HydrogenAudio

Edit on 2011-03-25:
foobar2000 v1.1.6 beta 2 is out.

• foobar2000 now uses " / " string as multi-artist delimiter in ID3v2.3 artist fields.
• Added an advanced preferences option to toggle between treating TPE2 as BAND or ALBUM ARTIST.

foobar2000 v1.1.6 beta 1 was just released.

• Improved performance when playing very short tracks.
• Improved tag compatibility with other software.
  
  • “Album artist” is mapped to ID3v2 TPE2 like in WMP/iTunes.
  • Support for iTunes “itunescompilation” tags, in MP3/ID3v2 and MP4.
  • ID3v2.3 tags are now written by default since version 2.4 seems to be widely ignored by software vendors.
  • Added support for multi-value WMA tags.
  • Special work-around for "AC/DC" artist in ID3v2.3.
• Improved reading of MP3 encoding information headers written by alpha versions of LAME.
• ReplayGain scanner now uses libebur128 for improved accuracy.

Download (http://www.foobar2000.org/download) - Change Log (http://www.foobar2000.org/changelog)

[edit]
Split Discussions not related to beta:
Muzack needs help with monitoring problem (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=87589)
Godrick asks an unrelated question about the Album list (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=87616)
Unrelated feature request #1 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=87618)
Clarifying the changes made with reading the ITUNESCOMPILATION frame (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=87756)
Rewriting tags rewrites "all" tag fields? (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=87967)

If you look back in many discussions here it is surprisingly to see that this release is lead to achieve more compliance with other programs instead of more compliance with specifications. However, very senseful to to be compliant with the "real" and de-facto standard. Good decision.

I'm just as surprised as the poster above...

Why the change of heart? Has the user-base been decreasing?

• Improved tag compatibility with other software.

It seems that remapping MP3s should be considered. But, don't be too reckless  http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=83831 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=83831)

• ReplayGain scanner now uses libebur128 for improved accuracy.

Maybe installer could detect foo_r128scan, and disable it as redundant
And there is no option for selecting old RG scanner, hm...

How can I use the "new" %album artist% tag?

I have some files with a %band% tag, but it doesn't show if I use %album artist% and if I use %band% it doesn't show the %artist% tag if %band% isn't present

Confusing

Note that libeburl128 treats mono files as 1-channel file, and old fb2k replaygain - as stereo with left channel == right channel.

So, mono files will be ~3dB louder.

YES!

I applaud this update VERY MUCH!

• ID3v2.3 tags are now written by default since version 2.4 seems to be widely ignored by software vendors.

whilst this is a good idea for new installs, i didn't like the way my setting was changed from 2.4 to 2.3 automatically when upgrading. i hope this won't happen with all future updates.

whilst this is a good idea for new installs, i didn't like the way my setting was changed from 2.4 to 2.3 automatically when upgrading. i hope this won't happen with all future updates.

This was introduced with the assumption that average users don't really know or care what the differences between these ID3v2 revisions are. If you have good reasons to use ID3v2.4, I'd like to hear them.

I have some files with a %band% tag, but it doesn't show if I use %album artist%

Reload info from tags as instructed at the bottom of this page (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Metadata_Compatibility_1.1.6_changes).

The ID3v2 tagging changes are at least interesting. If the new system works fine it'll save me from doing the additional step of changing the format to 2.3 with Mp3tag (in my experience the old compatibility mode didn't maintain all externally tagged tags correctly).

I am not so sure if I like the Replay Gain scanner change. I have been quite happy with the old implementation during the last few years. I did some limited testing with the R128 component over a month ago and I noticed some differences in the results that were not exactly to my liking, but I did not have time to further investigate the issue and take part in the discussions. I did not expect it to replace the old implementation.

While I understand that compatibility is important, I'm sad to see that classical music is being ignored completely by the change to using TPE2 for the ALBUM ARTIST. It was already ignored by other vendors, now foobar can be added to that list. Where am I expected to store the orchestra now?
I realize it's a problem for the other vendors to fix, but that won't happen. Using foobar as the ideal tagging application has now been made history because all classical music will now be listed under the orchestra instead of the composer on audio devices. Luckily this can at least be fixed manually for foobar but still...

Does the AC/DC workaround only work for AC/DC or any artist or tag with a / in? I have quite a few other artists and albums with slashes.

Where am I expected to store the orchestra now?

I use %performer% - I don't know what frame that lives in. I put %composer%; %conductor%; %performer% in %album artist%, if %performer% is multi-valued then I just put it as a comma separated list in %album artist%. Oh and %artist% = %composer% for compatibility with last.fm. I know I'm not following the ID3 standard but it works for me.

If you have good reasons to use ID3v2.4, I'd like to hear them.

mainly to have the / support in tags. i don't have any AC/DC in my collection but i do have other artists with a /. and to answer Tom's question above, the workaround only works for AC/DC.

i only ever use foobar2000 on my PC and my portable supports id3v2.4 also.

Does the AC/DC workaround only work for AC/DC or any artist or tag with a / in? I have quite a few other artists and albums with slashes.

...such as?

De/Vision
http://www.discogs.com/artist/De%2FVision (http://www.discogs.com/artist/De%2FVision)

EDIT:

AC/OT
http://www.discogs.com/artist/AC%2FOT (http://www.discogs.com/artist/AC%2FOT)

Quote from: chiwou on 2011-03-20 13:04:04

I have some files with a %band% tag, but it doesn't show if I use %album artist%

Reload info from tags as instructed at the bottom of this page (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Metadata_Compatibility_1.1.6_changes).

thanks, but nope this didn't help

for example
I use grouping in my playlist: %album artist% - %album%
when I listen to some soundtracks with different %artist% I added an %album artist% tag, even if it already had a %band% tag

but even after a "reload" the group won't show the %band% tag (after I removed the %album artist% tag

Quote from: TomBarlow on 2011-03-20 14:23:45

Does the AC/DC workaround only work for AC/DC or any artist or tag with a / in? I have quite a few other artists and albums with slashes.

...such as?

Slash



OK, seriously now. Creating a workaround for one particular artist here really sounds like a weird idea, because obviously there will be more artists with a "/" sign in their names, even if you can't recall any.

Because noone ever said you can't have a "/" in your band name

Actually, those who wrote the ID3v2.3 spec said exactly that!
But yeah, a single-instance workaround isn’t a good idea, IMHO. Although it will relieve shakey_snake of the responsibility of having to paste that long list of topics written by confused AC/DC fans

Overall, I can see why such changes were implemented, but they wouldn’t be necessary if the ID3v2 standards and various implementations thereof weren’t so discrepant. In a way, it’s laudable that the developers tried to adhere to the standards for so long, but perhaps it just didn’t seem worth it any more.

