Tagging recommendation Options

[flipik]

hello everyone,

sorry for asking n00b question, but did a search and havent found satisfying up-to-date answer.

I have a large music collection, build around LAME, MPC and FLAC files. Because long time ago I wanted to stick to as few tag types as possible I decided to use:
MP3: IDEv3 & APEv2 tags (storing metadata & replagain info)
MPC: APEv2 tags (storing metadata & replaygain info)
FLAC: none (just filename scheme), I used it only for archive purpose

From that time a lot has changed. MPC is obsolate, FLAC is more widely used (big storages in PCs and portable players) and there was a lot of improvement to LAME. Compatibility issues with some tag types are solved. I also bought more quality equipment (portable player and earphone are top quality with lot of storage and now I am buying new HiFi equipment for my living room).
As I have a lot of free time now, I decided to consolidate my music collection, what means:
- get rid of any other formats than MP3 and FLAC (compatibility)
- reencode any poor quality files (low bitrate, poor quality encoder) to make it more suitable for my equipment

Priorities:
I want to stick to standards and compatibility as much as possible, so I won't have to reencode or retag my collection with future's SW and HW.
Replaygain is MUST for me.
I want to tag and replaygain FLAC files as I use them more and more (cheap storage, better quality).
I also want to store album art for my music (for use with Media Centre software), but want to store it separately from my music folders.
Taking all this into account, I want to keep as much simplicity as possible.

Questions:
1. what tag types to use (and not use) with MP3? (need metadata and RG)
2. what tag types to use (and not use) with FLAC? (need at least add replaygain info, but preferably also metadata)
3. what principles do you consider as 'best practice' regarding album art storage?
Bonus question:
Those who owns HiFi equipment: what LAME setting do you use (this is more poll than proper question)

thank you very much for answers, and again sorry for n00b questions,

regards,
f.

Few info:
I use mostly foobar, amarok and banchee players. Will also start using media centre softwares very soon.
I prefer open and free platforms (so wont definitely buy any apple hardware in near future and dont need support it).

This post has been edited by flipik: Nov 6 2012, 20:58

[derty2]

Peter Pawlowski (developer of foobar2000) has also made a free software for fetching music coverart from the internet:

• AutoFolderPic
  An automated folder.jpg picture downloader based on Google images search

[flipik]

Peter Pawlowski (developer of foobar2000) has also made a free software for fetching music coverart from the internet:

• AutoFolderPic
  An automated folder.jpg picture downloader based on Google images search

thanks, very simple, very useful
just have to run a script renaming folder.* to cover.* afterwards..