Year/date tag format [F4078 RC4]

[Guest]

I use Winamp to play tracks but have a minor problem with Winamp not seeing the year after its updated in MM3.
When I view file info in Winamp it shows the year in the id3v1 tag but not id3v2. According to Mp3tag if I enter the year as "2006" MM3 is actually writing "2006\\2006" to the year tag, which Winamp can't read for some reason.
Is there any way to get it to just write "2006", or is this a problem with Winamp's tag reading?

[Guest]

This problem happens because MM3 doesn't correctly conform to ID3V2.3.
(TDRC frame that doesn't exist in ID3V2.3 is used. It is necessary to use TDAT frame correctly.)
If you edit ID3V2 tag with MM3, you will have to endure the possibility that "YEAR" is not correctly displayed by other applications.
I think that this is a very serious problem.

[Guest]

Any way to change this if the above is correct? Just have a 'year' field and a separate one for the full date maybe?

[Dirhael]

Any way to change this if the above is correct? Just have a 'year' field and a separate one for the full date maybe?

I second this request, Mediamonkey's current date formatting drives both me and my other players crazy.

---

At the moment, I'm using foobar2000 to fix the dates from time to time, and here's the how I'm making sure that I only process the ones that MM3 have messed up the dates on (note that this assumes that you are only using 4 digit years in the date tag, so if you are using longer ones like YYYY-MM-DD you will have to change the search query):


1. Make sure that your music is in the foobar library, and search for the following using the album list (tools -> album list)

Code: Select all

"$ifgreater($len(%date%),4,$puts(date,$trim(%date%))$ifequal($left($get(date),4),$right($get(date),4),1,),)" IS 1

(Yes, it is long and hard to read but it must be on one line if we are to use the query in a search...)

2. Right-click all entries in the playlist you get from the search in step #1, choose properies, right-click the DATE row and click "format from other fields." In the dialog that opens, use the following code:

Code: Select all

$left($trim(%date%),4)

[Guest]

I can change the dates again in Winamp quite easily, but if I the change any other tags in MM (eg genre etc) it changes the date back to its own format, even if i didn't change the actual value of the date.

[jiri]

I have to disagree slightly here, the facts here are:

1. MM really writes TDRC frame in ID3v2.3 tag, which is only specified in ID3v2.4, but it also isn't directly against ID3v2.3 specification. The reasons for this were discussed in other threads here - we don't want to store ID3v2.4 (maybe in the future), but some 2.4 frames are useful.

2. The problem is mostly on the side of the other applications mentioned, e.g.:
- WinAmp: Yes, it doesn't show ID3v2 Year, but as I explained in 1., there's no real reason why it shouldn't do so. Also, some older versions, like WinAmp 2.2x _do_ show it properly in this case.
- Foobar shows date as '2001; 2001' even in case e.g. TDAT and TYER are present.

That said, we want to write tag according to our users needs and the best solution for now seems to be to make it a little configurable. So, the next release of MM will have two new MediaMonkey.ini file entries:

[MP3Tagging]
DisableFrames=TYER;TDRC
EnableFrames=TDAT

This way you can force MM to not write frames it normally writes (pretty much any frame can be disabled this way) and also force it to write frames it normally doesn't (applies only to TDAT frame at this moment).

Hope it helps,
Jiri

[rusty]

Note that the configurable year/date tagging is implemented in 3.0.1.1116 RC4.

-Rusty

[Macarena]

[MP3Tagging]
DisableFrames=TYER;TDRC
EnableFrames=TDAT

Using MM3RC5, WinXP; media HDD FAT32. I wrote the above settings into the .ini file (and is still there). When analysing for unsynchronised tags most of the years are of being unsynchronised. OK, maybe I wrote them to the albums too late. Then doing sync of these files with the library does not change a thing to the appearance of the year in the files in other players or editors. Tried Winamp v5.5 and ID3-TagIt v3.3.0. Even rechecking the unsynchronised node the years are still shown as yellow (unsynchronised). I expected that the settings above should solve the problem and write the tags (more) correctly in id3v2.3 format. Am I doing sth wrong?

Checking the number of the files unsynchronised (only the year is now the tag which is not synchronised), it seems that only few percent (less than 3%) of the tracks has the year written correctly. But I'm sure that before I was about to use MM2 I had more than half of the tracks written the year tag (which showed up in wmp11, winamp and id3-tagit program). So far it is stored in the MM library and is not lost - which is good. And I am staying with MM for a while more.. Nevertheless, I would be happier to have it also within the tracks -- but that's what we are all solving here.

[rusty]

See: http://www.mediamonkey.com/faq/index.ph ... 3731&id=98

-Rusty

[Guest]

See: http://www.mediamonkey.com/faq/index.ph ... 3731&id=98

-Rusty

Thanks very much. It works well. Macarena

[chrisjj]

> See: http://www.mediamonkey.com/faq/index.ph ... 3731&id=98

Broken link? Here it redirects to a generic page: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... se&_a=view

[chrisjj]

> 1. MM really writes TDRC frame in ID3v2.3 tag ...
> isn't directly against ID3v2.3 specification.

For the record, I want to say this is false i.e. MMs TDRC use IS against the specification i.e. is non-compliant, because TDRC is in the class of frames IDs that the spec says is reserved:

3.3. ID3v2 frame overview
...
The frame ID made out of the characters capital A-Z and 0-9. Identifiers
beginning with "X", "Y" and "Z" are for experimental use and free for
everyone to use ...
All other identifiers are either used or reserved for future use.

I really hope MM Devs will clean up this act.

[MoDementia]

> See: http://www.mediamonkey.com/faq/index.ph ... 3731&id=98

Broken link? Here it redirects to a generic page: http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... se&_a=view

http://www.mediamonkey.com/support/inde ... 62&nav=0,9

[chrisjj]

Thanks for the fix.

> MediaMonkey 3, by default saves Year and Date metadata in ID3 v2.3 tags
> to TYER / TDRC frames. Although this is generally a good approach for
> maximum compatibility, some users may wish to change this since TDRC is
> normally associated with ID3 v2.4 tags

That's a shameful whitewash.

[kippo]

Dirhael you are a genius, fixed the 3000 or so tracks with foobar that MM had messed the year up on. Cheers