Wav files metadata?

[Dave-The-Ripper]

Hi. I'm pretty new to ripping my music collection, so hope hope this isn't really silly question. Can PerfectTunes add album art, album name, artist, and track metadata to .wav files, or that isn't possible at all? If it's possible, does the metadata stay with the .wav file if I move them to another media? SAme questions about .FLAC files. Guess I could convert my 500 albums worth of .wav to .FLAC, but I was under the impression that .wav is more portable. If my car radio can read .FLAC, then guess I would be willing to convert in order to get the album art and album name. Thanks.

[simbun]

Re: Wav files metadata?

On the whole FLAC is MUCH more compatible than WAV (unless of course you're stuck on an apple platform ), but as always it's best to look at your devices to see what they support before deciding one way or another (although it's relatively painless to go between lossless formats).
As well as being more compatible, FLAC also reduces file size, has a much better tagging standard and stores an internal hash of the decoded audio content for verification purposes.

With FLAC, you can have all the tags and album art embedded into the file itself, but you do need to take a little care to make sure the applications you're using to maintain your music collection are storing it that way e.g. even though iTunes could embed album art into MP3/ALAC e.t.c, instead it chooses to store it in an internal database. All illustrate products do store the tags internally unless you've configured it to store the album art externally of course.

[GBrown]

Re: Wav files metadata?

...even though iTunes could embed album art into MP3/ALAC e.t.c, instead it chooses to store it in an internal database.

Actually this isn't quite the case any longer with local library music on a Mac, or even with iTunes for Windows. The metadata is now stored in the file itself. If you have any legacy files there are several ways to ensure iTunes embeds it once. After that you are good to go.

Regardless, back to the OP's question - I would avoid using .wav as there are many open variables when it comes to tagging, and file sizes are larger than necessary. Choosing something like FLAC (preferred by many), ALAC, or other lossless formats with a proper tagging structure is ideal.