[ID3 Dev] Need Help Understanding My Own Tags

[John Slane]

Dale,

Thanks very much.  The command-line routine that Mike M. sent me allowed me to begin understanding how various different taggers utilize the frames in an ID3v2.  The approaches are so improvisational, it's amazing they can read each others' tags at all.  Without the help from Mike, you, and others, I'd still be completely in the dark on how to begin tagging my giant collection.

Your Raw Tag Viewer looks like it might enlighten me still further, and perhaps provide some added convenience.  I will most certainly give it a good look when I get home tonight.  By a remarkable coincidence, I just yesterday downloaded and installed the requisite Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0!  (I did so in order to run the AllFrames Tagger - which I had hoped would answer the questions I asked here.  Unfortunately, that program was of very little help to me.  That's why I appealed to this mailing list -- with excellent results, thanks to kind folks like you.)

I'm very grateful for your help.  I love learning new things, and this whole digital audio thing has become a PhD project.  I might have dropped out already, had it not been for all the help from more-accomplished enthusiasts.

Best wishes,
John Slane
Dublin OH

Dale Preston <dalepres at msn.com> wrote:        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}                     You can try my ID3 Raw Tag Viewer at http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2007/02/id3-raw-tag-viewer.html.  It may be just what you’re looking for.  It doesn’t yet support ID3V2.4 but it does support ID3V1, V1.1, V2.2, V2.3.
   
  Dale
   
    From: John Slane [mailto:jaslane64 at yahoo.com] 
 Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:15 PM
 To: id3v2 at id3.org
 Subject: [ID3 Dev] Need Help Understanding My Own Tags
  
   
  I am not a developer.  I am a user who is very confused about how my id3v2 tags are being created and read by various software packages.  I have used programs like iTunes, MediaMonkey, id3Tag, AllFrames Tagger, and more.  Each of these seems to have its own way of writing metadata to an id3v2 tag.  And each can read SOME of the frames written by the others.  Some of the frames written are STANDARD frames (like YEAR), and others are NONSTANDARD (like COMMENT MUSICMATCH_MOOD).  I am near despair in trying to figure out how one program is going to interpret the frames written by another.
 
 It seems to me that I would benefit greatly if I could simply see what actual frames these programs are writing to.  The id3v2 standard defines 74(?) frames: AENC, APIC, COMM, COMR, ..... etc.  None of the tagger software I mentioned above identifies which of these frames is actually being used.  Therefore, I have no way of directly comparing the way these programs read and write.
 
 Can you suggest any available Windows software that will let me:
 - read the tag of an mp3 file, 
 - see the metadata in ALL the frames, and - most importantly -
 - see the 4-letter code name (AENC, APIC, ...) for each frame?  
 
 With such a tool, I could see what my music software is actually doing to the tags, and figure out how to make the tags from one program work with another.
 
 Freeware would be best, of course.... but I'm getting desperate enough to buy if necessary. ;-)
 
 Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.  I have been working on this for weeks, with virtually no progress whatsoever.
 
 If my questions are not within the scope of this mailing list, please forgive my ignorance.
 
 If there is another authority I might more appropriately contact, I would appreciate contact info.
 
 Gratefully,
 John Slane
 Dublin OH
 jaslane64 at yahoo.com
    
    
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