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[yannis]

Hi guys, I'm new here and I must say thanks for what looks like a great program. I do have a problem though, and I can't find a relative post. So here it is:
   I use MC11 in W2k with the greek locale set in Regional Options. My MP3 tags contain a lot of non standard characters for greek, brazilian or french info. When I import the files in MC 11 all field display correctly in the database. But if I "Update the tags from library", then ALL these non ANSI chars are lost! That is, all info in the tags is converted to standard ANSI chars. (Thankfully the filenames remain safe, so I can reclaim some info from there, but chars in fields like "Composer" are gone for good). The same happens if I Export in TXT. So the question is: Does MC support UTF-8 correctly? And is there some way to resolve this problem?
  PS I've used Media Monkey which is far more limited but the tags there display correctly and are updated accordingly. Thanks in advance...

[Matt]

Media Center is fully Unicode. (UTF16)

Tags are written according to what a file supports. For MP3 tags inside of MC, ID3v1 uses ANSI, and ID3v2 uses ANSI if possible, otherwise UTF16.

For APE, WMA, and JPEG, tags are always Unicode.

If you think there is an MP3 bug, send a file and a description to matt @ jriver.com.  If I remember correctly, how ID3v2 tag readers interpret ANSI is not univeral. (depends on the locale of the machine)

Thanks.

[yannis]

I tested your tip and here it goes:
   
   1. I tag the title field of a .wma file in MC with the string "pedaço de emoção".
   2.   I select "update the tags from library".
   3.   I then select "update library from tags".
   4. RESULT: The title field of the tag retains the chars "çã". (Which means that, as you said, wma tags display unicode chars correctly)

   When I apply the same procedure on an mp3 file with ID3v2, the info displays correctly after step 1, but in step 4 I'm left with a tag that reads "pedaco de emocao".
    How can I resolve this?
   

[Matt]

I tested your tip and here it goes:
   
   1. I tag the title field of a .wma file in MC with the string "pedaço de emoção".
   2.   I select "update the tags from library".
   3.   I then select "update library from tags".
   4. RESULT: The title field of the tag retains the chars "çã". (Which means that, as you said, wma tags display unicode chars correctly)

   When I apply the same procedure on an mp3 file with ID3v2, the info displays correctly after step 1, but in step 4 I'm left with a tag that reads "pedaco de emocao".
    How can I resolve this?
   

I can't reproduce this.  What locale are you using, and what happens if you switch it?

Thanks.

[yannis]

 As I said in my first mail, I use MC11 in W2k with the greek locale set in Regional Options.
  And to complicate it a bit further check this too: When I export a playlist in delimited ASCII, the brazilian characters are gone. But if I select the Portuguese locale, restart MC and export the playlist, then I can import the TXT in Excel, choosing "Western Eiropean ISO ", and the characters remain. So it seems the locale affects the whole thing when it shouldn't...

[yannis]

Well, I've been looking around a bit and found this:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html

I think it might clear up some things. Could you please check it and see if MC might work "locale-independent"?

[yannis]

Hi. My exp day is coming up soon. Is there any chance I might be able to use MC properly?

[Matt]

Media Center is fully unicode (16-bit characters) internally.

However, exporting to ASCII (or other 8-bit character formats) can't support the full unicode character set.  In these cases, the system locale is used to transform 16-bit to 8-bit characters.

We'll make the next build of MC 11.1 use Unicode for MP3 tags anytime there's a character over 127.  It should clear up your initial report.

Let us know, and thanks for the help.

[yannis]

>We'll make the next build of MC 11.1 use Unicode for MP3 tags anytime there's a character over 127.  It should clear up your initial report.

Was this feature eventually implemented? I can't find a ref to it in the updates/fixes list...

[Alex B]

Check the build 11.1.81 (12/14/05) in the change log here:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=31545.0

[yannis]

Thanks, I'll try it and let you know...

[yannis]

Yes, tags update correctly now. But exporting a playlist in ascii is still dependent on the locale setting of the system. That is, in order to export a playlist correctly, I have to change to the proper locale prior to running MC. Do you think you can fix that? (Right now I use MediaMonkey which is so much poorer than MC but exports everything smoothly). Thanks in advance for taking the time to reply.