct. The file is 14.4 MB so we would probably exceed either my e-mail account limit or yours. I'll try some tag editing in WA to see if it corrects the problem...if it doesn't then I'll post further on it and then maybe I can ftp (my ftp site limit is 10 MB...maybe yours if you have one) or Messenger send the file (or e-mail...I take it your address is on an earlier post).

10^-27

edit: I'll save an unmodified copy of the file regardless of WA outcome as it may be valuable for testing purposes later.

Bryan · « **Reply #69 on:** February 20, 2004, 06:52:07 pm »

Walter, That test file made some sound but like you said it's static .. I can hear some notes but it's very distorted.

Bryan

Bryan · « **Reply #70 on:** February 20, 2004, 10:35:37 pm »

Just out of curiosity I googled for some 24 bit audio samples and found some wave files. Tried playiing them with MC and they wouldn't play at all. MC recognized they were 24 bit files though. WMP played them fine but I couldn't figure out how to check if WMP was actually playing back at 24 bit.

I may have something configured incorrectly. Maybe someone else who has a 24bit card can test this to see what they get.

Bryan

Oblong · « **Reply #71 on:** February 20, 2004, 10:51:15 pm »

Bryan,
Using the flac command line program I decoded the large 24 bit FLAC from etree into a wav file.
MC was able to play it perfectly on my hardware (even though I don't have 24bit audio.)
So I must assume that it's my code that's blowing the 24 bit playback.

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #72 on:** February 20, 2004, 11:50:46 pm »

Just released in_FLAC version 0.7

Changes include:
Fixed 24 bit support (Works on my system at least)

Available at: http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC

Put it through it's paces and let me know if it's ready for a 1.0 release.

Walter...

Bryan · « **Reply #73 on:** February 21, 2004, 01:09:52 am »

That did it... It works on mine now too.. Playing back at 24bit 48Khz and it sounds great!

Congrats.. !! I think v0.7 is golden..

Bryan

xen-uno · « **Reply #74 on:** February 21, 2004, 10:14:56 am »

Oblong,

Still getting "Information - Cannot load plug-in...<plug-in path>" error in MJ (MJ at home...MC at work). I'll be in Blue Grass (work) Sunday to run further tests on 0.7, as well as send you that problem flac.

Once again, kudos to you for taking the initiative and dev'ing this plug-in (have I said that enough?..too much gratitude can be irritating, I know).

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #75 on:** February 21, 2004, 11:24:48 am »

xen-uno,

Thanks for the kudos, but my motives for developing the plugin were really very selfish. I'm just glad it's of use to someone other than myself.

I haven't a clue why it won't load in MJ. I don't have MJ installed to test with anymore.
What OS are you running MJ under?

I've released a logging enabled version of the plugin for debugging MJ problems.

Available at: http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC/in_FLAC.dll

Overwrite the version in you plugins folder.

Delete any .log files starting with in_FLAC in the root. Try it in MJ, and email any in_FLAC logs it creates (if any.)

Walter...

artemis · « **Reply #76 on:** February 22, 2004, 03:41:02 am »

I'm new to Media Center and to FLAC. I have been using Foobar2000 but wanted something with more and easier autoplaylist possibilities, sorting, etc.

I tried the plugin and Playback of FLAC files and standard tagging worked great! Fantastic job!

But a question: Does it handle, could it handle, custom tags? Say by checking if custom name is the same in the flac file and in the MC database (since we can add custom ones to the MC database as well) and then mapping that if it exists?

Or even better: make the mapping configurable by the user, both for standard and custom names.

Oblong · « **Reply #77 on:** February 22, 2004, 10:41:36 am »

artemis,

The FLAC plugin will handle MC custom tags, and will store them with "MEDIAJUKEBOX:" prefixed to the tag name. For example "CUSTOMTAG" would be stored as "MEDIAJUKEBOX:CUSTOMTAG". Currently customization of the tag mapping is not supported, I've given it some thought, but would like to wait until 1.0 is out to pursue.

You can review the Revision history on my web site to see the current tag mapping.

Walter...

Bryan · « **Reply #78 on:** February 22, 2004, 11:44:56 am »

I was under the impression that only the "General" and current "Extended" tag fields (Lyrics, notes, custom 1-2-3 ) are stored in the file. Any additional custom fields are stored in the database only. Is this incorrect? Perhaps it's different for FLAC's with your plug-in?