In polish rap the / is very common for collaborations. Dunno how for other world.

Let me understand, does this fix repair allow these names to be displayed as one and not separating with a semicolon?

Peter is planning on removing the AC/DC workaround and instead write different character in place of /. I'm against the change and have suggested him to not treat / as multivalue separator in ID3v2.3 artist field at all and allow it as is. Is anyone against that suggestion?

Quote from: TomBarlow on 2011-03-20 14:23:45

Does the AC/DC workaround only work for AC/DC or any artist or tag with a / in? I have quite a few other artists and albums with slashes.

...such as?

G//Z/R (http://www.last.fm/music/G%252F%252FZ%252FR)

Yeah. Can't still get to work few artists. After installation of 1.1.6 editing tags ended for me with "_" instead of "/". Last.fm fan here.

Support for iTunes “itunescompilation” tags, in MP3/ID3v2 and MP4.

Does this mean foobar also writes to the itunescompilation flag if 'Various Artists' is set in the Album Artist field? Or does foobar only read this flag? For me, writing would be great.

Does this mean foobar also writes to the itunescompilation flag if 'Various Artists' is set in the Album Artist field?

No. It was determined that even iTunes ignores its own flag if album artist is set.

Quote from: ernstblaauw on 2011-03-20 15:51:12

Does this mean foobar also writes to the itunescompilation flag if 'Various Artists' is set in the Album Artist field?

No. It was determined that even iTunes ignores its own flag if album artist is set.

Maybe this is not the correct place to ask, but at this moment my iPhone does not show compilation albums correctly (tagged with foobar with Various Artists as Album Artist). I never investigated and thought Apple just did not support it.
You say iTunes ignores the flag if Album Artist is set. However, this flag seems to indiocate there is some compilation album support. Do you know how to make my iPhone recognize my compilations tagged with foobar?

Would you please add a switch to toggle between the old and the new mapping? The new one could be kept as a default. I dislike the idea of mapping TPE2 to “Album artist” and I would be more than happy if it can be avoided.

Maybe this is not the correct place to ask, but at this moment my iPhone does not show compilation albums correctly (tagged with foobar with Various Artists as Album Artist). I never investigated and thought Apple just did not support it.

Apple uses the TPE2 tag field to group tracks as a compilation, as did a lot of other software players after that. This is why foobar stores album artist in the TPE2 field from now on. If you re-tag all your albums with an album artist tag using the new foobar release then your iPhone will happily group those tracks together.

ernstblaauw

Are you having trouble even after following the instructions in the release notes or as per this post http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=748785 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=87559&view=findpost&p=748785)

Awesome update.

Just wondering if it's possible to stop foobar2000 treating COMMENT ITUNSNORM as a main comment like Winamp and Audacious does?

Peter is planning on removing the AC/DC workaround and instead write different character in place of /. I'm against the change and have suggested him to not treat / as multivalue separator in ID3v2.3 artist field at all and allow it as is. Is anyone against that suggestion?

If a different character is written instead of / won't that create problems with last.fm, like this? (http://www.last.fm/music/AC%E2%81%84DC)

...such as?

I have a few collaborations, double albums and live albums with dates like dd/mm/yy. Also White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground.

Is there the option to stick with 2.4? I might just do that.

if I understand correctly reading the posts above, the foobar2000 source code now has

if( _stricmp( artist_tag, "AC/DC" ) == 0 ) 
{
    //Treat this differently
}
else
{
    //Standard tag parsing behaviour
}

isn't that just..  wrong?

Thanks for the improved tag compatibility

But could it be possible to add support for the @cprt atom (Copyright-Info) in MP4/M4A, too?
For the moment the atom ist ignored by foobar2000 and will be deleted if a tag is changed in foobar2000...

I just wrote a ID3v2.3 tag as Album Artist and I got this TXXX frame tag.

TXXX - "[BAND] BAND The Beach Boys"


I thought I was supposed to get TPE2 and not TXXX?



EDIT: I think I found my answer. I did not use "Reload" before amending the tag. Once I reloaded, the amended file is written as TPE2.

Would the following change to ID3v2.3 tag handling work for you people: allow '/' character be written and read as is unless there are spaces on both sides (' / '). Only in this case use it as a separator for multiple values.

Would the following change to ID3v2.3 tag handling work for you people: allow '/' character be written and read as is unless there are spaces on both sides (' / '). Only in this case use it as a separator for multiple values.

Would that make ' / ' the real value separator instead of '/'?

I think the idea of not using '/' as value separator is better. Are there any other applications that properly support multivalue fields?

I'm using foobar2k because I can write whatever I want in my tags and it is working as intended. If foobar now splits by the '/' character and messes up many artist names, I refuse to update.
Why would you even support something that is clearly wrong? Even if 99% of the players support this, it is still wrong. Why not simply split by 'NUL' or ' NUL ' ?

I support the TPE2 change though, because that is how it was intended by the ID3 standard and I always expected it to be that way.

Just let the user choose between 2.3 and 2.4.

Maybe crazy idea like excluding artists by hand, but have you guys noticed that mainly slash in artist name is used only surrounded by upper letters?

[edit] Eh, just noticed De/Vision on the first page...
Anyhow, Case's idea seems neat to me (even space only at right side /or left side?)

Sollniss, No one said the user can not choose between 2.3 and 2.4. The default is now what is essentially an update to the previous advance option called compatibility mode. Select 2.4 if you want.

Is there a noticeable performance impact when tagging MP3 files with this new version? I only ask because the old “compatibility mode” had a disclaimer suggesting that it was much slower than the ID3 2.4 setting. If so, I think I’ll stick with 2.4, as I have no need for my MP3s to play nice with iTunes or WMP.

I think the idea of not using '/' as value separator is better. Are there any other applications that properly support multivalue fields?

MP3Tag but that's the only one i know
My opinion is the same: not using slash as seperator at all is a better idea. In foobar2000 you any way doesn't use "/" to set multiple tags.

Is there a noticeable performance impact when tagging MP3 files with this new version? I only ask because the old “compatibility mode” had a disclaimer suggesting that it was much slower than the ID3 2.4 setting. If so, I think I’ll stick with 2.4, as I have no need for my MP3s to play nice with iTunes or WMP.

What disclaimer are you talking about?  I see nothing of the sort in my Foobar.  If you have not need for a 2.3 setting why bother to change?

I support the TPE2 change though, because that is how it was intended by the ID3 standard and I always expected it to be that way.

