ID3v1 tags

[dasmueller]

I have been working on cleaning up my tags. I noticed in the Squeezeplay wiki this morning that it is recommended that one remove ID3v1 tags. Does anyone know why ?

When I looked at Mp3tag-Tools-Options-Tags-MPEG I noticed that both ID3v1 and ID3v2 were selected for Read, Write and Remove. I have changed that so Mp3tag will only write ID3v2.3 and remove only ID3v1 in the future. Is this the way I should have Mp3tag set ?

I ran a trial w one folder and selected remove tag and it only removed the ID3v1 tags it appears. Is it safe to load my entire library and remove the ID3v1 tags in this fashion ? Will there be any benefits to doing so ?

Thanks for your input !

[Mnyb]

There are probably some very good reasons that i dont know about .

But it's easy that with two sets of tags they could get out sync not containing the same information, that would be a problem .

Note that if you use flac files you should not use any lf them .

[dasmueller]

I spot checked some folders that contain only FLAC files and it appears that the tags are only FLAC (FLAC). At least that is all that shows in the Tag column.

[DJanGo]

Hi,

remove ID3v1 tags. Does anyone know why ?

* they are stored in the end of the audiofile, not like v2 in front of the file.
(tag reading is far faster)
* they are limited in space (google the allowed lenght)
* dont use two sources

Is this the way I should have Mp3tag set ?

I also remove ape tags.

Will there be any benefits to doing so ?
Thanks for your input !

i always would mass tag the files direct from and on the source - not mounted via smb or something like that - i've had a big issue and after that "much fun" to find and restore the tags or files cause i didnt noticed that network failure. (and my Job is Networker).
Mass Tagging always means backup before and check later before you delete the backup fioles/ owerwrite them.

[JJZolx]

I have been working on cleaning up my tags. I noticed in the Squeezeplay wiki this morning that it is recommended that one remove ID3v1 tags. Does anyone know why ?

In the past LMS has had issues when an Mp3 file had both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. I'm not sure that any of those problems still exist, but another issue is that they can cause confusion. You can have data in one of the IDv1 tag's fields, but not in the ID3v2 tag. Different applications will treat this situation differently. Some will merge the two tag types, while others will give precedence to the ID3v2 tag. So data that you think might exist, doesn't appear.

So, to avoid confusion, just get rid of the things.

When I looked at Mp3tag-Tools-Options-Tags-MPEG I noticed that both ID3v1 and ID3v2 were selected for Read, Write and Remove. I have changed that so Mp3tag will only write ID3v2.3 and remove only ID3v1 in the future. Is this the way I should have Mp3tag set ?

Yes, that works. I have Mp3tag set to also remove APE tags. Again, because I don't need them and to avoid confusion.

I ran a trial w one folder and selected remove tag and it only removed the ID3v1 tags it appears. Is it safe to load my entire library and remove the ID3v1 tags in this fashion ? Will there be any benefits to doing so ?

You might want to use filtering in Mp3tag to first see if you have any files with _only_ an ID3v1 tag. If you do, and you fail to transfer that data to an ID3v2 tag, then you'd lose the metadata in those files.

Set Mptag's options to also read ID3v1 tags, as shown above. With the full library loaded, hit F3 and enter this filter:

%_tag% IS ID3v1

Once you bring up the ID3v1-only files (if any) you can just hit the 'Save' button (blue floppy disk) and all of the data will be copied to an ID3v2 tag. You'll see the ID3v2.3 tag appear in the Tag column of the file view in Mp3tag.

Then turn off filtering to get back to the full library. Hit the 'Remove tag' button (red X) to remove any ID3v1 tags. The ID3v2 tags will remain.

[reinholdk]

I

I'm in doubt about the ISO-8859-1 option. While this comprises most characters used in the "western" world (exceptions mentioned here) I currently prefer the Unicode option ID3v2.3 UTF-16 to not miss anything.

[SuperQ]

I'm in doubt about the ISO-8859-1 option. While this comprises most characters used in the "western" world (exceptions mentioned here) I currently prefer the Unicode option ID3v2.3 UTF-16 to not miss anything.

I would use UTF-8 over UTF-16. UTF-8 is variable-length (1-4 bytes per character), and covers everything from ASCII to Emoji. UTF-16 doesn't add anything useful over UTF-8 except storage bloat (minimum 2 byte encoding) and incompatibility.

[JJZolx]

I'm in doubt about the ISO-8859-1 option. While this comprises most characters used in the "western" world (exceptions mentioned here) I currently prefer the Unicode option ID3v2.3 UTF-16 to not miss anything.

Depends. I've never missed a single character that I needed for tagging any of my music. YMMV. I prefer to keep it simple and UTF encodings can sometimes cause needless issues.

[dasmueller]

Thanks for the ideas. Having a backup before doing the revision is something I sometimes forget. The filter search is a good idea as well. I am currently using that to add artwork in places where it is missing. When done w that will proceed w the ID3v1 filter.

Thanks again folks !

[reinholdk]

I would use UTF-8 over UTF-16.

Yes, I'd prefer that too, but with mp3tag it means ID3v2.4. Don't know whether all concerned devices are supporting it...

[garym]

I use id3v2.3 (only) and utf-16. I've not had any issues using MP3 files in iTunes, various iThings, foobar2000, or LMS or any sort of squeezebox players.

[dasmueller]

Update

I finally got to the point where I was comfortable updating my backup before attempting to remove the ID3v1 tags. Deleted the backup and copied over my library last night through this morning so I now have a "cleaner" backup.

It appears that there may have been a step missing. After hitting the red X/Remove tag button almost all information was gone. I hit the Undo button and it rescanned the library quicker than normal, still nothing. I hit refresh and it rescanned again. Now everything looks good and the ID3v1 tags are gone.

Thanks for the help and I hope this is of value to others.

[garym]

I finally got to the point where I was comfortable updating my backup before attempting to remove the ID3v1 tags. Deleted the backup and copied over my library last night through this morning so I now have a "cleaner" backup.

It appears that there may have been a step missing. After hitting the red X/Remove tag button almost all information was gone. I hit the Undo button and it rescanned the library quicker than normal, still nothing. I hit refresh and it rescanned again. Now everything looks good and the ID3v1 tags are gone.

Thanks for the help and I hope this is of value to others.

Glad it worked. regarding your steps, that is a bit odd. The only time I've ever seen everything disappear when hitting the "red X" is when I hadn't yet written ID3v2.3 tags to the files (so they only had ID3v1 tags). A way around this is to make sure your settings are correct in tag options (see picture), select all files, then hit SAVE. This will write ID3v2.3 tags if they don't exist yet. Then hit the RED X.

[reinholdk]

It appears that there may have been a step missing. After hitting the red X/Remove tag button almost all information was gone.

Yes, the point is that you must NOT select the ID3v2 check box in the Remove section of the tag options!

[dasmueller]

I thought it strange as well. The files that had ID3v1 tags also had the ID3v3.2 tags along w the ID3v1. ID3v.1 was the only checked box in the remove field. At least I was able to get through it and thank goodness for the undo button ! Will be curious to see how scans go moving forward.