What do you mean by customization of tag mapping?

Thanks
Bryan

artemis · « **Reply #79 on:** February 22, 2004, 01:23:21 pm »

Are the versions linked from your page all versions 0.7? When I use the MJP link, the plug-in manager has a field that says it is version 0.4. I tried the zip file and manually putting it in the plug-in directory and adding it as a plug in (in that case MC has no value in the version field). I also tried the mediacenter pack file that was with the source download (it also claims to be version 0.4 in the MC plug-in tool listing).

I'm finding that MC will read the custom MEDIAJUKEBOX fields but not write them.

Oblong · « **Reply #80 on:** February 22, 2004, 11:54:58 pm »

Artemis,
I just neglected to update the MJP file. The zip and MJP versions available for download are at 0.7.
The source code version is lagging, and is probably at 0.5.
I will update the source in the next couple of days.

Please use the 0.7 as the 0.5 in the source code use completely different tagging logic.

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #81 on:** February 22, 2004, 11:56:32 pm »

Bryan,
There is an option in custom tag setup labeled "Store in File Tag (When Possible)" that enables MC to store the "custom" tags in files. If this option is not selected, it will only store tags in the MC database.

Tag Mapping referrs to the process of mapping an applications tag names to the internal name used in a file.
For Example MC uses a tag name of "Name" to referr to the song name, but Vorbis (the tag format that FLAC uses) preferrs "TITLE" instead. Tap mapping referrs to the mapping of "Name" to "TITLE" on writes and from "TITLE" to "Name" on reads.

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #82 on:** February 22, 2004, 11:58:57 pm »

Artemis,
I've just updated the MJP file on the site. It should referr to 0.7 now.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Walter...

artemis · « **Reply #83 on:** February 23, 2004, 01:30:53 am »

I got v0.7, WONDERFUL! The tagging works for reads and writes now.

And with Foobar2000's masstagger I can convert existing custom tags in FLAC files to the MEDIAJUKEBOX: format.

Thank you Walter!

xen-uno · « **Reply #84 on:** February 23, 2004, 10:36:37 am »

Oblong,

FTP problem...see your PM. Regarding MJ...wouldn't the plugin have to load before the logging plugin could log anything? I'll play around further...could be that the plugin is not registering correctly...wil check registry. Matt may have some idea what the deal is. Not too big a deal, really...people will just have to upgrade, but it should work as the SDK is the same for MJ and MC.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #85 on:** February 23, 2004, 11:14:28 am »

xen-uno,
Regarding MJ and logging... You are of course correct. There is one small bit of code that would be executed that I could log enable, but we probably wouldn't learn much from that.

What operating system is your MJ system using?
I haven't done any careful analysis, but I wouldn't be surprosed if the plugin would only work in 2000/XP.

Walter....

Matt · « **Reply #86 on:** February 23, 2004, 11:14:43 am »

The switch to Unicode made it so MJ and MC couldn't share input plugins.

xen-uno · « **Reply #87 on:** February 23, 2004, 12:42:48 pm »

Unicode...I see. No biggie.

Oblong > ... my motives for developing the plugin were really very selfish

...and all this time I thought you were bailing me out...

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=16706;start=msg114095#msg114095

Regarding that problem flac...

Converted it to a wav then back to flac...then ran FC (orig vs copy) at the command prompt. Preliminary results were inconclusive...besides tag differences (at this early stage I didn't make sure they were identical), it also threw some machine code up that was un-intelligible. I'll either get the tags to match or strip the tags out and then run FC again. Not sure why this file is behaving so...I don't remember doing any sort of editing on it via MC.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #88 on:** February 23, 2004, 01:04:45 pm »

xen-uno,
I got the problem file you sent.
I can't get it to verify when using the FLAC command line tool.

I get the output: (I renamed it to aic.flac for convenience)

flac 1.1.0, Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002,2003 Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. Type `flac' for details.

aic.flac: ERROR: bits per sample is not 8/16/24

aic.flac: ERROR while decoding metadata
state = 4:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_END_OF_STREAM

I wonder if it somehow was corrupted in transmission?
The file I have is 15,252,672 bytes long.

When looking at the file with a hex editor I can see it starts with the correct bytes (flac) and I can also see the tag information.

Walter...

Oblong · « **Reply #89 on:** February 23, 2004, 01:06:50 pm »

To All,

How much demand is there for a MJ (versus MC) version of the FLAC plugin?