You are plain wrong I'm afraid. It is not intended to be used as a grouping mechanism, it is intended to store band/orchestra/accompaniment/musician. An album artist could be one of those but does not have to be and often isn't. It is because of this that foobar has not used the TPE2 tag frame for this purpose so far.
Other players started abusing this tag frame due to the lack of something more suitable. Since there is no stopping it any more, foobar might as well go along. Unfortunate it may be for some, including me.

If the goal is now to be compliant with other software, rather than compliance with the oft-ignored spec, can we also:

1) Change DATE and YEAR for mp3

2) Add ID3v2.3 support, at least reading, for TSOC (link (http://id3.org/iTunes?highlight=%28itunes%29)) (COMPOSERSORTORDER is the equivalent in foobar2000 for mp4)

3) Separate iTunes comment frames out of the COMMENT tag.
For example, foobar2000 1.1 reads one of my mp3's COMMENT tags as

000010DB 00000FE7 00006A30 000063FD 00005449 00002834 000085E4 0000882E 0000B087 0001A624;  00000000 00000210 00000B34 0000000000524D3C 00000000 004A91CC 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000; 9D109A1A+318971+26+150+9219+17645+26818+44366+53995+64217+73008+82186+99496+119529+141059+154192+168
978+178100+186739+196170+205133+214224+223909+233181+242186+262226+280484+290704+310737; 3; 0; (the real COMMENT here)

According to mp3tag, that would be COMMENT ITUNNORM; COMMENT ITUNSMPB; COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_1; COMMENT ITUNES_CDDB_TRACKNUBER; COMMENT ITUNPGAP; COMMENT.


I'm still on foobar 1.1 because I'm not happy with the media library monitoring changes introduced after 1.1.1 (with my configuration, program freezes the second Windows performs hard drive activity in my music folder), but I'd be more willing to start over on 1.1.6 if I get more functionality out of my metadata...

edit: using 1.1.6b1 in default UI, I am STILL having foobar freeze from hard drive activity.  I've removed all components except:
foo_input_alac 1.0.7
foo_burninate 3.0.3
foo_audioscrobbler 1.4.7
foo_chacon 3
foo_masstag 1.8.4
foo_playcount 2.1.9
foo_run 0.3.7
foo_texttools 1.0.5
The rest are grayed out (albumlist, cdda, converter, ui_std, fileops, core, rgscan, dsp_std, input_std, unpack).

I guess my next course of action is to rebuild everything from scratch...

Apple uses the TPE2 tag field to group tracks as a compilation, as did a lot of other software players after that. This is why foobar stores album artist in the TPE2 field from now on. If you re-tag all your albums with an album artist tag using the new foobar release then your iPhone will happily group those tracks together.

From what I am reading, the "Album Artist" is being considered redundant, and TPE2, whatever that is, will take it's place. Couldn't TPE2 just be added as another alias for "Album Artist" in foobar?

From what I am reading, the "Album Artist" is being considered redundant, and TPE2, whatever that is, will take it's place.

A couple things here: Because of id3 we're dealing with 3 levels of obfuscation:
1) The value
2) The Frame that value is stored in.
3) The Label which a program refers to that frame.

So with previous versions of foobar2000:
Value: Various Artists (or some other user inputted string)
Frame: TXXX:Album Artist
fb2k label: Album Artist

and also:
Value: Various Artists (or some other user inputted string)
Frame: TPE2
fb2k label: Band

With this Beta and versions going forward:
Values: Various Artists (or some other user inputted string)
Frame: TPE2
fb2k label: Album Artist

and also:
Value: Various Artists (or some other user inputted string)
Frame: TXXX:Band
fb2k label: Band

This new behavior is more similar to other programs which use the label Album Artist for the TPE2 frame.

Couldn't TPE2 just be added as another alias for "Album Artist" in foobar?

You mean as part of the title formatting field remapping? Perhaps that would help in some situations, but that still doesn't mean most other programs could properly read the tags fb2k writes.

any new hope for distinuishing between COMMENT and COMMENT ITUNNORM, COMMENT ITUNPGAP, COMMENT ITUNESMPB?
or at least ignoring the itunes comments?
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=80281 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=80281)

Quote from: Sandrine on 2011-03-21 00:44:14

Couldn't TPE2 just be added as another alias for "Album Artist" in foobar?

You mean as part of the title formatting field remapping? Perhaps that would help in some situations, but that still doesn't mean most other programs could properly read the tags fb2k writes.

Well, the whole issue is no biggie for me as I don't see much changing concerning the input mask. Compatibility is always good, the most important thing is that no matter how the child is called it will always be linked to the correct parents, figuratively speaking. Using the input mask, i.e. properties dialog, to fill in either "Band" or "Album Artist" will make little practical from a usability point of view, I guess. So %album_artist% will keep working but really return %band%?

If the goal now is to improve tagging compatibility with WMP and iTunes, then I second the request not to treat the tag "COMMENT ITUNNORM" as a normal comment. This is important for people who use iTunes' Sound Check feature.

Would the following change to ID3v2.3 tag handling work for you people: allow '/' character be written and read as is unless there are spaces on both sides (' / '). Only in this case use it as a separator for multiple values.

- allow '/' character be written and read
- made option in preferences for user selected  separator , for exemple ' / '

To make the slash-separation issue in the artist tag more annoying, I have at least one track on my computer for which the artist uses a semicolon in his alias.

To clarify, does Foobar now map a "itunescompilation" tag to the TCMP frame in ID3v2.3 tags?

Thanks for the changes.  I and no doubt many ipod users appreciate the improved compatibility.  I have no opinion on what tag spec is better or worse than any other, I just want as many music applications to work togther as possible so I can focus on enjoying music.

+1 for additional compatibility improvements with iTunes tags.  Even if you don't start off with write/edit capabilities with iTunes tags, it would be great if exisitng iTunes-specific tags don't get deleted when saving tags in Foobar.  "COMMENT ITUNNORM" is one specific tag that I have to redo after working on tags in Foobar.  In addition, please consider adding the ability to transform Replaygain tags into the COMMENT ITUNNORM format, and extracting gapless information from file headers (LAME in particular) and write the iTunes gapless tags so that loading the iTunes library goes much faster.


thanks again for all your efforts and this direction!

Or maybe use "\\" as separator for multivalued tags, like MP3Tag?

Please forgive my ignorance, but doesn't foobar use the semicolon for multivalue tags?

edit: I found an answer here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=62897&view=findpost&p=561519)

Quote from: MuncherOfSpleens on 2011-03-20 22:00:49

Is there a noticeable performance impact when tagging MP3 files with this new version? I only ask because the old “compatibility mode” had a disclaimer suggesting that it was much slower than the ID3 2.4 setting. If so, I think I’ll stick with 2.4, as I have no need for my MP3s to play nice with iTunes or WMP.

