Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

[Spoon]

Update which corrects the storage of CDTOC in WMA files, also Styles tag is moved to WM/ProviderStyles, like WMP11 uses (but is not displayed...)

<Now Released>

[grommet]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Spoon, dBpoweramp WMA R6 seems to be doing odd things when I try to store WM/Producer.

The field, to my knowledge, is intended to only be one tag and is not like Author (aka Artist), WM/Composer & WM/Genre, where multiples can exist by design. The good part: dB does write a single tag entry... but...

If I convert content has has an existing Producer defined that happens to have an actual semi-colon stored in it, dBpoweramp seems to lose the semi-colon, and replace it with a null. Well, I'm not sure it's a real null (didn't dig that deep)... but here is what I see:

Was:
WM/Producer: John Smith; Joe Public; Sam Jones

Now:
WM/Producer: John SmithJoe PublicSam Jones

(This is from both asfview and Mp3tag 2.41).

This also happens in Album Aritst (WM/AlbumArtist)... another field that is intended to only be a single entry.

Was:
WM/AlbumArtist: Paul Mac; Joe Mac

Now:
WM/AlbumArtist: Paul MacJoe Mac

I don't think dBpoweramp should be using hidden character delimiters in any WMA tags (I'm fairly sure this is not standard), or parsing out ";" when the field doesn't support discrete multiple name entries. (It should just store it as is.)

Update: I also just noticed that if there are any 'invented' non-standard tags with a semi-colon in the text, like, say, FavoriteDrink... it also slaps them together:

WM/FavoriteDrink from: "OJ; Vodka" to "OJVodka"

[Spoon]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Noted

[Spoon]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Album Aritst (WM/AlbumArtist)... another field that is intended to only be a single entry.

I disagree on that one, there could be an album from 2 artists , but one of the tracks was performed by 3 artists.

Looking at the wma codec it is working 100% fine, ie if you convert wma lossless to wma lossless the tags will be fine (even in the senarios you gave), what were you converting from?

If you use our CD ripper or Tag editor then the tags would get messed as you describe above, the next R13.1 beta will fix this.

[grommet]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

After testing again, it seems you are correct... it doesn't trigger it until something was edited, or if it's ripped. Sorry, I obviously wasn't paying full attention. Sorry about pointing you a slightly wrong direction. At least the bug was identified, and will be fixed. Thanks.

Just now, I did catch another minor bug (I think)... If I add your added Explorer shell "Artist - Album - Track Number" column to a view, any tracks with multiple artists display the artists slammed together without a visual delimiter. For example:

Blue Man GroupDave Matthews - The Compex - 3

I disagree on that one, there could be an album from 2 artists , but one of the tracks was performed by 3 artists.

Yes, but in Microsoft container land, you aren't supposed to have more than one WM/AlbumArtist tag 'as designed.' (If you somehow wedged multiple tags 'illegally' in there, Microsoft products would ignore them.) That's what I meant. So, if you want two names in there... it should just be text and it would be up to the application if it wanted to parse multiple names out for whatever reason. (Personally, I agree with the single entity choice at least in case of Album Artist... at the very least for simplicity.)

Track sample:

Album Artist: Lou Reed & John Cale
Album: More Songs for Drella
Title: New Song
Artist: Lou Reed
Artist: John Cale
Artist: Sterling Morrison

This works for me, assuming this was a real track. :D

Anyway, I have no idea why only a handful of WM tags were 'designed' to have multiple tags/names in the ASF extended header...

Cheers,

[grommet]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Spoon, sorry if this is the wrong thread for this.. but since it started here, I can't find a better place?

I installed the latest 13.1 beta, which now seems to store most fields that don't support multi-items like Producer "as is" and semi-colons aren't parsed out. It also shows the hidden characters for the previous bad behavior, which seems to have been CR/LF instead of my guess of 'null'...

Now, however, the few items that are multi-item compatible in WMA containers - Artist, Composer, Genre & (the rarely used) Lyricist (WM/Writer) - are treated as a single item (as seen in mp3tag and asfview) and are slammed together when written to the file. Update: WM/Writer is written "as is", even though it's technically multi-item capable.

In the previous version, if I entered 'Blue Man Group; Dave Matthews' it would parse and store as:

ARTIST=Blue Man Group
ARTIST=Dave Matthews

Now it's seen as Blue Man GroupDave Matthews inside Mp3tag & asfview. The dbPoweramp shell pop-up still shows the items split, using semi-colon as a visual delimiter... previously it had each name/entry on a different line.

It does the same for Album Artist (WM/AlbumArtist), which is technically supposed to be stored as a single item... just like my earlier mentioned "Producer" metadata.

[Spoon]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

I took a wma file with no tags, right clicked >> added to the artist

Blue Man Group; Dave Matthews

Click ok. Looked at file in binary editor, blue man group was seperate in tag from dave matthews. Dropped in WMP 11, on advanced tag editor it showed both tags correctly.

>using semi-colon as a visual delimiter... previously it had each name/entry on a different line.

R13.1 now does this for all multi line artists.

[grommet]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Did you try asfview, which I consider the 'definitive' internal viewer? If it's working correctly, the 2nd, 3rd, etc. entries for the fields that support multi-entries (Artist, Composer, Genre, Writer) should be written to "Header Extension Object: Metadata library object." The first entries are stored under "Extended Content Description Object", other than the first Artist (aka Author), which is in "Content Description Object."

Or did you try Mp3tag? It's slightly broken for manipulation, but it does read them them in correctly.

I don't know what's going on if it's working fine for you. I'll see if I can repro on another box, or just re-install the new stuff on the same box?

(I'm very sensitive to this, as I need to parse out this data for media server software.)

[grommet]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Update:

I wasn't able to reproduce everything on another box. So, I removed and re-installed the latest bits... and I think it's far better now. So, partial false alarm. Thanks. I'll test more.

Using semi-colon in Album Artist doesn't write correctly, still. I get the "slammed together" behavior (internally) as I documented in my previous bug report instead of storing it as is.

For files I have that already have multiple WM/Writer (aka Lyricist) entries (which is allowed)... I see Alpha{CR}Beta{CR}Gamma instead of Alpha; Beta; Gamma in the tag editor. Pop-up shows them on multiple lines. Odd.

R13.1 now does this for all multi line artists.

Personally, I think I like the old behavior better... so "real" multi-item fields looked different. But it's no big deal.

[Spoon]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Updated 10th Aug

Multi abum artists disabled, better handling of other fields (although Lyricist + Conductor all multi values to be written from WMP11, but incredibly it will not read the 2nd items it has written.

[Spoon]

Re: Windows Media Audio Pro 10 R6

Now Released.