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Topic: how to get foobar2k to display chinese? (Read 22003 times) previous topic - next topic
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how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

hello,

I recently switched from winamp to foobar2000 for the express reason that foobar is advertised as supporting unicode. I have many mp3s that have big5-encoded tags. But in the foobar playlist, and also in the title bar, the big5 characters all display as question marks. such as :

1. ????? - [???,?????(?) #01] ??? ? ???(?? ? ????) [21:25]

How can I get foobar to display the chinese characters properly? OS is winXP pro sp2 (American version). Chinese works on my system, obviously (file names, mp3 tags, etc. can all display chinese with no problem).

Thanks for any help!

cheers,
Mike

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #1
Hello,

I think you need a Unicode font like Arial Unicode MS. Just google for it and apply that font to your playlist.

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #2
Also, you could go to the Languages tab in Control Panel --> Regional and Language Options, then make sure that "Install files for East Asian languages" is fully checked.

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #3
I've already tried these things, still doesn't work

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #4
Quote
I recently switched from winamp to foobar2000 for the express reason that foobar is advertised as supporting unicode. I have many mp3s that have big5-encoded tags. But in the foobar playlist, and also in the title bar, the big5 characters all display as question marks. such as :

1. ????? - [???,?????(?) #01] ??? ? ???(?? ? ????) [21:25]

How can I get foobar to display the chinese characters properly? OS is winXP pro sp2 (American version). Chinese works on my system, obviously (file names, mp3 tags, etc. can all display chinese with no problem).
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272490"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


May be your ID3v2 plug-in is not configured properly?  For maximum compatibility with other software/hardware, the following options for the plug-in should be used:

- Always write ISO-8859-1 tags instead of UTF-16

- Decode and write ISO-8859-1 tags using system codepage (non-standard)

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #5
Is it possible that you could upload such a file, just a clip or something (you could rip a wavfile, then cut a short snip out of it with Audacity or other waveditor, encode it to mp3 and tag with Big5) to the uploads forum? It could be interesting to try this out. But I don't have access to any file with Big5 tags....
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #6
Quote
Quote
I recently switched from winamp to foobar2000 for the express reason that foobar is advertised as supporting unicode. I have many mp3s that have big5-encoded tags. But in the foobar playlist, and also in the title bar, the big5 characters all display as question marks. such as :

1. ????? - [???,?????(?) #01] ??? ? ???(?? ? ????) [21:25]

How can I get foobar to display the chinese characters properly? OS is winXP pro sp2 (American version). Chinese works on my system, obviously (file names, mp3 tags, etc. can all display chinese with no problem).
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272490"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


May be your ID3v2 plug-in is not configured properly?  For maximum compatibility with other software/hardware, the following options for the plug-in should be used:

- Always write ISO-8859-1 tags instead of UTF-16

- Decode and write ISO-8859-1 tags using system codepage (non-standard)
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272777"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


after this setting, you need to reload tag info (context menu -> Database -> Reload info from file(s)).

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #7
The following is a possible solution for your problem, but only if you're comfortable converting your tags from Big5 to Unicode. I used to have this problem with Big5 tags too (when I used Win98, my files were tagged using either Big5 or GBK), but have since used Unicode for tagging purposes.

As quoted from http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~zf/id3iconv/ :
Quote
ID3v1 or v2 don't really supports multi-byte encodings such as GBK or Big5. Most existing files falsely pretend they are ISO-8859-1 encoded. This means the softwares handle them in all kinds of weird ways.

The same page provides a Java utility to convert machine encoded tags to Unicode automatically. I cannot comment on its usefulness as I have never used it before (just found it after a search on Google; previously re-tagged all my files manually).

I'm also not aware of how compatible Unicode tags are with other apps/OS, but I am sure they work on foobar2000 and Windows Media Player on WinXP.

 

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #8
I tried running this java program, it successfully converted ...well, something to "Unicode", but foobar still sees the tag info as ?????.

HELP!!