What disclaimer are you talking about?  I see nothing of the sort in my Foobar.  If you have not need for a 2.3 setting why bother to change?

An ID3 2.3 setting has been available for a long time, under the name “compatibility mode.” However, in older versions that setting had a description along the lines of “Slow, contains workarounds for non standard-compliant players.” In newer versions (like 1.1.5), this message is gone, but the ID3v2.4 tagging is still described as being faster. I’m wondering if the same is true of this new ID3v2.3 setting.

In newer versions (like 1.1.5), this message is gone, but the ID3v2.4 tagging is still described as being faster.

You are mixing up 2 things.
It is ID3v2 padding that is described as "faster, maybe incompatible with buggy software".
The ID3v2 writer compatibility mode is (in 1.1.5) described as "non-specification-compliant, activates workarounds for common bugs in other software".
Note that ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 are not specifically mentioned in the (1.1.5) settings.

Please forgive my ignorance, but doesn't foobar use the semicolon for multivalue tags?

That's what i meant: in foobar2000 you anyway doesn't use the slash but the semicolon for setting multiple tags. So why don't use any other sign at all for that purpose. I know that is against the standard but is there any player at all that handles id3v2.3 by specification? Or am i missing something?

Quote from: ernstblaauw on 2011-03-20 16:52:20

Maybe this is not the correct place to ask, but at this moment my iPhone does not show compilation albums correctly (tagged with foobar with Various Artists as Album Artist). I never investigated and thought Apple just did not support it.

Apple uses the TPE2 tag field to group tracks as a compilation, as did a lot of other software players after that. This is why foobar stores album artist in the TPE2 field from now on. If you re-tag all your albums with an album artist tag using the new foobar release then your iPhone will happily group those tracks together.

Yes, indeed! After retagging my Various Artists albums and rebuilding my iTunes library, my iPhone correctly shows the albums. Thanks!

I have another (totally different) feature request. Sometimes, I need to transcode a couple of albums from FLAC to MP3 for my iPhone. Is it possible to add a switch to the converter to just copy files (instead of transcoding) if the source file already has the same format as the desired destination format? Then, I just can select the albums, click convert (to MP3) and I don't have to worry if the source files are FLAC or MP3.

Oh Dear :-(

I'm not happy at all with this new shift in direction.  I use BAND tag for popular music Band names, and for Orchestra in Classical music.  I've always admired Foobar for following the Id3 standard and supporting TPE2 as BAND properly.  I have a lot of work to change all of my music library, and have no desire to do that.

eg. I use BAND as an alias name, such as:

ARTIST=Jimmy Page
ARTIST=Robert Plant
BAND=Page & Plant

I only use ALBUM ARTIST if I need to group songs together on an album when the artists differ.

i.e. if the above was tags for a song on a compilation album, I would then add ALBUM ARTIST=Various Artists.  I would not use BAND for ALBUM ARTIST, and converting my library as such would lose my BAND name data (or I'd have to translate them all to additional artist names, which is not correct).

Full compatibility with iTunes, WMP, etc is of no importance to me, as Mp3Tag and Squeezebox Server both support TPE2=BAND and TXXX ALBUM ARTIST.

What happens with Vorbis tags that have ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags?  What happens if files are converted from one format to the other?

If I write to a BAND tag, will it write TXXX BAND now?

This change really needs to be configurable; most software that has ever supported the standard and maintained that and optionally supports a reduced functionality mode as a configuration setting.

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6!  I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes.  I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

AC/DC!
Thanks for seriously　but lets rock n roll! again 

What happens with Vorbis tags that have ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags?  What happens if files are converted from one format to the other?

Vorbis has and always will write tags as plain KEY=VALUE pairs, so "ALBUM ARTIST" is literally written as "ALBUM ARTIST" and "BAND" is literally written as "BAND".

If I write to a BAND tag, will it write TXXX BAND now?

That is correct.

This change really needs to be configurable; most software that has ever supported the standard and maintained that and optionally supports a reduced functionality mode as a configuration setting.

Point out at least two popular media players and taggers which do exactly this. (An argument was given before this chane that Mp3tag, for instance, defaults to writing "Album Artist" to TPE2 frames.)

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6!  I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes.  I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

You do that.

Vorbis has and always will write tags as plain KEY=VALUE pairs, so "ALBUM ARTIST" is literally written as "ALBUM ARTIST" and "BAND" is literally written as "BAND".

If load a FLAC song that has ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags, everything will be the same.

If I load an MP3 song that has TPE2 BAND and TXXX ALBUM ARTIST, it will display 2 Album Artists, and if I make changes that need to be saved, it won't honour the original content, but write it back as two artists within TPE2 BAND?

Eg. if I just want to add ReplayGain tags, it will mess with other tags, due to being "compatible" with apps that I don't use.

Point out at least two popular media players and taggers which do exactly this. (An argument was given before this chane that Mp3tag, for instance, defaults to writing "Album Artist" to TPE2 frames.)

Mp3Tag is nicely configurable; through "Tag Mapping" settings.
Squeezebox Server, a popular streaming media player is also configurable, but by default TPE2 = the Id3 standard of representing Band.

To not support the actual standard and not being compatible with the old way that Foobar works, doesn't make it a compatible app.

Quote from: Phil Meyer on 2011-03-21 23:45:43

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6!  I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes.  I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

You do that.

I have no choice, unless I spend a few MONTHS changing my music library, otherwise it will corrupt/lose content.

I hate it when apps "dumb down", remove functionality to be compatible with other less-capable alternatives.  It sucks.

Quote from: jeremija on 2011-03-21 21:38:52

Please forgive my ignorance, but doesn't foobar use the semicolon for multivalue tags?

That's what i meant: in foobar2000 you anyway doesn't use the slash but the semicolon for setting multiple tags. So why don't use any other sign at all for that purpose. I know that is against the standard but is there any player at all that handles id3v2.3 by specification? Or am i missing something?

foobar2000 displays a semicolon as a separator when reporting the contents of multi-value fields, but internally it writes/reads whichever separator the particular tag format specifies.

For example, ID3v2.3 specifies the forward-slash, whereas ID3v2.4 specifies the null character (ASCII $00).

I don't plan on moving back to ID3v2.3 as the ID3v2.4 tags seem to be read fine by the hardware/software combinations I use: Sony MP3 player, Squeezebox server, XBMC media center and mp3tag.

In fact I am still using my fully configured foobar2000 v0.9.4.4 installation as it would take me weeks to configure v1.x in the same way.  So I won't be upgrading and regressing.

Surely this move is a backwards step or am I missing the point?

cheers,
Rob.

Surely this move is a backwards step or am I missing the point?

