[ID3 Dev] "Extending" ID3 V2.4

[Scott Wheeler]

On Thursday 09 February 2006 19:26, Ryan Germann wrote:
> Hi; I'm new to this list... are there standard ways to suggest new ID3
> frames? Is ID3 extendable in some prescribed way?
>
> I see at:
>
> http://www.id3.org/develop.html
>
> The subsection named:
>
> Additional standards
>
> So extra frames are being put forward to support Chapters & their
> TOCs... but if I have my own ideas, what is the procedure for suggesting
> them?

I would say for most cases a user defined text frame is sufficient:

http://www.id3.org/id3v2.4.0-frames.txt - Section 4.2.6

As an implementer of ID3v2 I would prefer to see more frames deprecated rather 
than additional added.  In my experience the majority of the frames spec is 
ignored anyway if not by library developers then by application developers.

Anyone ever seen an application that handles "Synched tempo codes" frame?  How 
about "Group identification registration"?  I'd put most of the defined 
frames into the unused category.

I think most of the usefulness of ID3v2 could be reduced to text 
identification frames and GEOB ("generic encapsulated object") frames with 
some agreement on some standardized frames.

There's a certain amount of elegance to the Vorbis comments for instance which 
are simple key-value pairs.  TagLib's implementation of Vorbis comments is 
about 250 lines of code in 2 source files, as compared to the (incomplete) 
ID3v2 implementation which is about 2500 in 26 files.  And really the only 
thing that I miss in Vorbis is the ability to store binary data (which GEOB, 
since it includes mime-types would be quite suitable for) and padding.

But that's mostly just ranting.  I think the simple answer to your question is 
that either a TXXX or a GEOB frame will probably do that trick.  I may be off 
on the current trends in the ID3v2 world, having been away from the list for 
a while, but I don't seriously expect significant changes to the standards in 
the near future.

-Scott

-- 
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. 
--Bertrand Russell

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