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Topic: Foobar won't read WAV metadata (Read 6888 times) previous topic - next topic
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Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Just installed foobar2000 so I could play ogg vorbis files I made for my Sansa Clip. Seems to be working well in that regard. Having a problem w/ WAV files though. Foobar won't read the metadata for my WAV files so won't display Album List by artist & won't organize Library Viewer by artist. Just downloaded a few days ago so might be overlooking something. I have checked metadata w/ tag editor. Data is there & accurate. Just seems that foobar won't read it. Would appreciate some help!

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #1 –
Quote
might be overlooking something.


No, foobar2000 doesn't support WAV tagging. The solution is to use lossless compression: FLAC, Wavpack, ALAC etc.


[Added after a bump of this thread in Dec 2014: foobar2000 supports INFO and id3 tags since ver. 1.1.9 (released in Nov 2011)]

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #2 –
Quote
foobar2000 doesn't support WAV tagging


Afraid of that! I wanted a player that supported WAV & foobar site said it does. Assumed that meant tag info as well as playing the files. Any fix?

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #3 –
Do the files have to be in WAV format? Are they just for playback? The only time I store WAV files is when I'm doing audio work, as soon I'm not working on them they are stored and tagged via WavPack (if 32bit float) or TAK.

So if it's just for playback, then lvqcl has already supplied the solution.

C.
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #4 –
FLAC even works on the Sansa Clip(+), supports tagging, and will store audio which decoded is bit-identical to your WAV files with 35-75% of the size (depending on data). Only downside is missing native support by the big OS vendors, but you already discovered the proper playback software yourself.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #5 –
Quote from: carpman on
Do the files have to be in WAV format? Are they just for playback? The only time I store WAV files is when I'm doing audio work, as soon I'm not working on them they are stored and tagged via WavPack (if 32bit float) or TAK.


Audio files are never trimmed to suit me, so I always convert audio files from a variety of sources to WAV, edit them with Cool Edit Pro and convert them to FLAC and/or MP3. Loading 96/24 files in the editor is excruciatingly slow, so I use 96/32 WAV for editing HD audio. All I want is for the tag data from the initial source to be preserved throughout this process so I don't have to reenter all of it. dbPoweramp can read the LIST tags in the edited WAV file and transfer them to the ID3 tag when converting to FLAC, but it can't convert 32 bit WAV to FLAC. Foobar2000 can convert 32 bit WAV to FLAC, but loses the LIST tags. Aarggh! Why can't Foobar2000 read the data that dbPoweramp reads? Maybe someone can create a plugin that does this?

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #6 –
I suspect that the reason why fb2k does not handle tags in WAV files is that there is no formal specification and the various programs that create/use tags in WAV files do so in an inconsistent manner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

I have looked at various WAV files created by various programs and there is no consistency. Indeed, my favourite audio editor refuses to even open a "badly formed" WAV file. Tags in FLAC files are formally supported.

Besides, FLAC file are half the size and can be error checked. WAV files can be stored and copied from one PC to another for years with glitches in them - something you only find out the day you hear the damn glitch - and you have no idea which PC corrupted the data sometime in the last x years - nor do you have a copy of the original PC and its data ;-(

Good luck if you persevere with WAV ...

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #7 –
But foobar2000 currently does support both LIST and embedded ID3v2 tags, for a while now.

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #8 –
So this is something that I don't understand. Neither foobar2000 nor Mp3Tag support even viewing tags embedded in WAV files, yet dbPoweramp displays them:



The above example allowed me to determine the original encoding date of the piece of music, and after making a FLAC copy I used the date in the Year tag. It's strange that such powerful tagging tools can't display such info at least. Perhaps it's because there is no read-only display in both tools.

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #9 –
foobar2000 currently doesn't support BWF (aka Broadcast Wave Format) and its metadata

Foobar won't read WAV metadata

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Coreda on
Ah, so presumably the Wav file in the screenshot above contains BWF metadata.

Yup... the tooltip shows BEXT as the tag type. That's a type of RIFF chunk defined by BWF (see the links in the last post). foobar2000 only reads & writes an ID3v2 tag stored in an "ID3 " chunk. This chunk is not standard but is increasingly popular in .wav and .aiff files produced by relatively consumer-oriented apps (e.g. media players, rippers, DJ software).