Hi all,
I just read this article: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2...nd-flac-support (http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2379216/windows-10-preview-adds-native-mkv-hevc-and-flac-support)
Finally FLAC, the lossless audio format beloved of audiophiles everywhere, has also arrived, meaning that hipsters who claim to be able to tell the difference will be able to listen to their vinyl rips of Captain Beefheart at the space guzzling size they were meant to be heard at.
Then I found this tweet: https://twitter.com/demodulated/status/529644998510510081 (https://twitter.com/demodulated/status/529644998510510081)
And this article: http://www.techmean.com/windows/windows-10...ac-support.html (http://www.techmean.com/windows/windows-10-preview-adds-native-mkv-hevc-and-flac-support.html)
Could it be true? Is Microsoft ditching WMA Lossless? Anyone running the preview?
Yes good but...
"meaning that hipsters who claim to be able to tell the difference will be able to listen to their vinyl rips of Captain Beefheart at the space guzzling size they were meant to be heard at." why no one gets lossless is not about listening the difference but about archiving and future proofing the collection?
I'll test it later. Now we only need Apple to start allowing FLAC on iTunes.
Is Microsoft ditching WMA Lossless?
i doubt they'll support ripping to flac.... or will they?
My win10 preview says there are no updates or new preview builds (fast branch). Flac files are not registered with any application and WMP is not opening them.
Last time I checked, it's merely a feedback item in their feedback app, with a high vote count.
Maybe they're sending the updates out in batches though and it's yet to reach me.
Could it be true? Is Microsoft ditching WMA Lossless? Anyone running the preview?
I don't think any of the windows media codecs have been updated in many years, so that wouldn't be too surprising.
Just tested, like ChronoSphere already said, Build 9841 doesn't play FLAC or MKV.
Don't even know why I bothered since "Media Features" and IE are the first two things I remove when I install Windows.
Just tested, like ChronoSphere already said, Build 9841 doesn't play FLAC or MKV.
Hmm, there's still hope then I suppose, MKV was added in 9860: https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/528401061779107841 (https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/528401061779107841)
I wonder if mkv support also implies proper .ass support, or if it just means it can demux the streams for WMP to successfully ignore. I also wonder if they got proper thumbnail/cover support and whether or not it's faster than what, say, Icaros...
Okay, today I installed the latest preview (build 9860) and it has MKV support, but I can confirm it does not play FLAC out-of-the-box, not as a .flac file nor when embedded in MKV.
I really wonder, was this wishful thinking or some colossal failure of quite a few people not checking this?
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ope...-easier-1271837 (http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/watching-movies-on-windows-10-just-got-a-whole-lot-easier-1271837)
http://www.lesnumeriques.com/appli-logicie...ion-n36673.html (http://www.lesnumeriques.com/appli-logiciel/microsoft-windows-10-p21948/windows-10-mkv-hevc-flac-font-apparition-n36673.html)
http://canaltech.com.br/noticia/windows/Wi...rquivos-em-MKV/ (http://canaltech.com.br/noticia/windows/Windows-10-tera-suporte-nativo-para-arquivos-em-MKV/)
and probably some others.
Okay, today I installed the latest preview (build 9860) and it has MKV support, but I can confirm it does not play FLAC out-of-the-box, not as a .flac file nor when embedded in MKV.
Do you have any way to determine which codecs are supported? If it is just duplication of the formats handled by MP4 containers (which I suspect (DIVX support)) then it is a bit of a let down.
I don't understand, how did they exactly test this to say Windows 10 will support FLAC? I see only two options: the file open or it doesn't.
I knew it wasn't going to be supported but it's funny probably a 4chan user said it worked and every braindeadblog followed.
Okay, today I installed the latest preview (build 9860) and it has MKV support, but I can confirm it does not play FLAC out-of-the-box, not as a .flac file nor when embedded in MKV.
Strange, I'm on build 9860 as well and my mkvs are not assigned to any program. I tried assigning it manually and I get the typical "WMP was unable to recognize the format but might be able to play it" - it can't. Same for FLAC.
When I open an MKV file with supported codecs in WMP, it says: The selected file has an extention (.mkv) that is not recognized by Windows Media Player, but the Player may still be able to play it. [...] Do you want the player to try to play this content?
