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Author Topic: Import Lyrics from MP3 Tags Written by iTunes  (Read 4953 times)

jplandry

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Import Lyrics from MP3 Tags Written by iTunes
« on: June 29, 2008, 11:30:42 pm »

I have another iTunes related import concern, but it is distinct from the one I brought up in another thread (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=47191.0).  This one is regarding Lyrics data stored in MP3 file tags. 

Within iTunes, I manually retrieved essentially all my lyrics and pasted them into the Lyrics field.  Naturally, I do not want to loose all this work when switching to Media Center.  The good news is that Media Center can retrieve the Lyrics data from the MP3 file tags.  The bad news is that it is not interpreting the end of line characters properly.  In particular, I want each verse to appear on a separate line.  In iTunes, they appear that way.  But in Media Center, when I import the Lyrics from the tag, all of the end of line characters are missing and all of the verses just run together.  I don't know for sure if this is an iTunes specific problem or not, but it seems likely since Macintosh and Windows systems often treat end of lines differently in text files by default (new line in Mac I think versus new line + carriage return in Windows; I am using iTunes in Windows, but its a port of a Mac program).

Thanks,
jplandry
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Alex B

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Re: Import Lyrics from MP3 Tags Written by iTunes
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2008, 07:48:13 am »

I can reproduce the problem. Apparently MC handles the "new line characters" differently, as you said.

Some other programs have the same problem, e.g. Windows Media Player and foobar2000.

It appears that Mp3tag can handle iTunes generated "line ends" and display them correctly. In addition, it can also fix the problem when tags are resaved.

Here's a workaround that you can use:

1. In Mp3tag's options select the ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 tag format (this is the most compatible option unless you need v.2.4 UTF-8 for languages like Chinese etc).

2. Load the tracks to Mp3tag, select all, and press the "save tags" button.
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jplandry

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Re: Import Lyrics from MP3 Tags Written by iTunes
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2008, 09:24:19 pm »

Thanks Alex B.  It looks like I've got a bit of MP3Tag work ahead of me.  I've been using MP3Tag to detect which of my files do not have the cover art embedded into the MP3 file (thanks to the modified iTunes behavior after Cover flow was introduced).  Besides the Play Counts issue I brought up elsewhere, Media Center is only able to import Cover Art, Lyrics, and Comments from the MP3 tags, not from an exported iTunes playlist.
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