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Topic: WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP (Read 516951 times) previous topic - next topic
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WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #75
How do I avoid WMP Tag Plus from adding mp4 music videos to "Video" library, as I prefer to view MP4 with audio tags such as used in "Music" library.

I've set up the Vista registry for Window Media Player to recognize mp4 as audio file, not video.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Multimedia\WMPlayer\Extensions\.mp4]
"PerceivedType"="audio"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\MLS\Extensions]
"mp4"="audio"

With WMP Tags Plus disabled the files are loaded to "Music" library just fine. But when WMP Tag Plus enabled, my files are loaded to "Video" library (without audio tags) and Advanced Tag Editor doesn't even work.

Thanks

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #76
You say music videos, so these MP4 files also contain a video stream and not only an audio stream? WMP Tag Plus will detect a video stream and report this to WMP, so I guess that's why WMP classifies it as Video.

You could try changing the extension of the files to M4A. I doubt that this will help (as M4A files are probably handled identically to MP4), but it's still worth a try.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #77
You say music videos, so these MP4 files also contain a video stream and not only an audio stream? WMP Tag Plus will detect a video stream and report this to WMP, so I guess that's why WMP classifies it as Video.

You could try changing the extension of the files to M4A. I doubt that this will help (as M4A files are probably handled identically to MP4), but it's still worth a try.


Yes the MP4s contain video and audio. When I try changing the extension to M4a, they get added to the "Video" library with WMP Tags Plus enabled (which does not have audio tags editing in WMP). Without WMP Tags Plus enabled M4a are added to "Music Library" (with audio tags). This behaves the same as MP4, probably because WMP Tags Plus has same definition (MPEG4) for M4A and MP4.

What I need is an option for WMP Tags Plus to edit the IDE (MP3) tags inside the MP4s without causing WMP to add them to Video library. If I enable WMP Tag plus after adding MP4s to Music Library, it edits just fine.

If I define MP4 as FLAC in MWP Tag Plus it seems to add them to Music Library fien, and allow editing but tag structure is wrong.

Thanks

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #78
Exactly, setting MP4 to FLAC is incorrect and won't work. MPEG4 is the only correct format.

I hope you can understand that I really don't like adding options to WMP Tag Plus for edge cases like this, options that most other users don't need and can only confuse them.

Note that you can edit tags of MP4 files in the Video library, and that they will be written to the files. It's just the Advanced Tag Editor that isn't available there. The Actors-field is equivalent to the Artist-field in Music.

If you really want to have them in Music, I see 2 possible workarounds:

- Make sure WMP Tag Plus is disabled while the files are added, and re-enable the plug-in afterwards.
- Extract the audio streams to separate AAC files with a tool like YAMB. AAC files will be added to Music.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #79
Exactly, setting MP4 to FLAC is incorrect and won't work. MPEG4 is the only correct format.

I hope you can understand that I really don't like adding options to WMP Tag Plus for edge cases like this, options that most other users don't need and can only confuse them.

Note that you can edit tags of MP4 files in the Video library, and that they will be written to the files. It's just the Advanced Tag Editor that isn't available there. The Actors-field is equivalent to the Artist-field in Music.

If you really want to have them in Music, I see 2 possible workarounds:

- Make sure WMP Tag Plus is disabled while the files are added, and re-enable the plug-in afterwards.
- Extract the audio streams to separate AAC files with a tool like YAMB. AAC files will be added to Music.

Thanks for you prompt feedback.

I'll work with first work-around option.

I hope you will consider in the future MP4 music videos for add in, as I would expect a lot more use since Youtube is now supporting HD downloads in MP4 format.


WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #80
Could you possibly make a version of this plugin that will work with WMP64? I can only make Ogg and FLAC play in WMP64, but only WMP32 can read the tags on the files to generate a library because that's where your plugin works. And it doesn't seem inclined to add things to the library after the first time it makes it. I was hoping being able to put the plugin in WMP64 would give it complete functionality.

-Magess

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #81
No, a 64-bit version of WMP Tag Plus currently isn't planned, for reasons I explained earlier. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to play OGG and FLAC in 32-bit WMP, installing the 32-bit version of the DirectShow filters at http://xiph.org/dshow should be enough.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #82
No, a 64-bit version of WMP Tag Plus currently isn't planned, for reasons I explained earlier. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to play OGG and FLAC in 32-bit WMP, installing the 32-bit version of the DirectShow filters at http://xiph.org/dshow should be enough.


