Ok, EAR is a plugin for winamp that shows id3 information and file info in the minibrowser.
What's especially exiting (at least for me it is) is the ability to read from external tag-files. Read about it in the "Fixes/New features" section.


Winamp has since a couple of version been able to show both ID3v1/ID3v2 tag information and MPEG properties, if you look at the properties page for a file.
EAR extends this information presentation. When you have EAR enabled, and the Minibrowser visible, EAR will render a document showing you almost all the information from these tags.


But, this is not all EAR will do for you. EAR has a template engine which let you define templates showing EXACTLY the information from the tags, EXACTLY in the way you prefer.

EAR is also prepared for other languages than English.
EAR comes with 8 default languages, and more can and will be done.
The most templates are language independant, so that when switching language in EAR,
the template will be rerendered in the new language.

You can design new templates that present data in any layout that you prefer, easily.
Please look at the screenshots to see examples of how EAR can look.


To create and manage ID3v1 and v2.x tags, we recommend you to use Helium², which can be downloaded at:

http://www.helium2.com



--------------------

This release contains important bugfixes, a more optimized document rendering engine,
cool new features, more default languages and templates.


Fixes/New features
[list]


Personally I would like to know what people think about the external tags feature.


___
edit (citay) : color codes removed. using a color other than black in news posts isn't appropriate, since it draws the attention of the users to that single post.


edit2 (jan): color codes were there to seperate my comments from the new.

chant with me: use Vorbis! use Vorbis!

Jansemanden,

Will you STFU? It's bad enough that you keep plugging the damn Helium bloatware crap on r3mix, and now on hydrogenaudio? No one will use the crap and ID3V2 with MPC. God damn it. :mad:

I agree with whatever Wish said.

EAR is not helium2.

Ear is totally free.

if you don't use id3v2 with mpc you'll have no tags. No alternative. When there is I'm certain helium2 and EAR will support it.


Ogg support is planned in helium2 and EAR.


Helium2 is not bloatware - it's the best tagger around.



Regards,
Jan.

we can still use old good id3v1, which doesn't have id3v2-ish #@! software compatibility problems.

No tags? What do you call ID3V1.1 then? Anyway, keep using that braindead standard that no one in their right mind would even support.

Huh? MPC uses id3v1.1. That was the alternative chosen to id3v2 currently. SV8 will have its own taggin scheme. You act like it's a cardinal sin not to have id3v2. Just because your beloved bloatware is keen on id3v2 doesn't mean any format that doesn't use it is utter crap. I highly doubt Monty is going to choose id3v2 for vorbis as it will just lead to problems down the road with VBR/ABR and I'm SURE bitrate peeling.

You seriously need to get a grip on things, not to mention stop preaching about helium2 constantly.

We also had bows and arrows so why invent more?
It's so f***** complicated to live today.

There's not nearly enough fields in id3v1 for me.
Therefore id3v2.
I'm not praising id3v2 I'm praising EAR and Helium2.
When there's an alternative to id3v2 I'll use that.

When MPC SV8 with custom tagging is available, I wanna see you use ID3V2 with it. Try sharing those files with everyone else that doesn't use the programs you keep shamelessly plugging incessantly.

As I said when mpc get's it's own tagging system I'll use that.
Untill id3v2 is only choice.

Look at your own post:

To create and manage ID3v1 and v2.x tags, we recommend you to use Helium², which can be downloaded at: http://www.helium2.com

If thats not another shameless plug..... UGH. :mad:

why invent more, eh ? id3v2 format feels like it was invented in the stone age. they just have to keep updating it (and messing up compatibility) because they need to change specs every time they add new fields. stupid, isn't it ?
chant with me: use Vorbis ! use Vorbis !

It's was taken from the web site.
Of course the author recomments the program he has written and know works.

And it's the only program doing external tags.

When ogg has the quality off mpc I'll change.

or better - go use winamp3's database stuff. no more need to modify files, and it doesn't make stupid external tag files. blah.

I look at id3v1.1 and see:

Track#
Title
Artist
Album
Year
Genre
Comments

What the heck else would you need? An biography of the artist?

Anyway, you can praise Helium2, but you act like it's the crowning-jewel of all software. Do you get paid by the author?

No I don't!
I just think it's a great prog. Have you guys even tried it before saying it's crap?


Is Dibrom paid my LAME developers?
And damn him for talking about it when his working on it!!