When I press Yes, it just plays.
well it is only a preview. i'd be interested to know if it handles mkv files with multiple sound and/or subtitle streams.
When I open an MKV file with supported codecs in WMP, it says: The selected file has an extention (.mkv) that is not recognized by Windows Media Player, but the Player may still be able to play it. [...] Do you want the player to try to play this content?
When I press Yes, it just plays.
When I press Yes, it doesn't
I think that's because it might not be able to handle the h264 10-bit profile, but it should be able to play the audio, at least, which is regular aac.
edit: yes, it chokes on 10-bit videos, failing to play them at all. Also, .ass subs are not displayed. Also, according to this (http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2014/11/12/new-build-available-to-the-windows-insider-program/), MKV support is "official" in the new build 9879. No word on FLAC though.
When I press Yes, it doesn't
Well MKV is just a container, it's not video or audio, so I'd guess, as you said, it just doesn't support whatever audio or video codec you've used.
MKV support is "official" in the new build 9879. No word on FLAC though.
I updated to 9879, indeed no FLAC support.
Hi all,
I found this topic reasearching infos on the matter for my (italian) article "what's new for audio/video in Windows 10 (https://turbolab.it/494)".
I can confirm that, right now (build 9879, mid-november 2014), there seems to be NO FLAC support in Windows 10: files won't play in Windows Media Player, not even if you ignore the "format not recognized" alert and proceed anyway.
Moreover, Microsoft never announced this. So, to me, this sounds like a pure fabrication not even the (otherwise great) Inquirer verified.
This is my 2 cent. Any other infos would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
My hunch is, they installed something along the lines of LAV filters, then attributed wmp "suddenly" playing flac to an update by microsoft.
He's teasing us again.
https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/537376407291056128 (https://twitter.com/GabeAul/status/537376407291056128)
Nice, so it might be true at last. If it indeed made the codebase, it still has to survive the process.
I wonder (if this is true) whether they coded their own decoder independently, derived it from libFLAC or are using libFLAC directly. It's BSD-licensed after all...
If it indeed made the codebase, it still has to survive the process.
Which process?
Chris
P.S.: FLAC support would be great. I ripped most of my music to that format last year.
I haven't used WMP since WinAmp (and then foobar) came out. I guess some people still do, but I'll bet most of them have no clue what an MKV or FLAC file is, or where to get them. Non-news, except it's nice to see MS acknowledge some open-source standards.
http://engadget.com/2014/11/27/windows-10-...ac-mkv-support/ (http://engadget.com/2014/11/27/windows-10-native-flac-mkv-support/)
Someone just commented: This is bad. Up till now I just had to worry about Windows Media Player corrupting my MP3 files with unauthorized metadata changes and creating lots of useless little thumbnails. Now we need to worry about WMP corrupting FLAC metadata.
One cannot rule out the possibility ...
(Up to now, I have succeeded in keeping WMP out of my Windows boxes.)
It's good they do it just for for the hope it becomes a standard, who cares about WMP. "Oh wow, can't wait to stop using [insert player here] to start using WMP" said no one ever.
WMP and IE are the first two software I remove after I format.
Just make all your media files Read Only. WMP can't touch them.
... who cares about WMP... WMP and IE are the first two software I remove after I format.
I care about WMP and IE. I get along with both very well (they do what I need them to do, they don't corrupt anything since I follow soundping's advice, and they are updated through Windows Update automatically), and if WMP starts playing FLAC and MKV from next year on, I might actually start to like it.
Chris
I don't really get all this hype around FLAC support in Windows 10.
Users who really needed FLAC in WMP already have it's support thanks to codecs & filters sets. Others who earlier preferred mp3/aac/etc. won't even notice any changes.
That is the same as saying: why is it such a big deal that Android plays FLAC, you can downloads apps to do that.
Out-of-the-box support is important for streaming services and on-line download stores. It's just ticking a box really. You can't ignore the difference between first-party and third-party support.
I don't recall where but I heard that Windows 10 will be the first common platform for desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Having native support on a smartphone or a tablet might be quite useful (no need to download 3rd party media players).
It's still going to be a half-assed support though, I fear. For flac, they will probably not support embedded cuesheets. For mkv, probably no ordered chapters. Feel free to prove me wrong though, Microsoft.