It should be. And yet it isn't. I have no idea why, and making Windows tell me will likely be a lot of trouble.

I suppose I could uninstall every codec and see how that goes.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #83
Just another word of thanks for this plugin.  Works like a charm importing my iTunes .M4A's data with WMP11 on XP. 

The only problem I had was that WMP 11's Music database got mucked up somehow  (maybe from playing with WMPTSE and it not liking WMP11?) and didn't import the data after this plugin was installed, so I followed the instructions in this thread and deleted the old database.  The only other tip for people I have is that one might have to do is to stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service, which may have the WMP database locked.

Is it maybe worth putting in a "Refresh Data" pushbutton feature in the Plugins -> Options  (like WMPTSE has)?  It'd be handy for bad imports like this and/or new tag decoding capabilities  (like album art).

Thanks again!

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #84
It's unlikely that WMP Tag Plus corrupted the library database, as the plug-in doesn't have any direct effect on the library. It only handles the case where WMP is reading metadata from a music file.

WMP Tag Plus has a completely different approach than WMP Tag Support Extender, with the result that that adding a Refresh Data-button would be pretty hard (again because there's no direct link with the library). However, tags will be refreshed whenever WMP reads them again from the files. This can be triggered by, for example, removing the files from the library, and re-adding them through Add To Library (press F3).

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #85
@Magess, not sure if this helps your particular problem but the following worked for me...

I was using Windows 7 x64 and the 64-bit Xiph.org DirectShow filters to get FLAC playback. Couldn't make FLAC + WMP Tag Plus work. It's obvious in hindsight but I was using a 64-bit codec package and trying to make it work in 32-bit WMP + WMPTP plug-in (Duh).

I uninstalled the 64-bit Xiph.org filters and installed the 32-bit package instead. Now WMP12(32-bit), FLAC and WMP Tag Plus are living happily together, even on Windows x64.

Tim: you rock.

FBD

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #86
First of all I'd like to thank Tim for an excellent plugin. It makes flac integration seamless, just like it claims to.

This may have nothing to do with the tag plugin but I hadn't noticed it before applying the plugin. When I sort by album, WMP11 groups the albums - all the A's, B's etc., separated by a thick line. But when sorting by artist, I cannot consistently get WMP11 to display the artists in groups. Sometimes it will group them and sometimes it won't. At one point, I could get this to work by clicking on the "Artist" column heading, but then later, in the same WMP11 session, it quit working and for the life of me I can't get it to work again. Note that this is only happening with the icon and tile views. The details view does show the artists in groups.

With the library view set to "Artist", and when viewing by icon, clicking on the other column headers (count, length or rating) displays the results in a group. In fact, all other sorting mechanisms in all other views work as they used to.  But not view and sort/group by artist.

If I'm just doing something stupid in WMP11, I'd appreciate any suggestions.

Running XP, SP2.

Thanks.

Bruce

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #87
OK, I'd delete my post if I could, but I can't.  Rebooting my machine seems to have cured the problem with the WMP artist grouping issue.  Strange.

And sorry if anybody spent so much as a few seconds pondering this.

Bruce

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #88
I have to respectfully disagree with your dismissal of Win 7 x64 support.  Windows Media Center is exclusively 64-bit on x64 windows.  Codecs have been released to support all audio and video formats.  Many people run 64 bit and are not going back.

While it may be true that WMP itself does not much matter 32 vs 64, there are many other implications on an x64 system.  I am not having any success with running WMP tag plus in 32-bit WMP as a workaround.  Still seems to miss some FLAC folders, but finds others.

Your efforts are much appreciated.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #89
Windows 7 x64 is in fact supported by WMP Tag Plus. The plug-in will only work in the 32-bit version of WMP, but this is still the default version on x64 systems.

It would really surprise me if WMP missing FLAC folders would have anything to do with 32-bit vs 64-bit. Are the folders added in Manage Libraries? Did you check with WMP's Folder view to make sure that the FLAC files aren't in your library after all? Moving the folders around could force WMP to pick them up. As a last resort, you could try restoring the media library.