What I want more - this is how my tags look:

Band/Orchestra
Title
Composer
Album
Media
Track
CD
Recording year
Recording year, month/date
Release year
Release year, month/date
Musician credits list
Production credits list
Encoded date
Tagged, date
Cover
comment
lyrics

again: Winamp3 will support all that crap in its database, without making mess in your files / on your hdd. yes, i AM paid by AOL.

Can you move you files around then without destroying your database?
Can you use other databases?
can you mass tag?
Can you get it shown nice in a list?
Is it still there if you use your files on another computer?
Can you share your files?



A mess my ass. Can you handle a subdir with 20 files?

It may not be a direct plug, but since you still need Helium2 to be used together with this thing, it's an indirect plug. Aren't you not even sick constantly repeating the same thing over and over again? Helium this, Helium that, Use Helium..... :mad:

In fact, it's starting to sound like a broken record......

Why take up all that data....do you have anyone that'd actually read that?

Let's take say... Dave Matthews - Crash - #41

06
#41
Dave Matthews Band
Crash
1996
Soft Rock
Encoded with Lame 3.90


There isn't anything else needed and it's just bloat to put anything else. You don't even KNOW the month/date of creation on this album (nor do I) and it would require probably a good deal of research to find out. I'm willing to bet you don't fill that part of your "standard form" very often. Your tagging scheme is prohibitively wasteful....in fact it's downright abhorred.

a mess in your id3v2-tagged ass. you can't do most of that yet because Winamp3 is a DEVELOPER'S BETA now, and i'm talking about features coming in a final version. the engine is already capable of that; you can already mass-tag entries in database; and you will be able to write file tags the same way in final version.

Aren't you sick of saying id3v2 sucks?
And that mpc and ogg rulez or whatever you like.

If ppl ask for a prog. to tag their files then of course I'll tell them about helium2 as I think it's the best.


Only one encoder makes mpc suck or what?


And yes Filburt: that is the tags I've put in all my files. And yes it takes some research and yes I like to have the info.

So you tag this for yourself then? Because if I got a tag that huge I'd probably want to remove it and save myself the extra 300kb of space it takes up .

and who asked you to tell us that helium is the best again ?

It's one mb per album - You think you can handle it?


You asked me why I praised helium2 so I replied.

*** PEOPLE !!! ***

stop talking 'bout this !!! it's not even a conversation, you know...

if there are people who don't use tags - that's OK.
if there are people who use them - that's also OK.

nothing more to talk about.

EAR is a freeware, Wianmp plugin - that's all.
download it if you want to or don't do this if you don't like tags.

isn't it simple ???

Hello everybody,

Let me introduce myself shortly;
My name is Mikael Stalvik, and I am the author of the infamous
what you call "bloatware", Helium.
I have been monitoring a few threads at this site for a couple of days/weeks and thougt
that it was time for me to give some replies.

You probably gonna bomb me with comments after this, but since I think that some of you
acts kind of strange sometimes, I decided to qoute a few of the messages and add some
comments/answers to them.


To start:
1. You don't need Helium to use EAR. Tag files with whatever you would like to.
2. You don't need Helium to export tags. Cut them out with a hex editor (haha, don't think so),
write an own exporter, or get another prg. that suppports exporting of ID3v2 tags.
3. Jan isn't any anyway getting paid for he's posts. I cannot afford that... It's his opinion.
4. All text in this mail are my opinion, respect it or not..

Quotes follows below:

>chant with me: use Vorbis! use Vorbis!

What has that to do with EAR?
That's only advertising...
The format isn't even properly supported yet...

>Will you STFU? It's bad enough that you keep plugging the damn Helium bloatware crap on r3mix, and now on hydrogenaudio? No one will use the crap and ID3V2 with MPC. God damn it.

I just would like to know if you ever had tried Helium, assume you haven't. Helium contains tools that will help ID3 tag users with alot of things
(yes, I know and fully respect that you doesn't use ID3 tags), and the users doesn't thinks that Helium is "bloatware". It's useful for them.
It's like saying MPC and Ogg Vorbis are just another fancy format, done by people which have to much time. But, I don't say so, because I haven't tried it.. It might be really really
good, I don't know. But, saying that it was crap withou having tested it, should I call a fraud.. The same applies to Helium.

>You act like it's a cardinal sin not to have id3v2.

It isn't, but it has some advantages to support ID3v2. Many tools around supports it, and it is actually a standard.
There are som many more or less "strange" tag formats around which isn't correctly standardized, so in my oppionion ID3v2 is the best choise.
For me. I use MP3. Not MPC/Ogg (Doesn't know about the problems, but the problems I have read about, seems just to be incorrect rumours).

