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Topic: From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems (Read 5491 times) previous topic - next topic
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From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

First, excuse me if this has already been discussed but I did a search and while I found many iTunes/Foobar threads, nothing related exactly to this.

I recently picked up a macbook and have moved some of meticulously tagged and organized music collection over. Now on pc I use foobar, but on the mac I don't really have a choice, so I'm going to be using iTunes. Unfortunately iTunes only load about 75% of my tags. The rest of the files are imported as untagged. Its really bizarre as some of the tracks are on the same albums/ tagged exactly the same way. Some tracks will load their tags and others with similar/exact tag settings will not. Weirdness. I attempted to find a pattern but it seems to be both id3v1 and v2 tracks that do this. Any suggestions to fixing this?

Also, I store my album art as cover.jpg inside my album directories. iTunes doesn't recognize this and I really don't feel like signing up for iTunes store account just to download album art. While I've searched for this I have yet to find an answer, is there an external filename that iTunes will consistently load album art from? Additionally, any suggestions on how to quickly convert filenames over to this naming pattern?

Topic moved to General Audio, because you seem to have problems with iTunes, not foobar2000.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #1
Unfortunately iTunes only load about 75% of my tags. The rest of the files are imported as untagged.


In the days of foobar 0.8, it defaulted to ape tagging for mp3 files. This might explain it. Check the tag type using eg mp3tag.

Quote
Also, I store my album art as cover.jpg inside my album directories. iTunes doesn't recognize this


There are several itunes add-ons available to scan an entire folder hierarchy and embed all folder.jpg files to the audio files in the folder in which they are found.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #2
Quote
In the days of foobar 0.8, it defaulted to ape tagging for mp3 files. This might explain it. Check the tag type using eg mp3tag.

Nope, IDv1 and IDv2. I am using Foobar 0.9.4 Unless ape is a type of IDv1/IDv2 tagging. I'm not at my PC right now, but I remember there was 3 types of tags foobar supports and the 3rd one began with an A, so I am assuming that is APE.
Quote
There are several itunes add-ons available to scan an entire folder hierarchy and embed all folder.jpg files to the audio files in the folder in which they are found.

Ah, thank you, I am not sure if I want to embedded the art inside the files. It seems like a good way to unnecessarily add size to files. I would prefer the external file route. I heard the iTunes store finds and downloads album art to external files. If this is true, iTunes has the capability to to load external files, I just haven't figured out what filenames its looking for. The few it loads up have Albumart - {some random pattern of letters/number}.jpg.

Anyone have any specifics or opinions about the pro/cons of embedded album art?

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #3
Anyone have any specifics or opinions about the pro/cons of embedded album art?


I prefer folder.jpg method over embedding because i have large sized, high resolution album arts. Now embedding those artwork into every file of the album seems like a waste to me. (Although you could embed lower resolution album art- i just don't want to bother going through this extra effort).

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #4
I heard the iTunes store finds and downloads album art to external files. If this is true, iTunes has the capability to to load external files, I just haven't figured out what filenames its looking for.

I seriously doubt that is going to succeed. It is true that iTunes doesn't not like to alter files unless specifically requested by the user and therefor maintains a separate database of album art. I believe they use a specialised picture file-format and structure. I believe nobody has yet found out how it actually works.

You do know that a iTunes Store account is free, do you? If you just sign up but never buy a thing it costs you nothing but cover art in superb quality is automatically downloaded and stored _outside_ the files. Something to consider...

Regarding mass-taggers to possibly solve some of the other issues. If you still have a Windows box near you have more choice but for OS X MediaRage is my favourite.
Every night with my star friends / We eat caviar and drink champagne
Sniffing in the VIP area / We talk about Frank Sinatra
Do you know Frank Sinatra? / He's dead

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #5
Use foobar2000 to rewrite all MP3 tags in ID3v2 using compatibility mode.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #6
Use foobar2000 to rewrite all MP3 tags in ID3v2 using compatibility mode.


Yeah I'll probably try that. It isn't going to screw up my files or anything is it? I mean I can revert to non"compatibility mode" tags if I need to right?

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #7
Yeah I'll probably try that. It isn't going to screw up my files or anything is it? I mean I can revert to non"compatibility mode" tags if I need to right?

