[quote="chrisjj"]A multiple artist Artist tag in an WMA file is not recognised as such in other programs[/quote]FTR, this of course happens also when MM receives a value containing a literal ';' character. in this case "show only the first artist as Artist" means cutting off the Artist value at the first ';' :(

> No idea.

OK, thanks anyway.

> just make sure you have the Contributing Artist column enabled.

Easier said than done! E.g. the Albums view I want does not offer CA to be enabled.

> If you just want to see a list of all the (Contributing) Artists, click
> on "Library" and select "Contributing Artist" under the Additional Views
> section.

That works - thanks.

[quote="chrisjj"]> WM/AlbumArtist is designed to be treated as a single entry. ...
> This is working as designed.

I'd be interested to hear the basis for that suggestion.[/quote]No idea. This is how Microsoft designed it, at least back to 2003. WMP 11 follows that. I personally agree with single Album Artist entry logic. Note: The MP3 TPE2 equivalent also says nothing about treating multiple names separately for that field, but it doesn't say it can't either since the ID3 standard sucks. :) But Microsoft does treat MP3 TPE2 just like WM/AlbumArtist: a single entry.

[quote]> The Artist & Composer tags work just fine with multiple names, as I said.

Rather hard to tell here - the Artist node tracklist shows Album Artist but no option AFAICT for Artist.

Where in WMP is it that you /do/ see multiple artists recognised as such?[/quote]In any detailed view, just make sure you have the Contributing Artist column enabled. You'll see all the discrete entries. Add Composer if you want to see the multiple Composers, too.

If you just want to see a list of all the (Contributing) Artists, click on "Library" and select "Contributing Artist" under the Additional Views section.

> WM/AlbumArtist is designed to be treated as a single entry. ...
> This is working as designed.

I'd be interested to hear the basis for that suggestion.

> The Artist & Composer tags work just fine with multiple names, as I
> said.

Rather hard to tell here - the Artist node tracklist shows Album Artist but no option AFAICT for Artist.

Where in WMP is it that you /do/ see multiple artists recognised as such?

[quote="chrisjj"]> chrisjj, I have no WMA interoperability problems between Media
> Monkey multiple names in Artist (Contributing Artist), Composers, etc.

Meaning you get something better than pictured in http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=142847#142847 ?[/quote]Not sure what you referencing. Your picture of WMP 11 only shows the [b]Album Artist[/b] column, which doesn't support multiple names by design. WM/AlbumArtist is designed to be treated as a single entry. So, in your example... WMP 11 & MediaMonkey will actually store "ZArtistX; ZArtistY; ZArtistZ" in the field. WMP 11 treats it as a single name. This is working as designed.

The Artist & Composer tags work just fine with multiple names, as I said. And your ZArtistX, ZArtistY & ZArtistZ are treated independently in WMP 11 and MediaMonkey. (Remember, default view is Album Artist and not (Contributing) Artist in WMP 11.)

> works fine for me, both multiple Artist and Album Artist show in WMP11.

For the record, I take this to mean only that they show as a single artist - not that they are recognised as multiple artists, as they should be.

> chrisjj, I have no WMA interoperability problems between Media
> Monkey multiple names in Artist (Contributing Artist), Composers, etc.

Meaning you get something better than pictured in http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=142847#142847 ?

By design, Microsoft expects Album Artist to be a single entry. It will ignore additional entries stored in WMA containers for WM/AlbumArtist if some application happens to write them. (Personally, I agree with this design decision.)

FYI: For MP3 ID3v2.3, TPE2 (equiv. Album Artist) will be read "as is" and not parse out names via "/" in the tag... So, "Alpha/Beta" will be seen as "Alpha/Beta" instead of both "Alpha" & "Beta" in Windows shell, WMP 11, etc. If you look at the ID3v2.3 spec, they don't bother mentioning multiple names for the TPE2 field... unlike Artist, Composer, etc.

chrisjj, I have no WMA interoperability problems between Media Monkey multiple names in Artist (Contributing Artist), Composers, etc.

Since the default "Artist" view in the WMP 11 UI is Album Artist, to browse by track based Artists (where you can have multiple discrete ones per track), you need to select Library and choose Contributing Artist. When in any view mode, you'll see the multiple Artists if you have the "Contributing Artist" column enabled.

> WMP11 seems to be unable to handle multiple Album Artists differently

Ah OK (the same happens with track Artist e.g. in the Songs list). If this is the best compliance test, does this mean there's /no/ program with which MM WMA multiple artists interoperates correctly?

> Or are you able to force WMP11 to show them correctly, i.e. as in MM?

No. I.e. I've find no way of forcing WMP11 to show MM-created multiple artists as such.

I see, but as far as I can test, WMP11 seems to be unable to handle multiple Album Artists differently than that. Or are you able to force WMP11 to show them correctly, i.e. as in MM?

Jiri

> WMP11 (which is probably the best compliance test)

Thanks.

> and works fine for me, both multiple Artist and Album Artist show in WMP11.

Here's an example of multiple artists in MM:
[url=http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wmamultiartistfail1mmrp0.gif][img]http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/1470/wmamultiartistfail1mmrp0.th.gif[/img][/url]
failing to show as such in WMP 11:
[url=http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wmamultiartistfail2mmkm6.gif][img]http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/3999/wmamultiartistfail2mmkm6.th.gif[/img][/url]

Tested with WMP11 (which is probably the best compliance test) and works fine for me, both multiple Artist and Album Artist show in WMP11.

Jiri

A multiple artist Artist tag in an WMA file is not recognised as such in other programs such as WMP 11 and MP3tag 2.40. Both show only the first artist as Artist.

I don't know if this is due to an MM bug but I report it in case it is.

If there's a better measure of MMs compliance in this regard, please do say.