>You seriously need to get a grip on things, not to mention stop
preaching about helium2 constantly.

Why preach about all other things like Ogg and other things then?

>To create and manage ID3v1 and v2.x tags, we recommend you to use Helium², which can be downloaded at: http://www.helium2.com

Yes, we recommend that, since Helium offers the most functionallity (if you are a serious tagger).
If you don't use ID3 tags, don't use EAR. It will be useless in that case. You can ofcourse use any other tagging software around, but
since the most supports much less frames than Helium supports, EAR won't be running "in full scale".

>why invent more, eh ? id3v2 format feels like it was invented in the stone age. they just have to keep updating it (and messing up compatibility)

Hasn't beem changed for a long time now.

>or better - go use winamp3's database stuff. no more need to modify files, and it doesn't make stupid external tag files. blah.

Haha.. That thing just crash everytime you try to use it... And Nullsoft is "bloating" WA3, so I don't think that that's so actual for
the most users.. Don't know, just a thought...

>I look at id3v1.1 and see:
>
>Track#
>Title
>Artist
>Album
>Year
>Genre
>Comments
>
>What the heck else would you need? An biography of the artist?

CD#, Remix, Featured Artist, Subtitle. That's very important IMO.

>i AM paid by AOL.

Obviously

>Winamp3 will support all that crap in its database, without making mess in your files / on your hdd.

I will beleve that when I see that.. It justs crash and work extremely bad for me.
It's not a very good idea to store that in an XML database... XML isn't very fast when it comes to collections
of 30k files.

>There isn't anything else needed and it's just bloat to put anything else.

Well, many people think so. You don't need to be extreme and use all 80 fields, but some very relevant fields are missing.

>and who asked you to tell us that helium is the best again ?
You almost begged for that


Thanks and goodnight,
Mikael Stalvik

Which part of "BETA" didn't this guy understand?

Edit: (Sorry, captain JohnV)

Mikael,

http://www.r3mix.net/noid3.htm

No matter what Jan says about the link above, r3mix still raised some good points about ID3V2.

Huanjo got a reply from Frank Klemm about ID3V2.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...s=&threadid=425

Quote
1. ID3V2 breaks nearly every file format. Some really crazy men decide to store ID3V2 tags at the beginning of the file. The only exception are MPEG Layer III streams where ID3V2 tags are treated as bad data.

2. MPEGplus files have a signature "MP+" at the beginning. Several hundreds other formats have also typical signatures. This do not work with ID3V2.

3. Currently I'm using MPEGplus on a TMS320C40. There it is not possible to skip 8, 16 or 24 bit. You can only skip multiples of a char (32 bit). Due to the fact that MPEGplus uses little endian 32 bit words the bitorder depends on the ID3V2 tags size.

4. A flexible taging formal should be stored anywhere. At the beginning, at the end, in a separate file, in a secondary stream (if OS/FS supports multiple streams like MAC OS or NTFS).

5. Too difficult. Too inprecise. Why timings in milliseconds instead of samples???

Mostly all software to not know ID3V2 tags. If I read the ID3v2 tag definition it sounds like a "Audio only, MP3 only" extention.
The developer had MP3 and only MP3 in mind when they created the ID3V2 definition. On a 100% conform MP2 player only 25% of the files can be played.

If you develop a so big tagging system it should be

- extendatble (this is okay)
- it should be possible for every kind of data (Audio, Images, Video,
Text, )
- it should be compatible with old software

I got ca. 80 complains about damaged files. It sucks if a tagger do not check the file format. It tagged MPC files although this makes the files unreadable.

--
Frank Klemm
/Quote

Nullsoft bloating? Compare their "bloatware" with your bloatware.
The full, paid version, mind you. There's a huge difference. Yours don't even play audio without Winamp/any other player.

Incorrect. Helium2 has an internal player.

Internal player? Like anyone uses it.....

Point 1. Agree that storeing it in the end would have been smarter, but I haven't been involved in creating the format

Point 2. Why not just detect precence of ID3v2, if it exist, skip it. It also has the same 3byte signature, "ID3". No need to implement a parser.

Point 3. Sureley correct.

Point 4. EAR and Helium supports external tags

Point 5. Not that difficult, that mostly depends on which content you will support. Personally neither I and any software I know of use the TLEN frame to read the length. It's better to read it from the actual audio file.