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #9
Well I copy/pasted some phrases from a Big5 encoded web page to an ID3v2 tag and it worked, as Mr_Rabid_Teddybear wrote we'd need a testcase

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #10
It is the ID3v2 tag problem.
Before you import your meida files, go to configure the ID3v2 tag as follows:

go to File ---> Preference ---> Compenent ---> freedb masstagger ---> ID3v2 tag

click the following 2 boxs:
Always write ISO-8859-1 tags instead of URF-16
Decode and write ISO-8859-1 tags using system codepage

Then go to Speical file info box
click this box:
Override codepage and select 950 (ANSI/OEM - Traditional Chinese...) in the drop-down memu

After finished, click save all at the bottom

Then import your meida files, the chinese character will be displayed correctly.

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #11
Quote
Well I copy/pasted some phrases from a Big5 encoded web page to an ID3v2 tag and it worked, as Mr_Rabid_Teddybear wrote we'd need a testcase
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=272815"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I did the same. When I tagged them in foobar2000 they showed fine, but I'm using ape2  . Don't like to change that. Then I tagged one with Winamps tag editor, using only id3v2. It showed as ????????????????. So it's probably up to the charsets and whatnot used when writing id3v2, as the other posters are into. I know this is a bit besides the topic, but why not use ape2+id3v1 in foobar2000 and avoid the problem..... 
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #12
wow, Chinese is more complicated than I thought. I used foobar's masstagger to guess tag values based on the file names, and now it works, but the ideograms are rotated counter clockwise 90 degrees! How can I make the fonts read normally?

thanks for the suggestions, at least I'm getting somewhere now!

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #13
I'm evaluating fb2k for the same reason....that it supports unicode while WA doesn't.  Anyway, some mp3s I had which used GBK, I did it the brute force way and went through changing the tags with unicode.  I'm very pleased to see proper chinese characters come up in the playlist and such now. 

But one problem.  When I drag these files into iTunes (to move to my iPod), they come as ??????.  So I have to go and type them in again before they display correctly in iTunes and my iPod.  Does this mean that iTunes doesn't support unicode?  Or am I doing something wrong with the tagging in fb2k?


EDIT:  Problem solved.  fb2k was writing APEv2 and ID3v1 tags, so obviously it was displaying correctly there while iTunes was reading the ID3v1 only......now I've set it write ID3v2 and it works in both programs now.

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #14
I got hold of an album with Taiwanese pop music tagged with Big5 in id3v2 tags. In foobars playlist  it showed up like "cartoon swearing". I solved this with foo_codepage_action. Install the dll. Mark the files, go Masstagger > Edit Tags > Add > choose "Convert all tags using codepage...".  You get a display "Convert all tags to UTF-8 using codepage". Under "Using codepage" I chose 950 (ANSI/OEM - Traditional Chinese Big5) and "instead of" I left blank, seeing "Null selection will use default system codepage" (which showed up as 1252 (ANSI - Latin I)). I then press run and all transforms into something that looks good. Now I don't read chinese, but well, it  looks good...

Now I'm using ape2+id3v1 as i don't like id3v2, but it might be worth trying with id3v2 too (tag types used for mp3 tagging in fb2k are chosen under Preferences > Playback > Input > Standard inputs > MP3 tag writing).

EDIT: Also check out WILU's post here.
"ONLY THOSE WHO ATTEMPT THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL ACHIEVE THE ABSURD"
        - Oceania Association of Autonomous Astronauts

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #15
Hi guys,

Sorry to revive an old thread, but can someone outline what are the steps in getting from completely no Chinese language support in foobar (though my system supports it) to getting the chinese characters up and running?  The above posts kind of mingled around half-solutions and it doesn't seem very clear.

Thanks!

how to get foobar2k to display chinese?

Reply #16
I would say the last post before yours (Mr_Rabid_Teddybear) was pretty good.  Specifically, check the link Mr_Rabid_Teddybear provided at the end of his post as a starting point for your troubleshooting.