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[itam]

The "mood" tag  in "Windows Media Player"  seems to be different than in "Media Center".

My problem:

I have got many mp3 files where the "mood" tag was filled in (manually by me) in WMP.
Trying now MC the "mood" tag seems to be empty.
 
Is there a way to have the two "mood" tags be set to be compatible?
Or else
Is there a way to copy "in one shot" all the "mood" descriptions I have in WMP to MC.

I already tried several tag editors and was not able to resolve the problem.

Thanks


 
 
 

[JimH]

Welcome to Interact.

If you right click on a file, you can choose Library Tools, Move/Copy Field.  Try a few before you do very many.

You may have to add the field to the tag.

[itam]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I must have not explained well enough or else did not understand your answer.

A "mood" tag filled in WMP seems to not appear in any tag of MC. So I dont see how I can move the information. My guess is that the two programs use some different 'frames' for the Mood tag. But - this is only a guess - I am no expert in id3.2

Thanks again

Itam

[JimH]

Try a google search to find out the name of the field that the tag uses.  Then add it in MC.

[itam]

Thanks for the reply.

I attempted for considerable  time but did not find the definition of the "mood" Tag field of WMP  - using google and otherwise.

Incidentally, I also did not find anywhere the definition of the "mood" Tag of MC either.

I see this to be a general problem for many that would consider moving from Windows Media Player to Media Center.
 
I wonder if the developers of MC would "raise the torch" and resolve it.

[c1c9k72]

Itam,

I've been looking into the issue myself, and don't see a quick fix for your issue.  Adding WMP mood tags to a couple of my songs didn't seem to be detected by MC.

But, since there are only 12 moods and since each song can only have one, it should be possible to construct a work-around to easily add that mood data to MC.

Do you have a set system to how you store your songs on your hard drive?  You could, from within WMP, move all the Angry songs to one directory, the Groovy to another, etc.  Then, using MC, simply go into the Angry directory and tag all those songs with the appropriate mood.

If you don't want to move the files, it may be possible to create 12 playlists, one for each mood, and just tag all the songs in a specific playlist with that mood.  But I'm not sure if WMP playlists are compatible with MC, so that may or may not be an option.  You'd have to check with the higher-ups to see how MC deals with .WPL files.

I hope this helps.

[itam]

Thanks for the reply.

For the 12 predefined "moods" your method can work. I appreciate your thinking.

However I use my own coding and the "mood"s are free format text (which I search using a query when preparing  a playlist).

So for now, the problem of incompatible "mood" tags stands - and hopefully MC people will rise to the challange.

[hit_ny]

The playlist approach is what i thought of initially but it appears this might not be adequate. There is a way to preserve your moods as-is but it will require some work on your part.

Is it possible to export a txt or xml file of just the mood tags along with the corresponding filenames from WMP ?

MC uses its own form of XML called MPL. The idea is, if you can 'transform' the above list into MPL, then it will be easy to 'update' whatever tags you want into MC.

To see what MPL is about, select a few files in MC's playing Now then ->File->Export Playlist->

in the dialog box, MPL Playlist should be the default selection and choose selection from output range heading at the bottom.

Then examine the resulting playlist file in a text editor to get a feel of what mpl looks like.

[c1c9k72]

Thanks for the reply.

For the 12 predefined "moods" your method can work. I appreciate your thinking.

However I use my own coding and the "mood"s are free format text (which I search using a query when preparing a playlist).

So for now, the problem of incompatible "mood" tags stands - and hopefully MC people will rise to the challange.

This custom coding complicates things a little bit.  That and I know almost nothing about WMP.  I think I fired it up for the first time to investigate this issue.  Shameless MC12 plug, but well deserved.

Is there a way to transfer, within WMP, the mood data into the comment or notes field?  I know that MC and WMP seem to sync more-or-less properly between those fields, and if they're empty (or full of non-essential data), it might be possible to shove the mood data into one of them and just move them back into MC's Mood (or a new delimited list field)?

Otherwise, and I acknowledge this is probably quite reckless, you could put each song in it's own tiny directory.  That directory is given the original filename of the song.  The song itself is renamed with the mood field used in WMP.  It's then possible to rebuild the data within MC12 using "Fill Properties from Filename".  Assuming the songs are properly tagged, and assuming nothing goes wrong while the data is being imported, it might work.  But if it goes wrong...yikes.

Of course, neither of these work if WMP can't bulk rename things using fields, or transfer data between different fields.

[JimH]

In MC, try adding a field called WM/Mood.

More here:
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/help/main_tags.html

[hit_ny]

Actually since they are mp3 files the tag to be added in MC is rather

TMOO

 

provided WMP can tag mp3s with ID3v2.4

otherwise nothing under ID3v2.3 tags, which is the case with tags written with WMP 11

Seems a tool that can convert tags to ID3v2.4 is required.

[c1c9k72]

I created both the WM/MOOD and TMOO fields and updated library (from tags).

I didn't see my test data imported, but I'm curious to see what itam finds.  That is a very useful page, though.

UPDATE: I cracked open one of my test MP3's, and the "ANGRY" data is listed under the WM/Mood tag, like Jim said.  Not sure why it's not linking up to it.  Though, weirdly, it's listed as A*N*G*R*Y with 00's in place of the asterisks.  Everything else looks like words, but that one field is unusual.