Summary: Well, there are sure some (for me) minor problems with ID3v2, they might be bigger with Ogg, MPC, I don't know since I personally doesn't use those formats. But, it's the most flexible and information rich standardizied tag format today. If anyone else comes with a better standard (maybe XML stored at the before any Lyrics 3 v2.0/ID3v1.x tags), I would gladely support it, but not until it's a standard.

>Mostly all software to not know ID3V2 tags.

Depends on which software you are focusing about. MMJB/Winamp etc. supports it.

>- extendatble (this is okay)
>- it should be possible for every kind of data (Audio, Images, >Video,
>Text, )
>- it should be compatible with old software

All items (except for the last point) is valid for ID3v2.

>I got ca. 80 complains about damaged files. It sucks if a tagger >do not check the file format. It tagged MPC files although this >makes the files unreadable.

Well, use a tagger that WORKS. As simple as that. Try it before running it on batches of files.

>Nullsoft bloating? Compare their "bloatware" with your >bloatware.

That was my opinion. Winamp is a player. If I would like a full database, plugin maker etc. etc. etc. I would choose MMJB (or Helium ofcourse, which was developed mainly for my needs).
WA3 is bloatware compared to WA2. Once again, my opinion.

>Yours don't even play audio without Winamp/any other player.
You haven't obviously read the specs for H2, nor tried it.
By default it comes with an internal player, which is set as the active player by default. Helium only have "Winamp 2 support", but it doesn't requires it at all...

/Mikael

>Which part of "BETA" didn't this guy understand?

I fully understand the "Beta" term, since I'm a developer myself. Not everything is supposed to work (as it should) in a beta. No problem with that.

I was just telling that it crashed all the time, so using WA3 today for that functionallity isn't realistic.

:mad:

Maybe, not, but it's an alternative for ppl that doesn't likes WA, and such people actually exists (even if I prefer Winamp).
But.. It still have the possibility

Maybe if I change the internal player to an FMOD based player so that Ogg can be supported.. Haha...

Mikael,

Personally, I have nothing against your product, but the NON-STOP PLUGGING of it by you know who on every website and discussion thread, I have an issue with that.

Ok, let me ask you, do you use your internal player or Winamp2.xx more?

Edit: Nevermind, saw your reply after I replied.

If you're gonna support Ogg, thats good news afai care. More options for your users.

But please, with MPC SV8 gonna have a new custom tagging format, don't go and create compatability problems by tagging them with ID3V2 tags.

I already wrote down my comments to that site. There are some truth to the site but the conclutions are nonsense.

http://66.96.216.160/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?board...472821&start=13






In which thread did I talk about helium2 without it being relevant??

This was in the project mayhem's irc channel.

<Jansemanden> I'm looking forward to a new helium2 release in a week or so

No one asked about it, and yet you still talked about it. Nuff said.

Well, if that's going to see the world, I will ofcourse take a look at it, and implement it if it's usefull enough (anything better than ID3v1 with static lengths on fields will be implemented)

Every news posting goes thru the mod.'s so if anything was wrong with my posting the mod.'s should have changed it.




This was a joke. I don't know if you understand things like that.
But let me explain.

I was refering to all the arguing that has been going on the last few days and noticing that a new helium2 would come out and was thing about if we would have to go thru all this again.

I couldn't care less whether it's a joke or not. You wanted an example, I give it to you.

Already people have said to you on r3mix about your postings on there being SPAM. Think about it. Plus your own refusal of accepting any other views which are in opposition to yours.

I don't care at all what ppl use.
You (or peter don't remember) said that I was an idiot for using it. Talk about refusal of accepting any other views which are in opposition to yours.

hi all.

what about implementing this solution:

- to avoid future, pointless discussion about intermedia products (helium / ear) let's agree that only simple announcements may be published like:

the new ver. of ear released.
new, crucial features are:
-
-
-
link:

- on the other hand the news thread will be automaticly closed for any comments to avoid flamewars etc.
- of course the members are free to open their own thread 'bout helium or sth.

2nd thing.
we can all say that id3v2 wasn't a good idea or isn't perfect. but it's so popular (and rather useful IMO) that's simply not fair to deny it.

just my 2 cents.

i never believed i could develop so much hatred towards a program that i havent used

now seriously, i believe we had enough of helium advertisement on the boards (not just this one), understand that you may like id3 tags, but there are a lot of us that dont

I would have np with that.

It's just that last time I quickly submitted in a rather raw form a mod.'s changed it to something like what I did this time.