Hello,

Because of a discussion earlier today, I did a basic draft for a new "easy-to-implement" tag system, which can extend ID3v1. This is needed, since the former standard seems to have died (ID3v2, if anyone knows in detail what's happened, please tell me).

So, what I would like to know now is if anyone is interested in developing a new format. My idea is to keep the format simple, text (XML) based, and flexible.. Something like ID3v1, but with more fields (and possibility to add user defined fields) without fixed lengths.

So, if anyone is interested, send a mail to "mikael@helium2.com", and I can send you my draft for the specificaton.

Regards,
Mikael Stalvik

Instead of developing another format, why not just use APE-tags? It's already used by both Monkey's Audio and MusePack.

If one still want ID3 for compatibility, just store the APE-tag in front of the ID3.

But, if I put an APE tag before the ID3v1 tag (and any eventual Lyrics 3 v2.0 tag), how does players handles that?

Is APE appliciable on MP3's ?

Is APE tags always stored before ID3v1?

Regards,
Mikael Stalvik

I agree with madah, I don't think it's wise to develop yet another tagging format when there's nothing wrong with APE tags.


Players that don't recognize other tagging formats will only show ID3 tags.


I made some tests with APEv2 tagged MP3s, both Winamp and LAME with --decoce switch skipped the tag properly and decoded only audio part. Cool Edit couldn't skip the tag, there was some added silence at the end. I don't think this is a big issue, MP3 can't reconstruct exact file length anyway.


No, APE tags are usually the only tags in files. But it doesn't hurt to have multiple tags in files.

I definitively agree to that the best is to reuse any existing format. (read a more detailed reply about this in another thread).

I think that I will experiment a little with APE2 in combination with ID3v1 instead... Hmm.. if that works OK, it really COULD be good.

Regards,
Mikael Stalvik

The best thing to do as I see it would be to first get APE2 support by some winamp plugin, then mailing authors of taggers and player to add support too.
Case's TAG is already able to add ape2 tags to mp3 files.

Hmm.. Better take a look at that technology then, and see what I can do...
The best had been to be able to support APE2 tags w/o any plugin (correct me if I'm wrong here).

Regards,
Mikael

I mean to get support in some input plugin...
MAD or the nullsoft one.

I don't really like tags at the beginning of files, I know of plenty of hardware players that barf when they hit invalid data at the beginning.

It is sad, ID3v2 could have been way better designed - I mean can you really imagine writing support for ID3v2 on an 8 bit micro controller, it would be a nightmare...

I don't really care what tagging system gets switched to, just so long as there is a way to convert the tags from the ID3v2.3 tags that all my MP3's currently have to whatever is settled upon. Until then, I'm sure as heck not switching.