Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

[Renoir]

Hi,

First off nice job on these apps Spoon. Been using them for over a year and a half now (registered power pack user which was money well spent) and am looking forward to seeing them going from strength to strength!

Been recently looking a little deeper into tagging and have noticed that not all of my mp3's that I've converted from flac have the same id tag types. E.g. some are (id3 v1 & v2), some (ape v2 & id3 v1 & v2), while most are (ape v2 & id3 v1). I don't seem to remember ever messing about with the tag creation configuration so how might that have happened? Perhaps the defaults got changed over the course of the last year & a half?

Anyway not too concerned with that although quite curious. My main question relates to how best to tag all my mp3 files. Converting my existing tags to another format should be straight forward given that I only use the basic tag fields and I don't have any files that I'm aware of that only have id3 v1 (possible problems with missing info due to not enough space for desired tag lengths although tag from filename would sort any such files).

So I was wandering that given that I only require basic tags and would like max compatibilty should I convert my files with the update tag utility so that they all have id3 v2.3 & v1.1?

What are the benefits of using ape v2 over id3 for mp3s?

(Important one) What effect does the tag type/s a file contains have on the speed at which MMC adds new files? I ask as I tend to add and rearrange MMC libraries a fair bit.

So guys what do you think?

Renoir

[LtData]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

I don't think the read speed varies across the different tag formats.

For max compatibility with everything, use ID3V1 & ID3V2. APEv2 has the advantage of a very long title length and Unicode support, which ID3v2 3.3 adds. See here for more: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-aud...de-tagging.htm

[Renoir]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

Thanks for the quick response LtData!

"I don't think the read speed varies across the different tag formats."

Thought there might be a difference as I'd noticed that both flac and wma files were added a LOT faster to mmc. I realise the flac files are a lot larger than mp3's which could have an effect (doesn't account for wma files though) although I was under the impression that it was in fact the reading of the id tags that took the most time as evidenced by the fact that when rescanning a folder of files that have already been added to mmc (to say look for new files) it goes a lot quicker. I presume this is due to mmc not trying to read the id tags of files with a file path that matches one already in mmc (I assume this is why id tags are not updated when rescanning). Also possibly related is the fact that I've found editing tags for flac files takes far less time than mp3's.

So to summarise the above: It seems some file types with different tags get added quicker suggesting that perhaps it is easier to read some tags quickly than others.

"For max compatibility with everything, use ID3V1 & ID3V2."

Yeah that seems to make sense. Independent of any possible read speed differences between different or indeed same file types due to different tags (I'm sure Spoon could tell us what the factors that influence the read speeds are whether tag related or not) am I right to assume that including id3 v1 in addition to ape v2 or id3 v2 would not negatively effect the read speed of such files in mmc? I assume this because I believe Spoon mentioned that the order in which mmc prioritises tags is ape>id3 v2>id3 v1 suggesting that if mmc finds one of the 2 former tags present at the beginning of the file it will skip looking for id3 v1 at the end of the file?

"APEv2 has the advantage of a very long title length and Unicode support, which ID3v2 3.3 adds."

Like I mentioned I only use the basic tags so such features don't appear to offer any value for me.

I apologise for my inability to be concise :sad: Must work on that.

[Spoon]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

I would say an ape2 tag is faster to read than id3v2.

It all depends on your playing program, IMHO ape2 is better than id3v2.

[Renoir]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

Hey Spoon,

Can you confirm or deny the following:

1) That reading of the tags is what takes the most time in mmc when adding files

2) If above is true: That different tag types are read at different speeds which explains why not all file types are added to mmc at same rate

3) That When mmc sees a file path already present in the collection it skips the id tag resulting in the MASSIVELY sped up scanning that I and am sure others have noticed

4) That mmc first looks at the start of a file for a tag (as mentioned above based on the tag priorities who have previously mentioned) and if it finds one doesn't bother to look for the tag at the end of file (ID3 v1) meaning that including id3 v1 for compatibility purposes would not effect performance

Spoon wrote: I would say an ape2 tag is faster to read than id3v2.
It all depends on your playing program, IMHO ape2 is better than id3v2.

By "depends on your playing program" do you mean the speed at which ape v2 tags are read relative to other tags might depend on which playing program you have?

I've read your tagging guide in Spoons audio guide (thanks for the link LTData) but was wandering are there any benefits to ape v2 over id3 besides no. of tag fields, unicode support and character length allowances?

I realise that's quite a few questions/statements but they should largely only require short answers and the answers would be very helpful to me.

Cheers Spoon! Keep up the good work

[Spoon]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

The tag reading will be pretty slow (also mp3 files tend to need large chunks decoding to get an accurate length if there is no lame/xing/info ro vbri headers).

All tags are read no matter what.

[Renoir]

Re: Which Tags to use for MP3 files?

Well I decided to run some of my own tests to see what I could find out. I created a folder with a total of 780 mp3's and went to work. I used mmc to add the files and timed how long it took (did a few practice runs to eliminate the effect of caching which was considerable). I had all the files have one tag type/s then did the test, then changed all files to next tag type's and tested again etc etc. My somewhat interesting results (based on your last post) were as follows:

Id3 v1.1 = 5 secs
Id3 v2.3 = 7 secs
Id3 v1.1 + v2.3 = 7 secs
Ape v2 = 5 secs
Ape v2 + Id3 v1.1 = 5 secs

Now I realise that's not a large sample but the results were VERY consistent allowing me to make some provisional conclusions.

1) The tag type used does indeed have an effect on the speed of adding tracks (makes sense given you've just said that the tag reading is a slow part of the process)
2) Ape v2 can be read quicker than Id3 v2.3 but is about as quick as Id3 v1.1
3) Adding Id3 v1.1 to either of the other 2 tags for compatibility reasons will not slow down the speed of adding (this doesn't make sense to me given that you've said that all tags are read which should result in slower performance when adding v1.1)

So I'm very interested to know what's going on with the whole adding v1.1 not slowing the reading down.
Perhaps the reading of id3 v1.1 is so fast that it's impact is negligible (although would then expect the id3v1.1 only test to have been quicker than apev2 which it wasn't)

Any other ideas?

I can't be the only one who cares about the speed at which mmc adds tracks and how to optimise for it.

Would be cool if others could try and do tests of their own to confirm what I've found!