[itam]

First - I acknowledge with thanks the thoughtful advice from "JimH", "c1c9k72" & "hit-ny".


I will try to investigate tomorrow the 3 methods suggested by you and report back here -  probably still tomorrow.

It is indeed an interesting and useful discussion that touches on the basis of MC and WMP tags.

Regards.

[Alex B]

Traditionally JRiver's approach has been different than many other developers'. MC relies heavily on its database and the users have always been able to define an unlimited number of custom library fields in addition to a set of predefined fields. Media Center supports library tagging independently of the file format's possible support for physical file tags. When appropriate MC tries to read and write commonly used physical file tags in various file formats.

ID3v2.x tagging is one of the most varied tagging standards. Almost every program appears to use a slightly different version of the "standard". I have not seen any program that would fully and exactly support the proposed ID3v2.3 or v2.4 standards.

In MC a user library field named as "Mood" is automatically linked with a "Comment Musicmatch Mood" ID3v2 tag frame. (I think Musicmatch introduced a predefined mood tag many years ago. Former Musicmatch users have requested support for several proprietary Musicmatch tags and during the last few years JRiver has added support for many of them (if not for all of them).

The recent WMP versions (mainly 10 and 11) have addded support for a few new tags and unfortunately Microsoft often rather invents new ways to tag files instead of using de facto standards. The mood tag is no exception. WMP writes it to a PRIV frame. I am not aware of any other player program that uses an ID3v2.3 PRIV frame for a "mood" tag.

from: http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0#head-6e58a3ef53dd199d9af3dd33d544a39a5343ab3c

4.28. Private frame

This frame is used to contain information from a software producer that its program uses and does not fit into the other frames. The frame consists of an 'Owner identifier' string and the binary data. The 'Owner identifier' is a null-terminated string with a URL containing an email address, or a link to a location where an email address can be found, that belongs to the organisation responsible for the frame. Questions regarding the frame should be sent to the indicated email address. The tag may contain more than one "PRIV" frame but only with different contents. It is recommended to keep the number of "PRIV" frames as low as possible.

<Header for 'Private frame', ID: "PRIV">
Owner identifier        <text string> $00
The private data        <binary data>

I tried to find a workaround for importing the WMP Mood tag and tested several dedicated tagging programs. My personal favorite (besides MC), Mp3tag, doesn't support it, but it appears that Tag & Rename does. A usable solution is to copy the Mood tag to the Copyright tag with T&R and inside MC copy the Copyright field contents to the Mood field. (I chose the Copyright tag because MC can read it and because it is mostly unused by other programs.)

[itam]

Following Alex B method I was able to copy the "Mood"  from WMP to MC. Thank you.

Were not successful otherwise.

Two comments:

1.
This is a serendipity workaround requiring the use of a third party non-free software. Since WMP is so widespread I suggest including it's "mood" tag (nevermind being  PRIV and so on following Alex B) as one of the recognized tags in MC.

2.
I understand from alex's reply that MC keeps much of the MP3 information in a MC database as a field.
This field is only sometimes linked to a Tag (frame) which would be imbedded in the MP3 file itself.
This is a disadvantage because one would want to have the file information available for other devices (such as portable devices). Devices use more tags today. the absence of tag information devoids the user from managing his music on such devices using tags.
IN my view, the direction for MC should be as much information in the MP3 file as Tags, not unattached fields in a database.


Question: Alex B, where did you find the information regarding the "mood" Tag being a PRIV frame of ID3v2.3.
I searched google for 2 hours and did not find.

Thank you again for all the past responses. It is a useful discussion

[Alex B]

1.
JRiver has previously added support for several requested tags that are used in a proprietary style in other programs. In case they are going to add support for this tag it should be separate from the already existing Mood field code so that it would not break the Musicmatch compatibility. Maybe the field's default internal name could be WM/Mood. (It is always possible to change the displayed name in the field specific options.)

2.
Don't get me wrong. MC has great support for writing commonly used file tags. By default it writes physical file tags whenever it makes sense and is technically possible.

However, unlike some other programs, MC is not limited to what is possible to write in the physical file tags. For example, you can always add metadata to "untaggable" wav, video, document, etc files or add and use custom fields that may not be supported in a specific tag format.

Question: Alex B, where did you find the information regarding the "mood" Tag being a PRIV frame of ID3v2.3. I searched google for 2 hours and did not find.

A: I tagged a test file with WMP and inspected it with a hex editor. (took about a minute)

[itam]

Thanks for the clarification (note2) , Alex B., Appreciated.

It will be, in my view, a significant improvement of compatibility if MC will add the WMP "mood" as "WM/Mood",  the way you modified my suggestion.

Can you make it happen ?

and - thanks for the explanation as to deciphering of the tags using Hex editor. I will try to learn it one day.

 

[mherce]

Great thread thanks!

[itam]

Is there a way to place a "formal request" for this feature ?

(The feature being: support for the WMP mood tag in MC)

Otherwise I think the subject to be  cleared and exhausted

Thank you all for your help & input & useful discussion.