It's a step forward in compatibility with many devices, especially Microsoft products like windows explorer or WMP. If you upgrade you can always go into the preferences and change it back to v2.4 tagging, the same way mp3 tagging has always been editable.

I've tagged all my music with Picard (using a simple script to also write to Album Artist):
[blockquote]$set(~id3:TXXX:ALBUM ARTIST,%albumartist%)[/blockquote]
With this beta, if the tag is reloaded, the %albumartist% field gets duplicated!
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38939/foo_beta.png)

foobar2000 displays a semicolon as a separator when reporting the contents of multi-value fields

Actually it displays a comma by default and uses the semicolon for editing in the properties dialog.

foobar2000 displays a semicolon as a separator when reporting the contents of multi-value fields, but internally it writes/reads whichever separator the particular tag format specifies.

I know that - sorry that i wrote my comment that it caused a misunderstanding. Let me try it in other words: You can set in foobar2000 properties window multiple values by semicolon. If you use a slash it will be replaced by "_" to avoid splitting so that you can't write some artists correctly and some users get irritated because they don't know what is happening. Why should we as users at all notice what happens internally inside a file? Additionally to that as long as there aren't known players that handles id3v2.3 tags exactly by specification in regard to multiple tags also the goal to achieve compatibility is fullfilled. So: ideal would be we use slash as literal sign and set multiple values by semicolon and can forget all that stuff about this really crazy tagging standard called id3.

@for4saken
After reloading BAND is mapped to TXXX(Band) which is empty. Probably ALBUM ARTIST shows TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) frame. I ask myself how is it possible to copy the old content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band)?

Edit: grammar, spelling and so on

@for4saken
After reloading BAND is mapped to TXXX(Band) which is empty. Probably ALBUM ARTIST shows TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) frame. I ask myself how is it possible to copy the old content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band)?

I assume, though correct me if I'm wrong, that a "Rewrite file tags" will suffice. I.e. select the files containing an ALBUM ARTIST tag; go to the "Tagging" menu from the context menu; click on "Rewrite file tags". Hold down the Shift key while calling the context menu if either the "Tagging" menu or the "Rewrite file tags" option is not available.

Improved performance when playing very short tracks.

I do benefit a lot from this improvement, since I am working intensively with such files, so thank you for that. However I am wondering how this performance gain has been achieved. Has the file opening process been optimized? But then this change would apply to all files, not only to the extremely short ones.

Regarding the ID3v2.3 vs. v2.4 discussion: I am not well informed what the differences between these two versions are. Is a comparison table available which lists for both the limitations I should be aware of, i.e. not accepted chars, limited tag capacity for text input etc?

Regarding the ID3v2.3 vs. v2.4 discussion: I am not well informed what the differences between these two versions are. Is a comparison table available which lists for both the limitations I should be aware of, i.e. not accepted chars, limited tag capacity for text input etc?

Good idea. I am not well informed either (i.e. not at all) about the differences and am struggling to understand the points mentioned in this thread. I find it rather confusing.

As if by magic... Comparison of ID3 Standards (http://www.unixgods.org/~tilo/ID3/docs/ID3_comparison.html). Not a complete breakdown, but a good comparison of tag support with some useful links to documentation, including the character limitations of ID3 v1.

(Hello to all on HA, by the way.)

Beta 2 (http://www.foobar2000.org/download) is available now. ID3v2 tagging compatibility has seen some refinement. More info here (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Metadata_Compatibility_1.1.6_changes).

I'm a little disappointed beta 2 didn't add any functionality, though it is good to see that some feedback for beta 1 was addressed.
Once again I ask, if the goal if 1.1.6 is to improve tagging compatibility with mainstream software, then for beta 3, can we also change:

-write to YEAR instead of DATE in mp3s
-add support for TSOC (composersortorder) in id3v2.3 and 2.4.  While it might be something iTunes created, it does not duplicate any functionality pre-existing in the id3v2.x spec, hence many people find it useful.  (mp4 tags already have this field being read)
-separate iTunes comment frames out of COMMENT, because in foobar2000 these iTunes frames like normalization, gap, cddb, etc., are display before the REAL comment.

Thanks.

I can't help but notice that replaygain results are very different in this version, sometimes vastly so. I've rescanned a few albums, and the difference is between 0.5-1.0db, and on a 24/96 5.1 DVD-A the difference was even reported as 4db! What am I to make of this?

You are supposed to read the change log and see that a new ReplayGain scanner has been employed.

Are you looking for something more detailed than what is in thread's first post? Differences are expected and dev's consider new method superior.
There are a couple of other threads here documenting using libebur128 as engine for replay gain settings.

Edit: slow

Edit: slow

Yet more thorough.

You are supposed to read the change log and see that a new ReplayGain scanner has been employed.

Duh. Obviously, that's why I scanned some albums AGAIN. But 4db difference??

The difference varies per track. On average, the results should be similar across a broad set of tracks.

Quote from: q-stankovic on 2011-03-22 21:13:22

@for4saken
After reloading BAND is mapped to TXXX(Band) which is empty. Probably ALBUM ARTIST shows TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) frame. I ask myself how is it possible to copy the old content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band)?

I assume, though correct me if I'm wrong, that a "Rewrite file tags" will suffice.

I did a quick test and that won't work because it will show the same result like in for4sakens screenshot. So the question remains: does anybody has an idea how to copy content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band) after reloading info? The problem is that TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) is mixed together under the field ALBUM ARTIST.

Edit:
I think the best is firstly to uncheck the option in advanced preferences that maps TPE2 to ALBUM ARTIST and then to do the copy job by using a dummy field. After switching back the content of this dummy field can be copied to BAND. This naturally can be done before updating to newest foobar2000 version. If there is really no good solution to do the job after rewriting file tags so that should be mentioned somewhere and an advice should be given how to save the old content.

Quote from: Prodoc on 2011-03-22 21:55:41

Quote from: q-stankovic on 2011-03-22 21:13:22

@for4saken
After reloading BAND is mapped to TXXX(Band) which is empty. Probably ALBUM ARTIST shows TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) frame. I ask myself how is it possible to copy the old content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band)?

I assume, though correct me if I'm wrong, that a "Rewrite file tags" will suffice.

I did a quick test and that won't work because it will show the same result like in for4sakens screenshot. So the question remains: does anybody has an idea how to copy content of TPE2 to TXXX(Band) after reloading info? The problem is that TPE2 and TXXX(Album Artist) is mixed together under the field ALBUM ARTIST.

How about re-installing an earlier version of foobar, copying TPE2 -> some temporary tag (eg. NEWBAND), and then re-installing the latest version and moving NEWBAND -> BAND?

Or maybe use Mp3Tag to do the tag change.

