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Topic: When tagging ID3: ID3v1, ID3v2, both? (Read 12234 times) previous topic - next topic
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When tagging ID3: ID3v1, ID3v2, both?

When tagging MP3 files, I ask myself whether I should use ID3v1 or ID3v2.

I used to do tagging only in ID3v1, and started using ID3v2 somewhere in between.
Now I'm pondering converting all ID3v1 tags to ID3v2 and stripping ID3v1.

But then again: Should I be using both, maybe?

I like to keep my tags minimal. Cover art is OK when it is available, but I like to limit myself to the following:
  • TPE1 (artist)
  • TALB (album)
  • TIT2 (title)
  • TDRC (year / recording time)
  • TCON (genre)
  • TRCK (track number(s))
  • APIC (attached picture)


I strip extra tags, expecially the COMM (comment) tag, as it doesn't make any sense, to me. Tags that aren't filled, because they don't make sense, like TRCK for singles release on the internet, etc. are stripped as well. I keep TBPM when it is available beforehand.

Now, as you can see, I use ID3v2.4, but I'm not sure about it. I don't see why I should stick to ID3v2.3. ID3v1, however, is considered the "standard", but since I use tags not supported in ID3v1, I'm quite unsure what to do.

Since I'm a Linux user, I use eyeD3 for comandline editing of ID3 tags, and easytag as a GUI tool. I've been using puddletag as well, but it seems it tends to break things.

I have some old files, still tagged only in ID3v1, and some on ID3v2.3. The ones with ID3v1 are quite easy to convert to ID3v2.4. Now, when moving everything to ID3v2.4, what should I do with TYER? TYER has been replaces in ID3v2.4 by TDRC, but should I keep the old tag, just in case?

When tagging ID3: ID3v1, ID3v2, both?

Reply #1 –
i think you should ditch id3v1 completely. the only reason to use it is if you have some antiquated hardware that doesn't read id3v2 tags.

as for which id3v2 revision to use, again that would down to what hardware (if any) and software you use. not many players support id3v2.4 but if everything you use does, there's no reason not to use it. any competent tagger should automatically remove id3v2.3 tags if writing 2.4 - it's bad practice to have 2.3 and 2.4 written to the same files.

When tagging ID3: ID3v1, ID3v2, both?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: marc2003 on
i think you should ditch id3v1 completely.[...]

[...] it's bad practice to have 2.3 and 2.4 written to the same files.

Thanks for clarifying that. Since I don't know of any hardware that has problems with ID3v2.4, I'll stick to that for now.

As for ID3 tagging software, is my choice OK?
 

When tagging ID3: ID3v1, ID3v2, both?

Reply #4 –
I used 2.4 only for quite a while, but have lately moved to 2.3+1 after coming across incompatibilities with both hardware & software players I wanted to use. Convenience outweighed elegance, with no real downsides for me. Anyway, it's not hard to switch in either direction, at least with foobar2000, which I use (on Wine). I tried Easytag, which it's interesting to see is back under development, & Puddletag, whose developer I found to be very responsive to bug reports & feature requests, but ultimately foobar2000 works best for me.

As to 'is my choice (of tagging software) ok?', it seems to do exactly what you want, so yes. Unless you mean does it have any known defects, in which case I always go through the software's forums & issues log. If there's anything that makes me uncomfortable I test till I'm happy, or move to different software.