Problem with MP3 Tag Formats

2004-11-17 19:35:29

I have a library of Ogg files that I play on my Rio Karma.  I just bought a Netgear MP101 Media Player to stream music to my stereo, but it won't play Ogg so I am transcoding my Ogg q6 into MP3 LAME --preset medium to use just with the Netgear.

I've found that some longer tags don't transcode completely.  For instance, ARTIST, ALBUM, and TITLE truncate after 30 characters.  Using MP3Tag to view the files, I can see the incomplete field values and also when they display on the Netgear alphanumeric panel they are truncated.  If I edit the fields in MP3Tag, they then show up correctly on the Netgear.  I know this has something to do with the type of tags being written and read by the devices; whether they are ID3v1, ID3v2, or APEv2, but I then hit the limit of my knowledge on this.

Fixing these tags manually is going to take a lot of time so I'd like to figure out a way to automate it, if possible.  I know that foobar writes both ID3v1 and APEv2 tags during the conversion, but it's not clear to me whether I can somehow use the extended APE tags to automate my fixing of the problem.  Also, foobar can be set to write a different combination of tags if that would be helpful.

Any suggestions would be welcome!

Thanks.

Problem with MP3 Tag Formats

Reply #1 – 2004-11-17 20:13:41

Apesbrain,

Mp3tag reads the APEv2 tags which foobar2000 writes by default to MP3 files after transcoding. APEv2 supports more than 30 characters for the standard fields. Your portable doesn't support APEv2 so it reads the ID3v1 tags which have the length limitations you've mentioned.

Your portable reads the ID3v2 tags added by Mp3tag. ID3v2 supports also more than 30 characters for the standard fields.

The solution for your problem would be setting "Tag type to write" to "ID3v2 and ID3v1" at foobar2000's preferences under "Playback, Input, Standard inputs". This will add ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags after transcoding.

You'll need foo_id3v2 for this.

Best regards,
~ Florian

Problem with MP3 Tag Formats

Reply #2 – 2004-11-18 00:58:10

Thanks, Florian...

Is there any way to easily "fix" the files I've already transcoded?  For instance, convert the APEv2 tags foobar2000 created to ID3v2?

Problem with MP3 Tag Formats

Reply #3 – 2004-11-18 05:28:02

Load them again into foobar2000, select them, [ContextMenu], -> [Database], -> [Rewrite file tags from database].

(Check your standard input setttings beforehand.)