That won't work after rewriting files either by context menu or by tagging something else through properties window. The content is then merged together in one frame.

In case an ITUNESCOMPILATION tag is found in a file, foobar2000 treats it as if ALBUM ARTIST was set to "Various Artists".

What means: treats it as if ALBUM ARTIST was set to "Various Artists" ???
Is there something special when i set it to "Various Artists"? 

Having any %album artist% value results in "something special"--tracks that wouldn't group together correctly with title formatting, do.

If there is no value in the ALBUM ARTIST tag and the ITUNESCOMPILATION frame is set, then %album artist% is displayed as Various Artists, so that the compilation groups together correctly.


The point of these changes is that you shouldn't have to understand any of this and it should work how you expect. If you can't wrap your head around the theoretical changes, then just use it and let us know when something you don't understand happens.

That was ironic.
Of course ALBUM ARTIST is used for grouping/sorting etc.

btw
It would be nice if this "auto-sting" Various Artists would be customizable. I prefer the abbreviation VA

ID3v2.3 tags are now written by default, without unsynchronization.

Although that might make it simpler for certain tag reading routines (in other software than fb2k), what about the impact for the audio part? Are there (old?) players around (maybe in hardware/firmware) where unsync saves the day? Could audio glitches occur because of this?

(I'm sorry that I could not find answers by testing myself, most things I have used had no problem to read the ID3v2.4 with unsync. Hey, at least I don't say it's wrong upfront)

It would be nice if this "auto-sting" Various Artists would be customizable. I prefer the abbreviation VA

I second this suggestion. Since this feature seems to be (at its core) an arbitrary TPE2 assignment in order to achieve better grouping of tracks in the playlist, it might as well be truly arbitrary to the user's preference.

As an aside, I have already been tagging VA albums without a specific album artist with "Various Artists" in foobar2000's "Album Artist" tag, and matching the same to an existing BAND tag if I have one from services like MusicBrainz, et al. Can I assume my tagging will suffer no serious consequences by this change? I have been avoiding the beta this time because I'm still not quite sure how this will work, but trust everything will reach an "acceptable" consensus by the final release.

btw
It would be nice if this "auto-sting" Various Artists would be customizable. I prefer the abbreviation VA

That should be unnecessary as you can just fill in ALBUM ARTIST with whatever value you actually want.

I am having some difficulty with beta 2's multivalue delimiter.

Firstly, my understanding was that this value/symbol (be it '; ' or ' / ') was merely the representation of an actual delimitation character (say, NUL); and it was this NUL delimiter that is written to the tag when the aforementioned symbol was encountered.

However, in beta 2, when ' / ' is specified, what is actually written to the tag seems to be space-NUL-space rather than simply NUL (as interpreted by mp3tag, dbpoweramp and beta 1). Beta 2 interprets this space-NUL-space as the delimiter (and thus displays it properly) but breaks on tags written by mp3tag. If I specify in mp3tag to write ' / ', beta 2 interprets the tag properly.

To be crystal clear, here is an example of how an artist tag is displayed:

in beta 1:
mp3tag: Lore/Brennan
foobar: Lore, Brennan (Properties: Lore; Brennan)

in beta 2:
mp3tag: Lore/Brennan
foobar: Lore/Brennan (Properties: Lore/Brennan)

mp3tag: Lore / Brennan
foobar: Lore, Brennan (Properties: Lore / Brennan)

what I expected:
mp3tag: Lore/Brennan
foobar: Lore, Brennan (Properties: Lore / Brennan)

The example holds regardless of which program does the actual tag writing.

Firstly, my understanding was that this value/symbol (be it '; ' or ' / ') was merely the representation of an actual delimitation character (say, NUL); and it was this NUL delimiter that is written to the tag when the aforementioned symbol was encountered.

NUL is the actual delimiter character in id3v2.4 But, The slash character (/) is the actual delimiter character in id3v2.3. However, people also want to store slash characters in tags, but they technically can't. So this whole " / " thing was devised as a compromise to allow people to have multiple values in some cases (when the slash is surrounded by spaces) and to allow people to display AC/DC (where the slash isn't encased in spaces) in other cases.

Admittedly, there's no perfect solution to this problem, but this is the compromise which allows use to write id3v2.3 tags that are compatible with other software (e.g. all Microsoft software) by default.

If tdurjan101's observations are true, then I think Beta 1 was the way to go. The very very few artists like AC/DC don't justifiy such a change. The better way IMO would be to have a list of artist strings. I heard in WMP, AC/DC was hard-coded. foobar2000 could have a soft-coded list of such artists that users can change on their own.

foobar2000 could have a soft-coded list of such artists that users can change on their own.

I'm missing how that would help compatibility with other programs.
All this proves that the id3v2.3 spec is the can of worms we already thought it was . Not defining a way to escape '/' is a plain oversight.

I noticed that in other tags where I use multiple values occasionally (composer, genre) the same strategy as with Artist is applied (i.e. ' / ' as delimiter) (not sure what other programs do with the extra spaces in genre). Except in comment, is multivalued comment a bad idea?

Now that the ReplayGain scanner now uses libebur128, I am having slowdowns when ReplayGain scanning a track that has large areas of silence.
It slows down to ~2x.
Is anyone else experience this?

It's funny, as of 1.1, foobar2000 changed to use / instead of NUL as the delimiter. This is compliant with the spec and fixed the "compliance issue" described here: http://www.id3.org/Compliance_Issues (http://www.id3.org/Compliance_Issues)

I posted to the id3 mailing list to try and get the line removed. Bizarrely, pretty much everyone who's posting to the list prefers the NUL approach, even though it's less compliant with the spec. PaulTaylor, who added the issue, wrote: "Actually, I agree you would be better keeping the null sperator option even though it is not compilant"

Are you looking for something more detailed than what is in thread's first post? Differences are expected and dev's consider new method superior.

I also would like to understand better why this engine is superior, if it is significant change. Many songs I have that were -10.00 are now -12.00dB.

I trust you are not asking for me to find the threads for you to read?

EDIT: removed my edit as it makes subsequent reply nonsensical.

Absolutely not.

Edit:
What I suggest is that one concentrate more information on this thread, because more people will ask about the new ReplayGain. Or perhaps explain the benefits, in short words. Something like "well it scans the true peak and makes a calculation off that information". You see, nothing scary. It will be good to know if it's worth re-scanning something like 500GB of music.

Yes, I have a lot of music that sounds like it needs to be rescanned (otherwise what is the point).  I'd like to know what makes the new library better, before spending many many hours rescanning everything.

It will be good to know if it's worth re-scanning something like 500GB of music.

