foobar2000 v1.1.6 beta, 2011-04-22: 1.1.6 final out Options

[Case]

Edit on 2011-03-25:
foobar2000 v1.1.6 beta 2 is out.

• foobar2000 now uses " / " string as multi-artist delimiter in ID3v2.3 artist fields.
• Added an advanced preferences option to toggle between treating TPE2 as BAND or ALBUM ARTIST.

foobar2000 v1.1.6 beta 1 was just released.

• Improved performance when playing very short tracks.
• Improved tag compatibility with other software.
  
  • “Album artist” is mapped to ID3v2 TPE2 like in WMP/iTunes.
  • Support for iTunes “itunescompilation” tags, in MP3/ID3v2 and MP4.
  • ID3v2.3 tags are now written by default since version 2.4 seems to be widely ignored by software vendors.
  • Added support for multi-value WMA tags.
  • Special work-around for "AC/DC" artist in ID3v2.3.
• Improved reading of MP3 encoding information headers written by alpha versions of LAME.
• ReplayGain scanner now uses libebur128 for improved accuracy.

Download - Change Log

[edit]
Split Discussions not related to beta:
Muzack needs help with monitoring problem
Godrick asks an unrelated question about the Album list
Unrelated feature request #1
Clarifying the changes made with reading the ITUNESCOMPILATION frame
Rewriting tags rewrites "all" tag fields?

This post has been edited by shakey_snake: Apr 8 2011, 16:33

[Phil Meyer]

Oh Dear :-(

I'm not happy at all with this new shift in direction. I use BAND tag for popular music Band names, and for Orchestra in Classical music. I've always admired Foobar for following the Id3 standard and supporting TPE2 as BAND properly. I have a lot of work to change all of my music library, and have no desire to do that.

eg. I use BAND as an alias name, such as:

ARTIST=Jimmy Page
ARTIST=Robert Plant
BAND=Page & Plant

I only use ALBUM ARTIST if I need to group songs together on an album when the artists differ.

i.e. if the above was tags for a song on a compilation album, I would then add ALBUM ARTIST=Various Artists. I would not use BAND for ALBUM ARTIST, and converting my library as such would lose my BAND name data (or I'd have to translate them all to additional artist names, which is not correct).

Full compatibility with iTunes, WMP, etc is of no importance to me, as Mp3Tag and Squeezebox Server both support TPE2=BAND and TXXX ALBUM ARTIST.

What happens with Vorbis tags that have ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags? What happens if files are converted from one format to the other?

If I write to a BAND tag, will it write TXXX BAND now?

This change really needs to be configurable; most software that has ever supported the standard and maintained that and optionally supports a reduced functionality mode as a configuration setting.

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6! I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes. I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

[kode54]

What happens with Vorbis tags that have ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags? What happens if files are converted from one format to the other?

Vorbis has and always will write tags as plain KEY=VALUE pairs, so "ALBUM ARTIST" is literally written as "ALBUM ARTIST" and "BAND" is literally written as "BAND".

If I write to a BAND tag, will it write TXXX BAND now?

That is correct.

This change really needs to be configurable; most software that has ever supported the standard and maintained that and optionally supports a reduced functionality mode as a configuration setting.

Point out at least two popular media players and taggers which do exactly this. (An argument was given before this chane that Mp3tag, for instance, defaults to writing "Album Artist" to TPE2 frames.)

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6! I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes. I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

You do that.

[Phil Meyer]

Vorbis has and always will write tags as plain KEY=VALUE pairs, so "ALBUM ARTIST" is literally written as "ALBUM ARTIST" and "BAND" is literally written as "BAND".

If load a FLAC song that has ALBUM ARTIST and BAND tags, everything will be the same.

If I load an MP3 song that has TPE2 BAND and TXXX ALBUM ARTIST, it will display 2 Album Artists, and if I make changes that need to be saved, it won't honour the original content, but write it back as two artists within TPE2 BAND?

Eg. if I just want to add ReplayGain tags, it will mess with other tags, due to being "compatible" with apps that I don't use.

Point out at least two popular media players and taggers which do exactly this. (An argument was given before this chane that Mp3tag, for instance, defaults to writing "Album Artist" to TPE2 frames.)

Mp3Tag is nicely configurable; through "Tag Mapping" settings.
Squeezebox Server, a popular streaming media player is also configurable, but by default TPE2 = the Id3 standard of representing Band.

To not support the actual standard and not being compatible with the old way that Foobar works, doesn't make it a compatible app.

Also, such a BIG change should be a major revision number change, not 1.1.5 -> 1.1.6! I almost upgraded without reading the changes, expecting some minor bug fixes, and glad I stopped to check the release notes. I'm sticking with 1.1.5, which works fine for me.

You do that.

I have no choice, unless I spend a few MONTHS changing my music library, otherwise it will corrupt/lose content.

I hate it when apps "dumb down", remove functionality to be compatible with other less-capable alternatives. It sucks.