You'll neither screw anything up nor will you be unable to restore the original tagging system. This so-called "compatibility mode" is nothing but ID3v2.3 UTF-16, which is much more software- and especially hardware-friendly than the infamous ID3v2.4 format used by the default settings. "Infamous" because the industry hasn't ever adopted it as an official standard, hence compatibility issues are likely to happen in conjunction with most commercial products. For maximum hardware-player support I'd even recommend converting the UTF-16 tags to ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) using an advanced tagger, e.g. MP3tag, since my personal experience tells me that quite a lot of hardware devices are still unable to handle unicode.

Edit: Added the link.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #8
Anyone have any specifics or opinions about the pro/cons of embedded album art?


iTunes will NOT automatically load Artwork in anyway regardless of how you have your artwork file as Cover.jpg or Folder.jpg or etc. If only these artwork are embedded to tracks, iTunes will manage to grab a copy of it and store it in iTunes\Album Artwork\Local folder. Media Player will load Folder.jpg but not iTunes.

The con of embedding Artwork would be obviously increasing the file size. But come on, the advantages are far more great. No matter where you go, the artwork will be with you. The artwork will be displayed in any player that reads the artwork. If you give a track to the friend, she will see the artwork too. It's also good to keep a copy of the artwork file as Cover or Folder.jpg in the album folder, I do too.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #9
You'll neither screw anything up nor will you be unable to restore the original tagging system. This so-called "compatibility mode" is nothing but ID3v2.3 UTF-16, which is much more software- and especially hardware-friendly than the infamous ID3v2.4 format used by the default settings. "Infamous" because the industry hasn't ever adopted it as an official standard, hence compatibility issues are likely to happen in conjunction with most commercial products. For maximum hardware-player support I'd even recommend converting the UTF-16 tags to ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) using an advanced tagger, e.g. MP3tag, since my personal experience tells me that quite a lot of hardware devices are still unable to handle unicode.


Well foobar can be switch in to compatibility mode and told to rewrite all tags, and then switched into "incompatibility" mode and told to rewrite all tags again, correct? Effectively going from 2.4, to 2.3, back to 2.3, or am I missing something here?

 

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #10
Well foobar can be switch in to compatibility mode and told to rewrite all tags, and then switched into "incompatibility" mode and told to rewrite all tags again, correct? Effectively going from 2.4, to 2.3, back to 2.3, or am I missing something here?

Both statements are correct. 
Though I'm pretty sure you won't find any serious reason for switching back to the "incompatibility" mode. In my experience ID3v2.4 is nothing but unnecessary trouble if you have the option to use ID3v2.3 instead.

The many different ID3 tagging standards are kinda confusing and really annoying for unexperienced users, but oh well, they are indicators for how much the possibilities to store metadata inside an MP3 file have evolved up to this day. If MP3 users don't stick to the (poorly supported) APEv2 standard they don't have much of a choice but to fight themselves through the ID3v1.1, ID2v2.3 Latin-1/UTF-16 and ID3v2.4 UTF-8 forest.

From Foobar2k to iTunes, tag/album art problems

Reply #11
I heard the iTunes store finds and downloads album art to external files. If this is true, iTunes has the capability to to load external files, I just haven't figured out what filenames its looking for. The few it loads up have Albumart - {some random pattern of letters/number}.jpg.


It doesn't look for any filenames. The database only stores artwork downloaded by iTunes from the iTunes Store. And I don't believe anyone has yet found a way to get anything into it manually.

The files have the file extension .itc. They're just graphics files - some PNGs, some JPEGs, IIRC - with a little extra information added in the header.

I agree that imbedding album art seems a pointless exercise in duplication, but most of the time I end up doing that anyway, because the iTunes Store has hardly anything I've ripped, and, as I say, there's no way to get a graphics file into the database. So I usually imbed them by highlighting all the tracks in the album, selecting GetInfo, and using the little window on the right-hand side in the inspector window that pops up. Or I sometimes use MediaRage instead. There may be an AppleScript to do it, too - if so, it'll be here:

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/

Can't you reduce the size (or even resolution) of the artwork? The iTunes Store provides 600 x 600 pixel artwork, which is larger than the 500 x 500 than you can get, if you're lucky, at Amazon or Walmart. That's good enough to look good in iTunes' Coverflow view, but still not appalling large for imbedding in files.