What are the other implications you're referring to?

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #90
Hi,

First I wanted to say thank you for such a useful piece of software.  I wanted to know if anybody else was seeing an issue I am running in to.  The bulk of my audio files are encoded as Apple Lossless files (ALAC).  A few of my files are encoded as AAC.  Both sets of files were encoded using iTunes and both sets of files end in .m4a.  I am running Windows 7 Professional 32 bit.  When I add a folder to the WMP library that containes both ALAC and AAC files, only the AAC files show up in the Music library.  All of the ALAC files show up under Other Media.  Any idea why this would be happening?

One other thing I discovered is that if I change an ALAC file's extension from .m4a to mp4, that seems to move it from Other Media to the Music library.  I am trying to share a single library of files between WMC and iTunes, so I would like to avoid haing to rename all my ALAC files to .mp4.  Any thoughts or suggestions on this?

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #91
Hi,

First I wanted to say thank you for such a useful piece of software.  I wanted to know if anybody else was seeing an issue I am running in to.  The bulk of my audio files are encoded as Apple Lossless files (ALAC).  A few of my files are encoded as AAC.  Both sets of files were encoded using iTunes and both sets of files end in .m4a.  I am running Windows 7 Professional 32 bit.  When I add a folder to the WMP library that containes both ALAC and AAC files, only the AAC files show up in the Music library.  All of the ALAC files show up under Other Media.  Any idea why this would be happening?

One other thing I discovered is that if I change an ALAC file's extension from .m4a to mp4, that seems to move it from Other Media to the Music library.  I am trying to share a single library of files between WMC and iTunes, so I would like to avoid haing to rename all my ALAC files to .mp4.  Any thoughts or suggestions on this?


Hi,

The same problem on my WMP 12. There is now change if I install WMP Tag Plus or not. In both cases m4a ALAC shows up as other media and m4a (AAC) shows up as music.

Any solution for this?

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #92
Indeed, I can confirm that lossless M4A files get added to Other Media instead of Music in WMP 12.

Unfortunately, this problem isn't really related to WMP Tag Plus, so there's not much that I can (currently) do about it. On WMP 12, the MPEG-4 tag support of WMP Tag Plus is automatically disabled, because WMP already has native MPEG-4 support. It looks like this native support doesn't include ALAC.

Changing the extension to .mp4 seems to be the only possible workaround at the moment. One of the following days, I will post a message in the Windows 7 Media forum to ask if the WMP team is aware of this bug, and if there are any plans to fix it. However, the chances are pretty small that a fix will be released in the near future. When I'll start working on the next major version of WMP Tag Plus, I will look into adding an option to override WMP's native MPEG-4 support. This would allow WMP to properly recognize lossless M4A files.

 

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #93
I have just released version 1.2 of WMP Tag Plus. This version fixes a possible crash while accessing the file properties of a media file from within Windows Media Player 11.

Also, the documentation for the WMP Tag Plus Tag Support API is now available online. This API allows developers to add support for other formats to WMP Tag Plus, and as a result, to Windows Media Player. On this page, you can download the accompanying SDK too, which contains useful header files and example source code.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #94
Hi there,

I'm new to WMP Tag Plus.  I have a large music library which contains mostly lossless WMA files, which are played mainly through Squeezebox applications (streamed to my various music players).  I've used WMA because I sometimes wanted to play files through WMP.  I've recently decided to use FLAC as my primary file-type, and settled on WMP Tag Plus as the add-on of choice to bring FLAC tag support to my installation of WMP11. 

However, it doesn't seem to work.  All the flac files have correct tags (either natively, or after addition with MP3Tag, and all tags show up properly in the Squeezebox apps, but they do not show in WMP.  The files are there and can be played, but no tags are displayed.  I'm able to EDIT tags from within WMP, but even things like bit rate are not being displayed.

Others seem not to have these problems, but there appears to be something awry with my implementation -- may be obvious, but I'm at a loss.

I'm using 32 bit WMP, on 64 bit Vista, and have installed the current version of Tag Plus (1.2)

Ron

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #95
Are you sure that WMP Tag Plus is loaded in WMP? The plug-in should be listed in the Tools - Plug-ins menu, and should have a checkmark next to it. If you have any other tag support plug-ins for WMP installed, remove these to prevent conflicts.

