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Topic: [MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS] [TROLLING] From: Tagging bug? (FB2K 0.9.5) (Read 2058 times) previous topic - next topic
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[MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS] [TROLLING] From: Tagging bug? (FB2K 0.9.5)

I've read the many posts on this and similar requests to not delete or corrupt iTunes-specific fields.  Given that iPods have more than 70% market share in portable music, making this accommodation seems like a no-brainer to promote the use of Foobar, but I'm shocked at the resistance to making this enhancement/correcting this bug.  Telling people what is proper and improper to want seems to be more in line with the RIAA's approach to music.

Given that Mp3tag, dbpoweramp (as of next week), and other applications can handle iTunes fields in some manner, this certainly isn't a technical issue.  It's either a talent (Foobar coders don't have the ability to figure out what to do), or religious issue (Foobar developers only want to work with users who agree to a doctrine of use and structure of how the world should work with music files).

I'm not trying to be insulting to Foobar developers - quite the opposite - I want to encourage them to consider that accommodating iPod and iTunes users may very well provide the "biggest bang for the buck" in terms of increasing Foobar's use, popularity, and influence on the music world.  If all of that is a bad idea or opposed, then as a music lover that seeks tolerance and freedom of diverse music listener needs, then I'll be forced to stop using Foobar all together.  I have no interest in supporting the RIAA or those that adopt their principles in whole or part.

[MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS] [TROLLING] From: Tagging bug? (FB2K 0.9.5)

Reply #1 –
I'm trying to navigate the complexities of different tag formats and what applications deal with which formats to what degree, and it is all very confusing so please bear with me:

I have an iPod, like many digital music users, and I also play back songs on my home theater, car, and smartphone.  I use dBpoweramp for ripping.  I'd love to use Foobar2000 for Replaygain purposes and tag management and overall music library management, and I thought that selecting the tag option to write to ID3v2.3 tags within Foobar2000 would solve the issue of compatibility across all of the above, but I kept losing some fields after editing in Foobar2000 and then updating tag info in iTunes.  It seems Foobar2000 allows the existence of some id3v2.3 tags, but not others, and will delete certain tags upon saving even if I was not editting those tag fields.

I'm a bit confused as to whether this is a bug within Foobar2000 or not.  I understand that Foobar2000 strongly supports id3v2.4 tags as the only official standard.  I appreciate the ability to save out tags in a non-standard format (id3v2.3) to enhance compatibility with others who have not adopted the id3v2.4 standard.  If the intent within Foobar2000 is to allow writing the to the non-standard id3v2.3 format, then why are some fields dropped (compilation, itunnorm, maybe others I haven't detected yet)?  Is there such a thing as a tag not allowed in a non-standard format, given that the entire format is non-standard?  Distinguishing between standard and non-standard tag fields in a non-standard format does not make sense to me, so is this a bug?  I can appreciate that Foobar2000 would limit what one can do with such non-standard tags to keep the focus on its commitment to id3v2.4 tagging and I respect that, but why get into the details of what is allowed and not allowed in a non-standard tag?  It would seem more helpful to limit the manipulation one can do to non-standard tags in Foobar2000, but also not delete any non-standard tag info when saving out to the non-standard tag format.

I've searched the forum and cannot clearly see whether this is a bug or not, or regardless of what this behavior is labeled, whether or not Foobar2000 developers can or intend to prevent the deletion of non-standard tag info when saving tags in a non-standard format.  I saw a few threads of people with similar questions, and certainly there are many people with iPods out there, so my situation cannot be unique, but I could not figure out what the path forward will be for Foobar2000 in this area.  Thanks very much for considering this and hopefully preventing the deletion of exisitng id3v2.3 tags in a future release.

[MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS] [TROLLING] From: Tagging bug? (FB2K 0.9.5)

Reply #2 –
Quote from: twit76 on
I'm a bit confused as to whether this is a bug within Foobar2000 or not.

Compatibility mode does not pretend to write standard v2.3 tags.
Anything it does, it does so in attempts to preserve compatibility with other software. Its functionality is most thoroughly documented in the FAQ.

iTunes, also, does not write standard tag fields when it creates the tags you are talking about. It creates nonstandard frames (as documented here). These nonstandard frames are known to cause serious problems with certain tag readers. In order to preserve compatibility with these tag readers, nonstandard frames are not written in compatibility mode.

Any further questions you have about compatibility mode can probably be preemptively answered with, "It does it to preserve compatibility with X." If compatibility mode is not useful to you, I wouldn't use it.
elevatorladylevitateme
 

[MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS] [TROLLING] From: Tagging bug? (FB2K 0.9.5)

Reply #3 –
That actually make sense to me.  I can appreciate that making something compatible with one application can cause problems for other applications, and the state of affiars in tagging forces alot of those tradeoffs.

In that light, I appreciate that Foobar2000 writes ID3V2.3 tags in addition to 2.4 tags.  I humbly vote for tweaking compatibility mode to be compatible with iTune's version of tags.  I realize that might cause a problem with another player or application, but until iTunes loses its utter dominance in the field of digital music, many of us listeners must find the best way to deal with iTunes and the Apple ecosystem.

Thanks again for thinking about tweaking compatibility mode to preserve iTunes tags.