Speaking of unified platforms, windows phone still can't play any form of lossless format except for WMAL afaik. Adding support for FLAC is a great thing. And tbh I don't know of any decent FLAC capable players on the winRT platform. Maybe something has popped up since I last looked at WP though.
I just wanted to confirm: FLAC is indeed supported right out-of-the-box with the latest preview of Windows 10 (build 9926). Support means in this case playback and reading tags work.
- FLAC plays in Windows Media Player without any modification to the system, right out of the box
- FLAC tags are read, writing them doesn't work yet
- [edit] For some reason, it displays the bitrate as 1411kbps, instead of the actual rate
- FLAC tags are displayed in the File Explorer as well
- Embedded album art does not seem to work (it isn't displayed by WMP with the default settings)
- Cuesheets don't seem to work (but I'm not surprised by that, my favourite player, Amarok, still doesn't handle them either)
- No support for ripping to FLAC
Some screenshots
FLAC is recognized as 'FLAC audio'
[/b]
(http://tweakers.net/ext/f/f7YBwyA3zCM4EtOMyZRrj57B/full.png)
When in the 'Music' directory tree, tags are displayed in File Explorer
(http://tweakers.net/ext/f/pqN2WgEV2RG17X9lxe4vzTS5/full.png)
When in the library, WMP shows the tags
(http://tweakers.net/ext/f/YDPeyM3O6b4tFoTohspdIIc7/full.png)
Great news! Come on Apple!
I just wanted to confirm: FLAC is indeed supported right out-of-the-box with the latest preview of Windows 10 (build 9926). Support means in this case playback and reading tags work.
- FLAC plays in Windows Media Player without any modification to the system, right out of the box
- FLAC tags are read, writing them doesn't work yet
- [edit] For some reason, it displays the bitrate as 1411kbps, instead of the actual rate
- FLAC tags are displayed in the File Explorer as well
- Embedded album art does not seem to work (it isn't displayed by WMP with the default settings)
- Cuesheets don't seem to work (but I'm not surprised by that, my favourite player, Amarok, still doesn't handle them either)
- No support for ripping to FLAC
Interesting, thanks!
I am currently diving into the mess that is FLAC tagging and was wondering if you could tell me the following about MS' reading of FLAC tags.
Does it read the standard DATE tag?
Does it read the non-standard YEAR tag?
What tag does it read for total number of tracks on the album, if any?
What tag does it read for disc number, if any?
What tag does it read for total number of discs, if any?
Does it read ALBUMARTIST?
Does it read COMPOSER?
This is a Most Excellent development; the more formats supported out-of-the-box, the better. I think if you asked most anyone five years ago, this would never happen while WMA was still limping along...
Congratulations to Josh, Erik and the fine people at Xiph!
Now if only we could get native support for my old MPC rips
- The column Album artist is fed from the ALBUMARTIST tag if it is available, otherwise it is taken from the ARTIST tag
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
- No UTF-8 support apparently
The following screenshot is from a multi-artist mix CD. Every track is from a different artist, but as Tiësto mixed them, he is considered the album artist. Still, viewing the individual track details, no artist shows up.
(http://tweakers.net/ext/f/eH01pjkgL0BDZOZw8WheEBPL/full.png)
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
I've seen both TOTALTRACKS and TRACKCOUNT, with the former being a little more common in my experience. PowerShellAudio writes TOTALTRACKS. Not sure about discs.
I sure hope they add UTF-8 support, since it's not really optional.
foobar2000 has the following setting:
Vorbis & FLAC Metadata writing mode:
More compatible with various software - ALBUMARTIST, TRACKTOTAL, DISCTOTAL
Compatible with old foobar2000 versions - ALBUM ARTIST, TOTALTRACKS, TOTALDISCS
About Unicode: IIRC tags in mp4/m4a files are stored in UTF-8, so there should be no problems with FLAC tags.
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
There is no standard for any of these yet, unfortunately. Only de-facto standards because a few big players use the same, see lvqcl's Foobar example. It's likely that whatever MS would choose for this would be the new standard within two years.
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
Good, nobody should be using the YEAR tag. COMPOSER could always be added later.
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.