There won't be that much benefit. The two algorithms are quite similar in most cases. It's not a big deal. I certainly haven't bothered to rescan my whole library. If you want technical details, you can find them here at Hydrogenaudio. Note that the details will be technical; the only differences between the old and the new approaches are also quite technical. As far as the end-user goes, they're close enough.

If anyone cares to actually collect enough data to make a compelling argument for the old algorithm or to make the algorithm user-selectable, they're welcome to do so. Be forewarned, though: Unless you actually are prepared to make a solid case for the old one over the new, you're probably just going to be ignored. Most of us who are aware of the technical details tend to agree that the new is preferable.

NUL is the actual delimiter character in id3v2.4 But, The slash character (/) is the actual delimiter character in id3v2.3. However, people also want to store slash characters in tags, but they technically can't. So this whole " / " thing was devised as a compromise to allow people to have multiple values in some cases (when the slash is surrounded by spaces) and to allow people to display AC/DC (where the slash isn't encased in spaces) in other cases.

IMO this workaround is an ugly hack. In fact, I don't see why any workarounds are even needed. ID3v2.3 supports Unicode, and there are at least two slash characters in Unicode (U+2044, U+2215), both can be used if one so wishes to put the slash character into the artist field. The ASCII slash (which by the way is not even called "slash" in Unicode) can be used as intended by specification. The reasonable workaround, if any, would be to transparently translate U+002F entered by the user to one of the above mentioned slashes.

OK, but does Last.fm recognise U+2044 or U+2215 as the same, "proper" slash? If not, if they're different for Last.fm, libre.fm, or whatever, it's not still ideal solution.

OK, but does Last.fm recognise U+2044 or U+2215 as the same, "proper" slash? If not, if they're different for Last.fm, libre.fm, or whatever, it's not still ideal solution.

I've checked - it doesn't.

I have many artists with a slash in their name (and no AC/DC in my library!), so I've forced foobar back into using ID3v2.4, which is very much the preferred solution for me. I guess I'm going to have to do this for each of the betas, as beta 2 changed me back again.

Patched-in solutions for one or two particular artists seem to me a really bad idea on many different levels. Here's a few of mine:
3/4HadBeenEliminated
Akron/Family
DJ /rupture
Domeyko/Gonzalez
V/VM
and of course countless collaborations where I want the artist name to stay as, say, Ambarchi/O'Rourke/Haino rather than the three artists' surnames.

I'm not hugely fussed, as it's my choice, but I really do think ID3v2.3 is massively flawed for this reason, and while compatibilty is worth seeking to some degree, I think this is a mistake.

You seem completely confused too about the tagging changes. With old versions you couldn't have used those fields with MP3 and ID3v2.3 tags but with the new beta 2 you can.

I also see something wrong in this thread: since beta 1 I've never seen people talking that much about the slash character in foobar but since the AC/DC fix everyone is concerned about this. Me too, but since always.

Beta 3 (http://www.foobar2000.org/download). Fixes ReplayGain scanner slowdowns and memory leaks.

Using beta 3 and running the Replaygain utility, memory leak seems fixed, and a scan on 5k files ran at an expected speed, but the writing of tags is very sloooooow.  I couldn't find any resource constaints or otherwise detect the cause.  thanks.

Did you somehow disable padding for your tags? Or just enable it for previously unpadded files? Either way, if the tag size must be changed, then the whole file must be rewritten to update the tag. Padding attempts to avoid this by using a reasonably large (a few kilobytes) tag size so that any additions or removals you make will only need to rewrite the tag block at the head of the file.

I did not do anything deliberate to any padding, but I can see how insufficient padding would cause this.  I experienced the slow write speed with both mp3 and flac files.  When I originally ripped the files with Dbpoweramp, I understand that it added a 4k pad for tags, but whatever Dbpoweramp did, it was sufficient for rapid writing as I modified tags for the last year in Foobar and Mp3tag.  Re-running replaygain on my files in the past day is the first time I've encountered such slow write speeds (about one file per second - far slower than what I experienced in the past or when I originally created my replaygain tags).  I have not changed my computer or other hardware or software, at least knowingly in the last year, other than updates to applications and my OS (Win 7 32 bit).

I tried an experiment within Foobar to first delete the existing replaygain tag instead of overwriting it, but the deletion process was as slow as overwriting.  I also checked tag writing speed within Mp3tag, and that seems as quick as in the past - I don't see the slow writing that I now see in Foobar.  I did the Mp3tag experiment on the same files in the same location as what I was doing in Foobar to keep as many variables the same.

I guess if no one else experiences this it's no big deal, but I thought I'd mention it in case others see something similar.

wow... up to +/- 4 dB differences on albums with the new replaygainscanner (1.6.3) I didn't know the former version of the rg-scanner was really that much off. To my surprise, the albums were I felt I had to change the rg-values manually before are ok now and do show quite a change in dB.

Scans faster too... thank you!

differences on albums with the new replaygainscanner

most notably the EBU R128 based scanner takes more of the low end into account, the old scanner seemed to ignore a bit too much there. Overall I think the new one is OK. There will always be some cases that will sound a bit off, maybe less so with this new scanner.

I won't make a case for making the type of replaygainscanner user configurable, but I hope there might become a plugin available with the "old" scanner, like there has been for the new one. On some occasions I found 70's music (jazz, piano or synthesizer) more uneven and louder than with the old scanner. Tracks with a single instrument were too loud compared to busy tracks. In this case the old scanner fixed this.
This is not a case however to abandon the new scanner as, I still think, it does better in general.

Quote from: tom_vienna_at on 2011-04-03 16:26:17

differences on albums with the new replaygainscanner

most notably the EBU R128 based scanner takes more of the low end into account, the old scanner seemed to ignore a bit too much there. Overall I think the new one is OK. There will always be some cases that will sound a bit off, maybe less so with this new scanner.

now that you mention it... the albums with the most different new rg-scan-values are extremly bass-heavy albums - like the "rhythm & sound"-albums, that are more or less a rhythmical bass-rumble really. e.g. "rhythm & sound - the versions", album-rg before: -1.35 dB, now: -5.23 dB

edit: I just had one strange thought... do you mean someone (developer) makes a subjective decision what a rg-scanner has to take into account... like "let's focus on the high end" or "let's make the low end more accountable". That would be very strange and not objective at all.

do you mean someone (developer) makes a subjective decision what a rg-scanner has to take into account?

Think of it as looking for a good algorithm to measure perceived loudness. There is science and testing involved, not just arbitrary decisions.
I don't think this should be discussed in this thread however. Maybe the thread about the R128scanner (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=85978) or the ITU-R BS.1770 (http://webs.uvigo.es/servicios/biblioteca/uit/rec/BS/R-REC-BS.1770-1-200709-I!!PDF-E.pdf) measuring document can be of interest.

