Thanks very much for your patient and thorough answers. You have cleared up most of the confusion I had, and I feel ready to design a way to fit my metadata into ID3v2.3 tags that will be handled by a majority of apps.<br><br>I must say, this task was more complex than I expected, given the nonuniform way that the ID3 tags are exploited by various apps. Without your help, I would have little confidence in proceeding. <br><br>Thanks, again, for taking the time to help me out.<br><br><b><i>Ben Bennett <fiji@ayup.limey.net></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 05:42:23AM -0800, John Slane wrote:<br>...<br>> The various music-management software I am using (MediaMonkey,<br>> Mp3tag, etc.) are writing alphanumeric (English words) data to this<br>> type (Genre) frame. So I would like to clarify a few things.<br>> <br>> (1) Is a
TCON frame really supposed to contain a numeric string? If<br>> so, what is the definition of a "numeric string"? <br><br><br>The 2.3 version of TCON is a mess. 2.4 made some changes, but it is<br>still a bit tricky.<br><br>It should not contain just a numeric string.<br><br>The format is optional parenthesized genre reference e.g.: (4)<br>Then an optional textual refinement e.g.: Eurodisco<br><br>There can be multiple references in the frame, and there are rules for<br>escaping (s. There is no mention of multiple refinements, I would<br>assume only one, and at the end of the string.<br><br>You can also make references to RX for remix and CR for cover.<br> <br>So these are legal strings:<br> (4)<br> (4)Euro Disco<br> Euro Disco<br> (21)(4)(RX)Euro Disco<br><br><br>> (2) If I have English words in a TCON frame<br>> e.g. TCON = Soul R&B Motown<br>> will that cause a problem with any apps down the road?<br><br>I think that is the safest and sanest thing to
do. I would not use<br>the references stuff. iTunes puts just bare text in the frame and<br>does not handle lists. And since iTunes is widely used, I would<br>assume other software tries to read their tags.<br><br><br>> (3) If alphanumeric words are allowed, what is the best way to<br>> delimit multiple values in the frame? Are there any characters -<br>> delimiters or otherwise - that should be avoided in a TCON frame?<br><br>I do not think you can... the frame can not be repeated, and there is<br>no identification of a list separator in that frame. The only<br>possible thing would be to do:<br> (4)Euro Disco(32)Duck Themed<br><br>But I bet that is not well supported.<br><br>However, you can indicate multiple genres through textual convention:<br> Euro Disco; Duck Theme<br> Euro Disco -- Duck Theme<br> Euro Disco / Duck Theme<br><br>Just pick what you think is most visually correct.<br><br>2.4 has proviisions for multiple values (using NUL as a
separator).<br>But I think most software just shows the first value and ignores the<br>rest.<br><br><br>> So far, I have experimented with simply adding the multiple genres<br>> as a text string delimited only with spaces (as in the earlier<br>> example). This seems to work OK for now, since I typically am<br>> searching for files with TCON containing a certain substring. Is<br>> this a robust use of the TCON frame? Are there rules/guidelines for<br>> entering multiple values into a Text Information Frame? <br><br>Discussed above.<br><br><br>> One other question (which will show off what a newbie I am):<br>> <br>> What is the essential difference(s) between Text Information Frames<br>> (TALB, TBPM, ...) and Comments Frames. As best I can tell, a Text<br>> Information Frame is to contain a single string of text, with no<br>> carriage returns allowed. A Comments Frame can contain carriage<br>> returns (newlines). Is that the
essential difference?<br><br>Not quite... the T*** frames indeed can only contain a single text<br>string with no newlines, but COMM is more general than that. It is<br>basically a way for people (or programs) to stick arbittrary data into<br>the tag. iTunes uses COMM for their audio normalization flag among<br>other things.<br><br>I would not expect COMMs to show up in various programs<br>consistently... But yes, the "actual text" field can contain<br>newlines.<br><br><br>> Also, is the USLT (Lyrics) frame type basically the same as a COMM<br>> frame, but simply with a specific purpose?<br><br>Yes.<br><br> -ben<br><br>---------------------------------------------------------------------<br>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe@id3.org<br>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help@id3.org<br><br></blockquote><br><p>
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