- No UTF-8 support apparently
Why do you think that? Surely most FLAC files use UTF8 tags so I'd expect the metadata in your screenshots to come from UTF8 tags.
Why do you think that?
Because of "Tiësto" instead of "Tiësto"? ...But again, it's only a preview version of Win10.
Why do you think that?
Because of "Tiësto" instead of "Tiësto"? ...But again, it's only a preview version of Win10.
Good spot. That is indeed interesting. But as you say, quite a few things will still be fixed before final.
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.
It came from the same place the albumart came from: I clicked 'get album info' or something similar, which fetched data from the internet. All other albums have Unknown Year.
Are there filed reports in the Windows Insider program for these problems?
I don't know, where could I find/file them?
I think all bug reports are mashed together with the suggestions - in the feedback app.
FLAC will also supported in Windows phones:
http://www.windowscentral.com/flac-support...ndows-10-phones (http://www.windowscentral.com/flac-support-will-also-come-windows-10-phones)
good news - at least for me ;-)
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
Are you sure? I do see the year 2005 in one of your screenshots which I'd expect to come from the DATE tag.
It came from the same place the albumart came from: I clicked 'get album info' or something similar, which fetched data from the internet. All other albums have Unknown Year.
Hhmm... you'd hope that they at least implement the minimal standard tags (https://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html) before they go final otherwise we'd have massive incompatibilities on our hands. And FLAC tagging is a mess as it is, having the world's most used OS create yet another flavour would be a nightmare.
Reading the comments here (http://blog.gsmarena.com/windows-10-will-bring-flac-support-phones-small-tablets/#more-80543) made me cringe. A lot.
from those comments :
No, if you play FLAC and it remuxes into PCM it doesn't matter how much bitrate you have, you're aren't listening to lossless. You can't just install an app and it 'plays' lossless, you need to know if the OS allows for bitstreaming, Windows is notorious for not bitstreaming.
For the same reasons people who play FLACs on Android are just wasting their time and storage. Sony has a 'Hi-res' USB audio out function, specifically because Android can't bitstream lossless.
so , FLAC is not lossless unless it's decoded outside of Windows.
Don't want to keep bragging these comments but...:
"Flac Not the best but good for now > the future is DSD and DXD"
"DSD is almost like 4K, unless you are not an audiophile and don't have the top notch hardware. . its like having a 4K tv with analog cable. ."
"Good thing Microsoft has the patent for 128 GB SD cards."
so , FLAC is not lossless unless it's decoded outside of Windows.
You could as well argue that FLAC is not lossless when played back with Replaygain since it changes the original amplitude and introduces rounding error.
As pointed out here (http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=107415&view=findpost&p=889456), ALAC is supported in Windows 10. I just checked for myself, build 9926 indeed plays back Apple Lossless files, but as it's wrapped in the MP4 container (just like AAC) metadata support is much better. Let's hope support for FLAC metadata gets at the same level before the launch
- The column Album artist is fed from the ALBUMARTIST tag if it is available, otherwise it is taken from the ARTIST tag
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
- No UTF-8 support apparently
I just checked with build 10041 of Windows 10: the UTF-8 issue has been fixed (Tiësto now displays correctly) but no other improvements have been made. edit: bitrate is correctly displayed now.
Is it too far off-topic to ask if they have got around to USB Audio Class 2 yet?
Somewhat academic, as I intend that WinXP shall continue to be my last regular-use version
- The column Album artist is fed from the ALBUMARTIST tag if it is available, otherwise it is taken from the ARTIST tag
- Disc numbers are not recognized
- I don't know about total number of tracks and discs, is there any de facto standard for this?
- It does not recognize the YEAR and COMPOSER tag, despite looking for those
- It does not recognize the DATE tag
- No UTF-8 support apparently
I just checked with build 10041 of Windows 10: the UTF-8 issue has been fixed (Tiësto now displays correctly) but no other improvements have been made. edit: bitrate is correctly displayed now.
Still no support for the DATE tag? I am getting a bit worried about that to be honest. Let's hope they do really stick to the VorbisComment spec.
Today I checked build 10074, and there has been one small change: instead of giving the illusion you can change tags, it is now not possible to change the tags in the File Explorer. The illusion is still in place in Windows Media Player though.
