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[gummbah]

I am wondering which type of tags MC writes to MP3 files?
Does it write ID3v1 and/or ID3V2?
Which version of Id3v2 does it write? v2.3 and/or v2.4?

Can I find information somewhere on this topic?
Maybe it would be nice to have more options on which tags MC writes.
Many other players and taggers have such options.

[Alex B]

By default MC writes ID3v1.1 and ID3v2.3. It can read ID3v2.4, but it writes v2.3 (this behavior was chosen for compatibility reasons).

The MP3 input plugin has options for changing the ID3v1 and v2 reading/writing behavior, but the ID3v2 version is not user configurable. (Tools > Plug-in Manager > Input > MP3 Plugin > Configure...)

EDIT

I remembered that Matt (from JRiver) has said something about saving Unicode characters and found the following reply.

ID3v2 tags will be saved with Unicode anytime a character that needs it (>127) is encountered.

If a tag doesn't require Unicode, MC will save using ANSI. 

This approach helps tag size and compatibility.

[nickeaston]

It seems that in this discussion there may or may not be a way to insure that I have no tags at the end of my mp3 tunes--apparently MC writes both V2 and V1.

I haven't found a satisfactory third party app that rapidly deletes id3v1 tags from 150,000 tunes...

I use DoubleKiller Pro to delete dupes, but accuracy suffers unless the checksum can start from the end of a file.

If in fact id3v1 tags are reliably a maximum of 128 bytes in length, this might work by starting the check more than 128b from the file end...

I see that AlexB points out the configuration of the mp3 input plugin and also see that there is a "don't save" choice for v1...which begs the question of exactly what changes in tags insure that v2 "create if necessary" always works...does it take more than a re-write with a modified filename?

[Matt]

Media Center can also remove tags.  Look in the Library Tools menu.

[nickeaston]

Soooo...this tool has been there all along...however, I need to re-save my tunes in an appropriate fashion such that all available tags are written to id3v2 BEFORE I delete v1 tags.

What changes in properties/tags are necessary before re-writing?

[marinero]

Hope this is an appropriate place for my help request. 

I'm a long time user/fan of MC but have struggled to master file management.  Could you explain how I edit music files so that the properties I've assigned in my MC library show up correctly in Squeezebox, iTunes, Transporter etc - or even Windows files.
At the moment many of my files are read as No Artist, No Album by Transporter but said album contains 10,000 tracks!  This is the wording on Transporter for one file and you can see how I've set up the filing system on MC.


Add to Favorites Play Add to playlist
Artist: No Artist
Album: No Album
Genre: No Genre
File Format: WAV
Duration: 4:01
File Length: 42,653,564 Bytes
Bitrate: 1411kbps CBR
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
Sample Size: 16
Location: \\NAS-01-37-9A\media\Music\Cherish The Ladies\Girls Won't Leave The Boys Alone, The\00-Collier's Set, The-Irish Traditional-Unknown Year.wav (Download)
Date Modified: Saturday, May 26, 2007, 10:25 AM

Here's one that comes up correctly:


Add to Favorites Play Add to playlist
Artist: Alison Krauss
Album: A Hundred Miles Or More~A Coll
Genre: Country
Track: 1
File Format: WAV
Duration: 3:28
File Length: 36,851,457 Bytes
Bitrate: 1411kbps CBR
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
Sample Size: 16
ID3 Tag Version: ID3v1.1 / ID3v2.3.0
Location: \\NAS-01-37-9A\media\Music\Alison Krauss\A Hundred Miles Or More_ A Collection\01-Youre Just A Country Boy-Country Rock-2007.wav (Download)
Date Modified: Sunday, May 20, 2007, 8:40 AM

So this one shows the ID3 tags.  I had hoped that by updating the files from library properties that I would 'create' the correct tagging - am I completely wrong?

[JimH]

WAV files don't have internal tags.

You could convert your files to APE or FLAC or WMA lossless and get better tagging.  MC doesn't tag Apple lossless files though (ALAC).

You'll save half your disk space and lose nothing.  You can always convert back to exactly the same WAV file.