Newly-imported tracks default to ratings "bomb" [#2147]

[gk]

I tried to delete this posting but could not - so I leave this comment - There was a lot of technical discussion about this issue - went offline during period of poll creation

[gk]

I don't see why you're so obsessed with what/whether WMP writes to tag. The point is what it READS from the tag, not what it writes.

Just by chance, I happened to notice that you edited this posting AFTER you said you had quit the thread ...

Whatever.

I am not 'obsessed' - it was you who assert that MM is 'compatible' with some 'standard'.
I asked to see the 'standard'.

Well, 'compatible' should mean read and write n'est-ce pas?

What is your point exactly?

[gk]

I don't see why you're so obsessed with what/whether WMP writes to tag. The point is what it READS from the tag, not what it writes.

PS here is the data you wanted:

After looking at the data you posted in more detail, it is not possible to interpret the data you posted since it doesn't include any frame header.

[Simolio]

I'm having exactly the same problem, has anybody got a solution rather than just criticising MM?

I'm not a tech-wizz but I'm a DJ, and it's destroying my rating systems. I have over 20,000 songs so it's destroying my selection process.
I might have to switch to another media player if there is no solution..

[Lowlander]

The easiest way around it is to create a Playlist per Rating in the old program. Import the Playlists and select all files on it and rate them with that rating. So you create a Playlist with all your 4 star tracks and import it and rate them 4 stars in MediaMonkey.

[Simolio]

That requires way too much hassle, I would have to keep updating it when I add new tracks.

I think I've had it with MediaMonkey now, I'm switching to another program.

[Simolio]

I thought I might add that it doesn't default just newly imported tracks to bombs but tracks that have been in the library for a while.

[Jadjam]

Wow, heated discussion in here! Though I can understand, this whole standards thing is frustrating. On my android phone, I've started using the one decent music player that handles ratings, PlayerPro. It adheres to the standards of POPM but MediaMonkey uses a Rating MM interpretation of the tag so they are incompitable, I for one would love to see the option of switching compatibility.

[gk]

I have Windows 7 and WMP 12. In win 7 (probably XP as well) you can right click an mp3 file > Properties > Details tab. You can change mp3 tags there.

Re: viewing tracks in WMP... what exactly do you mean 'worst'? Bomb rating? of course that shows as unrated in WMP, it doesn't have any equivalent for 'Bomb' to display.

PS: You're right that WMP doesn't save ID tags for ratings by default. But that's because you have to enable it in the options. Tools > Options > Library tab, 'Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files'

Even more: see the mp3tag website which clearly states WMP uses POPM tag:
http://help.mp3tag.de/main_tags.html

I am following up now since I have just switched from Windows XP to Windows 7 and could not verify the claims of nohitter151 previously.

This is my experience.

System:
Windows 7 Home Premium, SP1 6/25/2011
Windows Media Player (WMP) (wmplayer.exe) version 12.0.7601.17514

EXPERIMENT
I have the latest Windows Media Player (WMP), with option enabled:
Tools > Options > Library tab, 'Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files'

In Windows File Explorer, I right-click on an unrated mp3 file, choosing to view Properties.
I assigned it a 5 star rating, in the properties dialog, click Apply, then OK to exit the dialog.

I open the mp3 file in UltraEdit-32 text editor and these are the bytes that are found.

-- Frame Header (10 bytes)

50 4F 50 4D 00 00 00 1F 00 00

Frame ID (4 bytes)
50 4F 50 4D
P O P M
Size (4 bytes)
00 00 00 1F
'1F' hexadecimal to decimal: 16+15 = 31 bytes POPM frame payload after this 10 byte header
Flags (2 bytes)
= 00 00
(no flags set)

-- Frame Content (31 bytes) (i.e., payload)

Email + ONE termination byte (31 bytes)

W i n d o w s M e d i a P l a y e r 9 S e r i e s . (termination byte)
57 69 6e 64 6f 77 73 20 4d 65 64 69 61 20 50 6c 61 79 65 72 20 39 20 53 65 72 69 65 73 2e 00

NOTE: no further POPM data is found, no rating has been written to the mp3 file.

-- EXPERIMENT
I have the latest Windows Media Player (WMP), with option enabled:
Tools > Options > Library tab, 'Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files'

In Windows Media Player, I open the same mp3 file, which I previously rated in Explorer.
This file is in the library and displays as 'unrated' (no stars).
I assigned it a 5 star rating, in the properties dialog and quit WMP.

I again re-open the mp3 file in UltraEdit-32 text editor and there has been NO change to the bytes and, in particular, no POPM rating has been written to the mp3 file.

-- CONCLUSION

Despite claims to the contrary, I cannot find any evidence that WMP or Windows 7 Explorer write any rating data to the mp3 files, not in the POPM or any other id3v2 fields.
Therefore, the claim that the non-standard behavior of MM is related to non-standard Windows 7 behavior is questionable.

I would also suspect that the WMP option 'Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files' does not refer to mp3 files - it probably refers to internal settings files used by WMP.

I should also mention that this is not a problem with write permission to the mp3 file in my test since I am running as Administrator and have verified that the file is not set to read only.

[gk]

Seeing that there has been non progress on improving MM POPM support, I just did a search to see if any other players are doing it and found the following on the Banshee Media Player list:

ID3v2 Popularimeter (Ratings+Playcount) import/export
http://banshee-media-player.2283330.n4. ... 83967.html

[MrSinatra]

see here:

http://origin.mediamonkey.com/forum/vie ... 89#p358489

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3#ID3v2_Rating_tag_issue

what i am trying to figure out is to what degree WMP supports granularity and a similar chart as to how it reads and writes POPM values.

does anyone know? also, did wmp change how it does this between versions at any point?