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Topic: Special characters in FLAC encoding (Read 3080 times) previous topic - next topic
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Special characters in FLAC encoding

I've recently acquired a laptop computer running WinXP Pro, upgrading from an archaic desktop computer running Windows 2000, which is awesome but I've encountered a very annoying problem with Windows XP (or so I think).
The problem is:

I can't encode .flac files that contain special characters in the file name or root directory. I get a "can't open file" error when I try to encode it using the FLAC Frontend.

I do not use file tagging, I prefer to keep all the information in the file name. My file name string in EAC looks like this (When ripping Neil Young's album 'Trans'):
Neil Young - Trans - ©1982 Geffen Records GED2018\%N - %T, ©1982 Geffen Records GED2018

As you can see, the file name includes a '©' sign, which I suspect might be causing the trouble. Also, the root directory of my ripped music contains an '_'. This worked just fine in Windows 2000, but not under Windows XP. I do not use tagging because there's no fields for filling in label name or catalog number information. If anybody can prove me wrong on this, I'd be glad to hear from them.
Also, why would you want an additional tag, when you can use the file name?

I hope someone will take their time to put an end to my encoding miseries - Thanks!

Special characters in FLAC encoding

Reply #1 –
With FLAC you can make up any fields that you want in addition to the 'standard' fields. Any good tagging program will allow you to do this. I use mp3tag. Foobar2k can do this too. EAC can probably do it as well.

Do you really need to put the copyright symbol in there? Wouldn't the year alone be good enough?

Special characters in FLAC encoding

Reply #3 –
I think your problem is with FLAC-frontend (FFE) and not FLAC. FFE writes a batch file and then executes those commands as an MS-DOS process. There are problems with available character sets and some special characters when FFE writes characters to the batch that don't exist in your Window's code page or that have special meaning in batch file language (like '@'). I have found it common fop FFE to fail while trying to compress files with non-English characters for example, when flac.exe handles them without any trouble.

Try foobar or something else as a front end for encoding or run the FLAC codec directly from the command line yourself as a test.

Special characters in FLAC encoding

Reply #4 –
Quote
I think your problem is with FLAC-frontend (FFE) and not FLAC. FFE writes a batch file and then executes those commands as an MS-DOS process. There are problems with available character sets and some special characters when FFE writes characters to the batch that don't exist in your Window's code page or that have special meaning in batch file language (like '@'). I have found it common fop FFE to fail while trying to compress files with non-English characters for example, when flac.exe handles them without any trouble.

Try foobar or something else as a front end for encoding or run the FLAC codec directly from the command line yourself as a test.
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I solved the problem by using EAC as a frontend. Thanks for your posts!
 

Special characters in FLAC encoding

Reply #5 –
Add CHCP 1252 at the top of the the batch file.