If the FLAC files were already in your library before you installed WMP Tag Plus, the files need to be re-added to let the plug-in read the tags. Did you do this? To re-add the files, select them, right-click, choose Delete, Delete from library only, and click OK. Then, press F3 in WMP, make sure "Add files previously deleted from library" is checked, and click OK.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #96
Ah, yes, great to be a newbie!

Indeed, I needed to "turn on" WMP Tag, by checking it in the tools menu -- installed but not active.  I also hadn't realized that I needed to delete items from the library and rescan to get the tags seen.

I was able to add tags to items using WMP itself -- it could see and play the flac titles, but there were no tags, but when I added them manually using WMP the tags stuck.  How does that work if WMP Tag was turned off?

I encountered an error at one point, apparently corrupted MP3 files (downloaded from eMusic), and when I tried to play from WMP the app crashed.  Upon restart it had disabled plugins -- my only plug in being WMP Tag. 

For some reason, WMP doesn't seem to pick up album art when it is embedded in the individual files via MP3Tag.  I can add manually within WMP, but I did that once today with several titles, and upon restart the art had gone -- perhaps that is because I hadn't closed WMP normally (this was when it crashed).  However, I don't understand why the album art is not being picked up in the first place, it IS there.

Thanks guys!

Ron

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #97
I was able to add tags to items using WMP itself -- it could see and play the flac titles, but there were no tags, but when I added them manually using WMP the tags stuck.  How does that work if WMP Tag was turned off?

That's just how the WMP library works; WMP will always allow you to edit tags of non-recognized formats, even if WMP Tag Plus is turned off. However, these changes will only be saved to the library and not to the actual music files. Also, you would probably lose the changes the next time you scan your music folders with F3.

Quote
For some reason, WMP doesn't seem to pick up album art when it is embedded in the individual files via MP3Tag.  I can add manually within WMP, but I did that once today with several titles, and upon restart the art had gone -- perhaps that is because I hadn't closed WMP normally (this was when it crashed).  However, I don't understand why the album art is not being picked up in the first place, it IS there.

Are these FLAC files too, and are you using the Advanced Tag Editor for this? WMP Tag Plus doesn't support embedded album art yet (either reading or writing). This is something that might be added in a future version.

Instead of using the Advanced Tag Editor for adding album art, you could copy/paste the pictures to the WMP library ("Paste Art Here" in Album view). This won't embed the art, but will add them as separate JPG files in the album folder.

WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #98
Hi Tim,

Thanks for this great little utility!

I am just wondering whether adding the option of replacing WMP's MP3 support would be something that would be easy to implement, since TagLib seems to have the support for ID3 tags:

Windows 7 has a major bug in its tagging of MP3s causing it to corrupt the content of all of the TXXX tags when updating any of the other tags through either WMP12 or Explorer (see  here for example). Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing anything to fix this, in the meantime, I keep losing all my ReplayGain information every time I update anything though the WMP tag editor. Having WMP Tag Plus take over the writing of the tags (and maybe quietly adding ID3 v2.4 support) would help greatly I should imagine.

Is this feasible/worthwhile in your opinion?


WMP Tag Plus - MPEG4, Vorbis and FLAC metadata support for WMP

Reply #99
Replacing WMP's MP3 tag support is an interesting suggestion, but I don't think that I will add such a feature to WMP Tag Plus, at least not in the near future. There are other features with a higher priority, such as support for embedded album art.

Moreover, it doesn't seem like a proper solution to me anyway. If WMP Tag Plus somehow gets disabled and WMP falls back to the default MP3 support, you could lose all the TXXX tags again. Also, the new MP3 support would only be used by WMP, Explorer would still be using the default support. Instead of us having to think of workarounds and patches, this really needs to be fixed at the source (Microsoft). I do realize that it could take a long time until a fix is released, if it will ever happen.

A more viable solution would probably be to replace the default MP3 property handler altogether, with something like the Taglib Property Handler. The Taglib Property Handler currently doesn't have write support and doesn't explicitly support MP3 either, so those would have to be added first.