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Topic: Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ? (Read 2043 times) previous topic - next topic
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Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ?

Heya,
as I have a few programs that alter metadata, but some of them do have a history of not cleanly editing existing ones (especially multi value metadata, which I use heavily, is hit and miss... which is why I want to make sure data I care about is not overwritten when sync-ing after one of the programs screwed up...) - can anyone recommend a program that allows to scan & compare metadata from files on 2 separate HDDs reliably (& conveniently ideally) (i.e. same file exists under same name & location on both HDDs... but metadata might differ on some fields) ?
And maybe even offers to merge metadata if differences are found... ?

I've found BeyondCompare... but it only does support ID3 from the looks (flac suppoirt is planned, but not there atm), so there's no point in even testing that as I'd need it for 100s if not 1000s of mp3/id3 & flac/vorbis on a regular basis, plus some outliers (aiff, aac, etc)...
MusicBee does have a metadata compare functionality via an add-on too, but it's only really usable if done on a per-file/one-by-one basis.
And foobar does not seem to have any add on to deal with metadata/tag differences of the same file in different locations as far as I can tell...
But maybe there's something that does this others have come across ?

Churs.
c.

Re: Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ?

Reply #1
I don’t know any tool that fulfills all your requirements.
Maybe tools like https://www.similarityapp.com/ can do this is this is basically about duplicates on tag level.

Another option would be to export both collections to a file and use any file comparison program.
Might be done a bit more structured e.g. import the results in a database like MS access and run some SQL to compare on specific tags.

I use a simple method.
A couple of tags crucial to me like Artist, Opus, Composition, CompositionYear I simply duplicate in Artist_Copy, etc.
After tagging any of these tags with any program I simply compare Artist with Artis_Copy, etc.
Shows me what has been changed.
If in error I copy Artist_copy back into Artist.

TheWellTemperedComputer.com

Re: Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ?

Reply #2
Thanks for the input!
Gave similarity a spin, but looks to be meant for identifying duplicate files only & I can't seem a way to have 2 libraries / playlists on 2 partitions compared.

As for file compoarisons - unfortunately those programs I can't trust, namely Traktor & Serato, both do alter the checksum on each edit, making every file different as they always inject a 'last access' tag in binary format into a custom tag (even if they don';t change any other tag... but often, other tags are destroyed/removed/reformatted beyond recognition as well :( ). Which is why I need to see the tags & (ascii) data that has changed.
But yea, the next step would be to find a way to export all tags from a playlists' files to xml/txt, and run xxdiffs on them. Manual & not pretty, but probably the most accurate still :/
Churs.
c.

Re: Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ?

Reply #3
next step would be to find a way to export all tags from a playlists' files to xml/txt

For foobar2000, there are two external tags applications:
https://foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_external_tags
https://foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_tags

I can only assume that life isn't so easy that "the newest file is correct"?

Re: Mass file metadata/tag compare (id3, vorbis) for files on 2 partitions/HDDs ?

Reply #4
I can only assume that life isn't so easy that "the newest file is correct"?
Yeh naw, rather the opposite unfortunately, as older = more secure/important. But newer timestamp files has data I want to also use (that has been injected by Serato/Traktor I also want/need), but it also has the crippled metadata I want to find/overwrite)

One example for bad editing - both can't handle multi value metadata on either ID3 & Vorbis ... and when re-writing the full metadata header, they do the following:
- ID3 - Multi value metadata, separated by /NULL [as per the de facto standard for 2.3 that became the official separator standard for id3 2.4...] will be merged into a single string with no /NULL delimiters, resulting in a single concatenated string... so as displayed in Foobar, artists tag: "Ella Fitzgerald; Louis Armstrong"would "Ella FitzgeraldLouis Armstrong"
- Vorbis - both only read the first value it finds in each field, and throws away the rest. So a file tagged with multiple Artist tags, will only have a single artist left, so Foobar, artists tag: "Ella Fitzgerald; Louis Armstrong" would then become "Ella Fitzgerald"

I know... I know...
 c.