in_flac.dll error - "ALBUMARTIST" metadata not being read/written correctly

[Liontamer]

I use MP3tag to tag my collection and noticed a mistake in Winamp's FLAC DLL.

When I batch edit MP3s and FLACs together to update tags, Winamp correctly shows what's in the Album Artist field (%albumartist%) when you view the MP3 tags. But when you view FLAC tags in WinAmp, the Album Artist field appears blank (unlike Date, Title, Genre and other shared fields). So I would have to manually add in metadata into the field for FLACs so that something was visible.

However, I later found out that Winamp only writes and displays text in a FLAC's Album Artist field from variable (%album artist%) - there's a space between the words in the variable/string name when there should be none. That means there's a typo in the DLL where "albumartist" is mistakenly "album artist", making Winamp read and write the metadata with the wrong string.

I've uploaded an example RAR where I've tagged both the incorrect field that Winamp writes to and reads from AND the CORRECT Album Artist field. If someone can fix this problem on both the read and write sides, that'd be great. Here's the RAR. It includes both the MP3 and FLAC version.

https://sites.google.com/site/lionta...ks-OCReMix.rar

[MrSinatra]

please be aware that mp3tag has recently changed. it now uses TPE2 by default to mean albumartist for id3 files. read their app version history.

for flacs, its more confusing. what winamp does though is what mp3tag wants. the tag has the space, ie "ALBUM ARTIST" not "ALBUMARTIST"

read more about it all here:

http://forums.mp3tag.de/index.php?showtopic=12101

and

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=83073

i hope i haven't misunderstood you, but i think what i'm saying applies to your issue.

[DJ Egg]

Winamp reads all of ALBUM ARTIST, ALBUMARTIST & ENSEMBLE for the Album Artist metadata in FLAC/OGG files, in that order of precedence.

It does however write to the ALBUM ARTIST field.

Alas, there's no standard specified in the official Vorbis Comments documenatation
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

[MrSinatra]

in my exp, with the space is more supported, so i'd advise the OP to conform to what winamp and mp3tag do/want.

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by DJ Egg

Winamp reads all of ALBUM ARTIST, ALBUMARTIST & ENSEMBLE for the Album Artist metadata in FLAC/OGG files, in that order of precedence.

It does however write to the ALBUM ARTIST field.

Alas, there's no standard specified in the official Vorbis Comments documenatation
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

I get what you're saying. Hypothetically, Winamp should be searching in this order...

1. ALBUM ARTIST = blank
2. ALBUMARTIST = OverClocked ReMix [example]
3. ENSEMBLE = blank

In my above example, though the primary and tertiary tags are blank, because the secondary tag ALBUMARTIST IS filled out, it should display "OverClocked ReMix" in the Album Artist section when viewing the file info with Alt+F3.

But what I had found (from taking MP3s with no tags to start) was that if ONLY the secondary ALBUMARTIST field (no space) was filled out, then Winamp did not display anything. It's just blank. I've never tested the tertiary Ensemble field.

I definitely wouldn't have posted a help thread if Winamp was indeed searching all 3 fields. :-) At least with MP3s, what we'd like to be happening (searching all 3 fields, skipping blanks and displaying the first filled out tag) isn't actually happening. From what I can tell, it's just searching the primary tag, finding things blank, and stopping there rather than parsing the secondary or tertiary tags.

Could there be a way for Winamp to apply the album artist parsing rules it uses for FLACs & OGGs to MP3s?

[MrSinatra]

if thats true, i agree its a bug, but at least you can add the space and have it fixed. what are you using to create the tags that isn't using the space?

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

if thats true, i agree its a bug, but at least you can add the space and have it fixed. what are you using to create the tags that isn't using the space?

Sorry, I've clarified the post above and apparently was getting the issue mixed up between FLACs and MP3s. My issue with the album artist tag parsing should have been more directed to in_mp3, though both MP3 and FLAC have their inconsistencies.

FLACs re: album artist tagging seem to work OK as Egg mentioned. But that said, Winamp's interface writes to ALBUM ARTIST for FLACs and ALBUMARTIST for MP3s, which are still 2 different fields, no matter which is primary for the respective format. It's strange to see a tagging parameter with a space in the name when nothing else in regular ID3 usage does such a thing. And if you edit an ALBUMARTIST FLAC tag within Winamp, Winamp blanks that tag to write into the ALBUM ARTIST tag.

Now when I batch tag, so far I basically need to work around the issue.

[MrSinatra]

as far as i know, mp3s use only id3 type tags (forget APE) as far as winamp is concerned, and so they only use the TPE2 frame to mean "album artist"

i am fairly sure that is the ONLY implementation for reading/writing id3 tags for AA.

winamp does not, afaik, read/write TXXX ALBUM ARTIST tags. (actually, it may read them, but it writes to the TPE2 frame only afaik)

if you check the www.id3.org spec, you'll see that there is NO defined AA frame. its just a de facto standard (violating the spec btw) to use TPE2. so there is no "space" issue, since the frame is just TPE2.

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by MrSinatra

in my exp, with the space is more supported, so i'd advise the OP to conform to what winamp and mp3tag do/want.

i believe i need to correct myself... winamp does have the space for FLAC, but it appears mp3tag by default does not have the space for FLAC.

http://forums.mp3tag.de/index.php?showtopic=12949

[MrSinatra]

Liontamer,

are your issues in this thread now resolved?

[MrSinatra]

Originally Posted by DJ Egg

Winamp reads all of ALBUM ARTIST, ALBUMARTIST & ENSEMBLE for the Album Artist metadata in FLAC/OGG files, in that order of precedence.

It does however write to the ALBUM ARTIST field.

Alas, there's no standard specified in the official Vorbis Comments documenatation
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html

Egg,

would it be possible to set a pref in the vorbis or flac DLL to allow a user to pick which way winamp should write "album artist"? meaning, with or without the space?

I think with the space, the way winamp does it now, is fine, but I might do it without the space since that would work with mp3tag out of the box while keeping a user from creating a tag mapping.

another option to consider would be allowing winamp to write BOTH at the same time. consider the following scenario:

a file comes to winamp 5.63 with AA that has no space. user updates AA. winamp writes the new value with the space, but the old value without the space remains! this divergence is undesirable/dangerous, b/c not everything will prefer 'with the space' first, the way winamp does.

this could be avoided by allowing winamp to write both 'with,' and 'without' the space simultaneously, if the user so pref'd it, b/c the orig tag would be overwritten. or the orig tag could just be deleted.

[MrSinatra]

a bump not just to remind the devs, but also to say that software seems to be starting to go to WITHOUT the space as the de facto primary marketplace standard. mp3tag, foobar, and others seem to be heading this way.

not really an issue for id3, since 99.9% of things just use TPE2, or m4a, since it uses the aART atom. so a pref as I describe above could pertain to just the vorbis / flac dlls.

but see this oldie too:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=326435