Windows and ID3v2.4 tags - what I use

[Viraj Mody]

Are you sure Windows Media Player is reading the ID3v2.4 tag? I suspect what 
you're seeing is WMP reading ID3v1 tags, not ID3v2.4
Also, the WMP editor adds data to the ID3v1 tag as far as I could tell...

This is easy to test - just strip out everything but ID3v2.4 tags form your 
mp3 and open it in WMP.

I would love to be wrong about this, but I can't get even the last Windows 
Media Player version to read ID3v2.4...

--------------------------------------------------
From: <tpombo at woh.rr.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 10:17 PM
To: <taglib-devel at kde.org>
Cc: "Viraj Mody" <virajmody at gmail.com>
Subject: Windows and ID3v2.4 tags - what I use

> Windows Media Player 11 (XP/Vista) and Windows Media Player 12 (Win7) both 
> support ID3v2.4, in fact they have a decent tag editor built-in.  I have 
> not tested versions prior to 11, so I don't know how well they support 
> v2.4.
>
> Windows Media Center on Vista/7 both support ID3v2.4 because they use 
> Media Player internally.  I don't know about Windows XP Media Center 
> Edition.
>
> In Windows Vista and Win7, they only component I know of that doesn't 
> support ID3v2.4 is the shell (explorer.exe).  To have tag info displayed 
> in Windows Explorer, you'll need to use ID3v2.3 tags, or older, as you 
> already know.
>
> What I do about this:
> I use taglib to modify my mp3 files, so of course, this converts the tag 
> to v2.4.  To convert it back to v2.3, I use iTunes.  I know that iTunes 
> isn't popular, but it is a really good library manager.  Anyway... Open 
> iTunes, drag the mp3 files/folders into the window, select all, 
> right-click and you can choose to convert the tag to any version you want. 
> It rewrites all the files quickly and easily.  When done, select all and 
> delete the files from iTunes.
>
> I've done this process on tens of thousands of mp3 files.  It works well. 
> iTunes doesn't add any goofy frames or modify any of the data - it simply 
> converts the tag.
>
> Also, iTunes has a great tag editor built-in, and it doesn't change the 
> tag version when editing.  One caveat, if you add artwork using iTunes, it 
> will save the picture in PNG format.  PNG is several times larger than 
> JPEG.  Thus making the file much larger than necessary.
>
> To summarize my process:
> 1. Drag questionable mp3 file into iTunes
> 2. Use iTunes tag editor to update tag info including pictures.  Then 
> remove file from iTunes.
> 3. Use my taglib app to clean up frames and convert picture to JPEG.  It 
> also rewrites the file to reclaim wasted space.
> 4. Reload file back into iTunes and convert tag to v2.3
> 5. Verify Windows Explorer can see all data (it always does).
>
> I use iTunes as a tag editor and version converter only.  I am a not an 
> iTunes expert.  I have only used iTunes v8.x and v9.x, so I cannot comment 
> on behavior of other versions.
>
> I hope my comments were helpful.
>
> -Tony
>