It looks like to support MJ I'd have to maintain two seperate versions. I haven't really set down to figure out what that would entail, but just curious if anyone really needs support for MJ?

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #90 on:** February 23, 2004, 02:00:05 pm »

Get this...

Simply renaming the original

S:\flac\Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies - 05 - Whale & Wasp.flac

to

S:\flac\Alice In Chains - Jar of Flies - 05 - Whale & Wasp (orig).flac

fixed import and play problem. Leads me to believe that MC's DB has some problem with the original filename, and although the entry was deleted, some residue remains. In fact, if I rename the file back to the original (after deleting the entry from the MC Library)...it will not play or import. It also won't let me rename back to original from within MC...if I strike the " (orig)" portion, MC will not update the on-disk filename and puts " (1)" in it's place in the library entry under filename. So your plugin is fine...

If not too much trouble, I think an MJ specific plugin would be nice.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #91 on:** February 25, 2004, 02:50:06 pm »

All,

I've figured out how to configure the "External Encoder" option in MC to use use the command line flac.exe encoder.
This will allow you to rip cd's to flac, and also convert other MC supported formats to flac.

See my instructions at http://www.monsterfang.com/MCinFLAC/Encoding.htm

I haven't done extensive testing, but it seems to be working well for me.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #92 on:** February 25, 2004, 03:07:48 pm »

...and it tags correctly? Getting MC to encode to any format is easy...but passing tag values to the ext encoder using wildcards isn't (they don't exist). But if your in_FLAC.dll is involved in the process, then maybe that's no longer an issue.

10^-27

PS: I think 0.7 is ready for 1.0 status and inclusion into MC...great work!

Oblong · « **Reply #93 on:** February 25, 2004, 04:53:38 pm »

xen-uno,
I'm not sure if it works with embedded cover art, but other tags (including MEDIAJUKEBOX: tags) work fine.

J River,
What about it? Are you ready/willing to include the flac extension in MC?
I understand that you would need to host the download, but that's not a problem for me.

Walter...

xen-uno · « **Reply #94 on:** February 25, 2004, 05:58:09 pm »

One process that would require a Enc_FLAC.dll is direct audio burns (though you could convert to wav first). MC lets you spin your wheels and goes through the process w/o errors, but the disk that it creates is unreadable...BTW (JRiver), MC's inability to erase RW disks that have pre-existing data (written by another burn program & maybe MC itself) is still there. I wouldn't think that Enc_FLAC.dll should differ too much from Enc_OGG.dll other than traceable API calls and incorporation of format specific code at compile time. If the Enc_OGG.dll source code were available...it may be do-able.

10^-27

Oblong · « **Reply #95 on:** February 25, 2004, 06:48:43 pm »

Source for enc_ogg would probably be enough to get started on a enc_flac.

I've decided to pull the trigger, 0.7 is now 1.0.
If you downloaded 0.7 there is no need to re-download.

Walter...

JimH · « **Reply #96 on:** February 25, 2004, 06:50:27 pm »

Go, Walter!

Thanks for doing this!

greggery · « **Reply #97 on:** May 29, 2004, 03:24:30 pm »

First of all, thanks for the great plugin! It seems to work great for playback. Is there a way to get flac files to work with "import media" feature? I don't see it in the list yet, and was wondering if you guys have come up for a fix yet. I appreciate the help.

Oblong · « **Reply #98 on:** May 29, 2004, 06:42:18 pm »

greggery,
Glad the plugin is working well for you.

J River needs to update MC to add the flac extension in order for the "import media" to recognize flac files.
Originally they indicated they would add support, and host the flac plugin, but I haven't heard anything recently.

J River released an encoder plugin SDK so that direct support for ripping and converting to other formats (including flac) could be added, and I still intend to write an encoder plugin for flac, but real life has been intruding.

I hope to have some time to work on it in a month or so.

Walter....

matshif · « **Reply #99 on:** May 30, 2004, 02:20:46 am »

Sorry, but I don't understand so much about how to handle this.
I have installed the flac plugin 1.0 from this page.

Do I also have to install the "FLAC 1.1.0 for Windows with installer"? Refered to by Oblong in his doc "Using MC to Encode......."

There are some optional components. How do I choose?

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Support for FLAC Tagging? (Read 26770 times)