All the following comments seem to apply to MC12.0179 (at least that's what I'm using)
I'm beginning the probably hopeless task of trying to catch up with AlexB's knowledge of MC tagging behavior...
Let me begin at the very beginning (it's a very fine place to start):
1) What kind of tags are written to what kind of files?
I've found posts saying that MC12 reads ID3v2.4 (UTF-8) files as well as ID3v1, ID3v2.2, ID3v2.3 (UTF-16 & ISO-8859-1), but that MC only writes ID3v2.3 (ISO-8859-1) tags. I've also seen several references to the possibility that there is an incompatibility in reading ID3v2.3 UTF-16 files.
It can also read/write APE tags (I'm assuming v1 & v2) to APE/APL/WAV files.
Am I missing anything?
2) AAC-encoded files can have their tags read, but not written (m4a, m4b, m4p). I know I'm not the only person yearning for this feature to be added someday... <puppy-dog eyes>
3) Is there any place where there's a mapping between the ID3v2.3/2.4 frames and MC terminology? I looked in the DeveloperZone, but didn't see anything there.... I'm looking to do some cross-application (& cross-platform) conversions using mp3tag.
4) An odd bug I think:
a - Add an mp3 file to library with full tags
b - Edit the file's tags with external editor (I used mp3tag) - I deleted every tag and changed the title tag.
c - Either delete file from MC library & re-add or 'update library from tags'
d - All blanked tags still read original values from step 1, except title which reads from step 2
HOWEVER...if you...
e - Then delete the file from MC's library
f - Duplicate the file in explorer
g - Add the newly duplicated file back to MC, then all the tag changes show as expected
The reason for all of my tagging shenanigans is that I'm finally trying to reconcile my main library files with my lossy-converted files for my iPod. What I do is:
1) Use MC12 as my main media player on windows (a mix of APE/APL/WMA/mp3/m4p/m4a).
2) Use iTunes on windows to maintain my iPod with all the APE/APL files converted into m4a files (an iTunes library of mp3/m4p/m4a). I also have all of the converted files in my MC12 library.
3) Use iTunes on my Macintosh laptop with the same files that work on the iPod from #2. I frequently copy all of these files to an external drive for traveling or some sub-set to my internal drive if I'm traveling light.
I love using MC12 to do my library maintenance, but I need to get as much information written to the tags (particularly of the m4a files) so that I can maintain that meta-data between MC and Windows iTunes and Mac iTunes.
Any ideas, work-arounds, or other information will be most appreciated!
Best,
Brad