It still doesn't look for the DATE nor DISCNUMBER tags though, and ARTIST is not properly displayed. And for some reason, FLAC is only played in Windows Media Player, not in the Music app.
As pointed out here (http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=107415&view=findpost&p=889456), ALAC is supported in Windows 10.
Is Microsoft completely retarded? Great, welcome to the new lossless standard. Apple will never integrate FLAC.
I doubt that ALAC will ever completely overtake FLAC unless FLAC's development is abandoned. Even so, ALAC isn't terrible; we could do far worse with an "official" sanctioned lossless format.
As pointed out here (http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=107415&view=findpost&p=889456), ALAC is supported in Windows 10.
Is Microsoft completely retarded? Great, welcome to the new lossless standard. Apple will never integrate FLAC.
I don't think it matters. Theres never going to be a single lossless standard, and there is no real reason to want one.
As pointed out here (http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=107415&view=findpost&p=889456), ALAC is supported in Windows 10.
Is Microsoft completely retarded? Great, welcome to the new lossless standard. Apple will never integrate FLAC.
What's retarded about it? Many people will have ALAC files in their collection and Microsoft just caters to those people too.
Is Microsoft completely retarded?
No, just insane. ;~)
Great, welcome to the new lossless standard. Apple will never integrate FLAC.
Doesn't matter, lossless is lossless. Personally, that's all I find relevant, considering that if I don't like the container, I can easily change it. Hopefully these format inclusions will promote lossless distribution.
With the release of Windows 10 planned for the end of this month, I downloaded the latest 'slow ring' version (build 10162).
Changes:
- WMP can now rip CDs to FLAC or ALAC!
- DATE tag is now recognized, listed as 'Release Date' (in File Browser/Explorer, not in WMP)
- YEAR tag is now recognized, listed as 'Year' (both File Browser/Explorer and WMP)
- Bitrate is now correctly displayed
- Tags can now be changed (in File Browser/Explorer, not in WMP)
- FLAC files are now opened in the Music app instead of WMP, like all other music file formats
- Embedded album art works in WMP, not in Music App
That means that:
- Multi-disc albums are still not supported
- Artists are not recognized if an albumartist is present
I'll soon take a look at the ripping feature, this might be very interesting, especially the vendor string.
It's a shame they messed up the date/year tag. The YEAR tag doesn't exist, FLAC uses the DATE tag to display the year the track was released.
Okay, I've just taken a look at the FLAC encoder. The version string is reference libFLAC 1.3.0 20130526. However, the files generated are even larger (only slightly, but still) than FLAC 1.3.0 with the -0 setting, and feature no padding. It looks like Microsoft has taken the liberty to make the FLAC files encoded with WMP as big and slow as possible?
The ALAC implementation seems to be fine though, however for some reason it crashes every other track for no obvious reason. Might be something in my setup causing that though.
edit: an example of the tags added to a FLAC file ripped by WMP
comment[0]: TITLE=Summit
comment[1]: ALBUM=Bangarang
comment[2]: ARTIST=Ellie Goulding
comment[3]: COMPOSER=Skrillex
comment[4]: GENRE=Dance
comment[5]: WM/MCDI=7+96+3570+7480+CCF9+122C9+16A94+1A567+212F8
comment[6]: TRACKNUMBER=7
comment[7]: YEAR=2012
comment[8]: ALBUMARTIST=Skrillex
comment[9]: WM/WMCOLLECTIONID={3c63402e-1c1a-4d43-bb82-513fabe33523}
comment[10]: ORGANIZATION=WEA
So yes, Microsoft seems to prefer the YEAR over the DATE tag.
Thanks very much, ktf, for this investigation! Seems like they managed to get a useful FLAC integration ready in time for the Windows 10 RTM.
Maybe they chose such inefficient FLAC encoding in WMP not only to make their WMA Lossless look better, but also to minimize the risk of running into foreign patents they don't know about (the more elaborate an encoder, the higher such a risk).
Chris
Maybe they built it with FLAC__INTEGER_ONLY_LIBRARY defined?
I've seen plenty of oems build codecs with optimization disabled or misconfigured settings. Wouldn't surprise me here.