Is the ID3v2 padding option enabled by default? I believe I disabled that option ages ago and can't remember whether the initial state was on or off.

I haven't changed it from the default of enabled.

Well.R128 Gain　showed a perfect gain to me
But it showed the new different problem on the directx
Volume is different from playing the distributed music of both sides(as Rock and Pop) in the music divided into the center(as Classic and Jazz)

ERROR

When you drag a file into another application (AIMP, MPCHC ets.), the order of files is changed to an alphabetical

ERROR

When you drag a file into another application (AIMP, MPCHC ets.), the order of files is changed to an alphabetical

Thats own yourself isnt that?
I dont know what are you talking 'bout to

Beta 4 is out. It features more tagging compatibility (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Metadata_Compatibility_1.1.6_changes) changes.

id3v2 (mp3) changes from beta 3:

• iTunes-private COMM frames are ignored so they don't pollute comment fields and are always preserved when retagging.
• Added support for more iTunes-specific fields.

mp4 changes from beta 3:

• Added support for more iTunes-specific fields.
• Unknown or unsupported Apple metadata atoms are preserved when retagging.

RG scanner:

• Mono files now treated as dual mono (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=86116&view=findpost&p=751044)

Reloading worked for me after ensuring I had COMM frame tags.  First, I had to re-write the iTunes comments tags in in Mp3tag to ensure the COMMENT ITUNNORM tags were written to a COMM frame.

thanks for these changes!

EDIT: klonuo, your iTunes comment is written to a TXXX frame and combined into a single comment with the "0" information - Foobar won't fix those issues - you need to rewrite as I did and things should work.  And if you in fact have a regular comment that should contain "0", that comment should be written to a TXXX frame by itself.

WRT the tagging changes: I believe all my concerns have been satisfied. Kudos. Will test to make sure when I get home.

Installed beta 4, reloaded my MP3 tags, and I see values showing up for %composersortorder%.  Many, many thanks

edit:  but there's a new problem introduced in beta 4, I think.

Was the handling of the %genre% tag in MP4 files changed?  My genre tags written in Mp3tag can't be read by foobar2000.

I would appreciate if the last step would be gone and the header of COMMENT tags wouldn't be hidden. Mp3tags solution to use seperate fieldnames seems elegant: COMMENT HEADER = Value.

edit:  but there's a new problem introduced in beta 4, I think.

Was the handling of the %genre% tag in MP4 files changed?  My genre tags written in Mp3tag can't be read by foobar2000.

It seems like some genre tags are not written to the files when converting to M4A too. Works fine on a clean install of 1.1.5.

Now that the ReplayGain scanner now uses libebur128, I am having slowdowns when ReplayGain scanning a track that has large areas of silence.
It slows down to ~2x.
Is anyone else experience this?

Yup, still having the issue with beta4.

Kinda annoying when your machine kompletely shuts down without any BSOD or any other kind of error

Quote from: neothe0ne on 2011-04-09 02:30:56

edit: but there's a new problem introduced in beta 4, I think.

Was the handling of the %genre% tag in MP4 files changed? My genre tags written in Mp3tag can't be read by foobar2000.

It seems like some genre tags are not written to the files when converting to M4A too. Works fine on a clean install of 1.1.5.

fb2k is writing to the cgen atom, but I get two genres (both cgen) if I write a genre using fb2k and I already have cgen written originally by mp3tag prior.

Sounds like foobar2000 is just writing a new cgen atom, rather than reading and modifying the original one from Mp3tag. IIRC, "Genre" is one of the tags that supports multiple entries.

I don't know why foobar2000 wouldn't be reading the atom that already exists, however. That's a question for the programmer(s).

It only reads the genre it writes and not the original. If I delete the fb2k written tag, it will no longer read the original tag written by mp3tag.

Quote from: audionuma on 2011-04-13 21:23:09

ITU-R BS.1770-2 available (http://www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1770-2-201103-I!!PDF-E.pdf).
75% overlapping and -10 dB relative gate ...
I guess the R128 should soon be modified in the same way.

Great! Time to change the relative gate accordingly. The block overlap already is at 75%.

I should be releasing 0.4 in the next few days. Now there is only one scanner executable with different input plugins instead of one exe for each input library. The scanner automatically chooses the best input plugin for each file. This should make it easier to tag/scan different audio formats at the same time.
I've also implemented a hidden option "--tag-tp" for true peak tagging and fixed the ReplayGain loudness for mono files.

Are we getting these changes in next beta?

Beta 5 (http://www.foobar2000.org/download) out. No ReplayGain scanner changes yet unfortunately.

• To prevent problems with converting tags between different ID3v2 revisions, foobar2000 will no longer convert ID3v2 tags between 2.3 and 2.4 unless explicitly requested by the user.
• ID3v2 revision is now reported in the "tagtype" field.
• MP4 genre now works properly.

Did we have to reload any tags after Beta1 as pointed out in the Wiki or was once enough to update?

I had to do a reload to get the tagtype to update from ID3v2 to ID3v2.3.

Did we have to reload any tags after Beta1 as pointed out in the Wiki or was once enough to update?

Any changes done to tag reading, require fb2k to re-read the actual files' tags.

Usually what is displayed in the Media Library or in .fpl playlists are cached results. So yes, you have to refresh the cache.

• MP4 genre now works properly.

Nope, it stills uses ID3 genre numbers. Certain genres such as Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal and Synth Pop want appear on MP3tag and iTunes.

Could there be some some problem with drag&drop in beta 5 at least?
I can't d&d in playlist view, but can in playlist manager, and can't think of something I am doing wrong

edit: please ignore this for a while, until I figure how to reproduce

edit2: I don't really get what's wrong as I'm too tired (never the less posting in forum) but here is picture when I try to drop file from explorer:

(http://i54.tinypic.com/14bkcd2.png)

Are the ID3v2.3 tags that fb2k 1.1.6 writes, in Unicode (UTF-16 or UTF-8) or ISO-8859-1 ?

AFAIK they are in UTF-16 unless original is in latin-1

Are you dragging to an autoplaylist?

It wasn't autoplaylist (I don't have empty autoplaylist), but regular temp playlist from which I deleted tracks as I finished working on them. Then trying d&d I noticed this weird behaviour
Right now, after I restarted my PC, can't seem to reproduce again
Bin it in twilight zone

Where you dragging from a window spawned with elevated privileges (i.e., Administrator mode) when foobar2000 was not or vice versa? UAC doesn't support this.

Are we getting these changes in next beta?

Unfortunately 1.1.6 stable didn't get these changes.
We'll include the updated R128 library as soon as possible. Next foobar2000 beta versions will be available soon enough.