Well i'm using the released build of Windows 10 now, and the "Contributing Artist" column in WMP is completely blank, and all the years are "Unknown Year"... Sigh. WMP Tag+ Handled this fine, but as FLAC is now natively supported, WMP Tag+ won't handle them.... Is there any way to disable WMP 10's Native FLAC support so I can go back to something like LAV filters, and use WMP Tag+ for tagging again?
Hi, as the author of WMP Tag Plus, I thought I'd chime in here. I have actually been thinking about adding an option to my plug-in to override the native FLAC tagging support in Windows 10.
However, switching in WMP from one tagging support implementation to another on-the-fly isn't without danger. There's a high risk that after the switch, the missing tags (Contributing Artist and Year in this case) are written back to the file, meaning that the original tags in the file are erased.
To prevent this, I would only allow a change of the new 'override' option while there are no FLAC songs in WMP's library. This would force you to temporarily remove all FLAC songs from the library. A bit of a hassle, but the alternative (loss of tags) is much worse. And it's a one-time thing.
Just let me know what you think, then I might add such an option.
However, switching in WMP from one tagging support implementation to another on-the-fly isn't without danger. There's a high risk that after the switch, the missing tags (Contributing Artist and Year in this case) are written back to the file, meaning that the original tags in the file are erased.
Sorry, I don't understand, who would write these missing tags back to the file, Windows?
I would say the solution would be to always read both DATE and YEAR (if a file erroneously contains a YEAR tag) but take the contents of a (non-empty) DATE tag as leading. On write you simply only write back the DATE tag and the file should conform to the FLAC specs. And because Windows apparently reads both that shouldn't be a problem.
Or am I missing something?
It's WMP that writes the missing tags back to the file, not Windows. WMP will always try to keep the tags in the file in sync with the tags in its library. So when there are tags missing in the library due to incomplete tagging support, and you suddenly *do* get tagging support for the missing tags, WMP will sync the file with what's in the library, thus erasing the tags in the file.
This has nothing to do with the DATE versus YEAR confusion.
Hi, as the author of WMP Tag Plus, I thought I'd chime in here. I have actually been thinking about adding an option to my plug-in to override the native FLAC tagging support in Windows 10.
However, switching in WMP from one tagging support implementation to another on-the-fly isn't without danger. There's a high risk that after the switch, the missing tags (Contributing Artist and Year in this case) are written back to the file, meaning that the original tags in the file are erased.
To prevent this, I would only allow a change of the new 'override' option while there are no FLAC songs in WMP's library. This would force you to temporarily remove all FLAC songs from the library. A bit of a hassle, but the alternative (loss of tags) is much worse. And it's a one-time thing.
Just let me know what you think, then I might add such an option.
+1 for continued wmp tag plus support in win 10...ms implementation just doesnt work yet.
Whats really oddon on my pc
is that if i set 'year' in the explorer interface on a test track...
then look at track in mp3tag....i have two tags 'year'..the original year and the one i just entered in explorer..
why the 'year' tag that explorer creates is visible, whereas the original year tag defined in mp3tag is not visible i dont know...
Hi, as the author of WMP Tag Plus, I thought I'd chime in here. I have actually been thinking about adding an option to my plug-in to override the native FLAC tagging support in Windows 10.
However, switching in WMP from one tagging support implementation to another on-the-fly isn't without danger. There's a high risk that after the switch, the missing tags (Contributing Artist and Year in this case) are written back to the file, meaning that the original tags in the file are erased.
To prevent this, I would only allow a change of the new 'override' option while there are no FLAC songs in WMP's library. This would force you to temporarily remove all FLAC songs from the library. A bit of a hassle, but the alternative (loss of tags) is much worse. And it's a one-time thing.
Just let me know what you think, then I might add such an option.
+1 for continued wmp tag plus support in win 10...ms implementation just doesnt work yet.
Whats really oddon on my pc
is that if i set 'year' in the explorer interface on a test track...
then look at track in mp3tag....i have two tags 'year'..the original year and the one i just entered in explorer..
why the 'year' tag that explorer creates is visible, whereas the original year tag defined in mp3tag is not visible i dont know...
Make sure you also send Microsoft some feedback. They seem to be pretty receptive to feedback this time around. Heck, they added MKV and FLAC support to Windows.