ID3 tags and album art?

The_Devil_Himself · 23-11-2007, 12:23 AM

I have some questions regarding them:

1.What are different version of id tags?How can I add id3 tags to full album that I rip from my audio Cds?suggest some good software(both windows and linux alternatives if possible).

2.These album art thingy is too much for me.How are they stored?In song's metadata(or whatever it is called)?The problem is Rythmic music player(ubuntu) downloads album art automatically which is infact a very pleasent feature but when I transfer these albums to my PMP no album art is transferred but when I transferred some songs which were downloded off net(free of course!!) they all had thei arts in them.Somebody explain please.

Oh and BTW I have a M$ Zune(30gb) which sync to PC via zune software which only runs in windows.

Sykora · 23-11-2007, 08:46 AM

1. There are mainly 2 versions, id3v1 and id3v2. v1 is old and has less fields, while v2 is newer, has more fields, and is harder to understand

On windows, I've found that simply using WMP is the most painless way to go. Lifehacker recommends Media Monkey, and others have recommended itunes.

For linux, I use Ex Falso. But most media players (Amarok, Exaile, Sonata, etc) should be able to change the metadata.

2. Album art can be stored in 2 main ways, and many other not so common ways. The first to is to embed the art into the song's metadata. The other is to have it as a separate image file stored in a particular location with a particular name (the same name as the album, in the same directory as it, etc). The second method is usually used by music players because it means they don't have to embed the art. This also means you can't see the art in any other player. Obviously for syncing purposes, the first way is preferred.

Amarok has worked -- somewhat -- for embedding album art. But by far, I've been most successful with WMP v < 11. Whatever you use, make sure the option says "embed art with music" and that you set the picture as "album (front cover)".

In any case, you're better off using WMP because you have a Zune.

The_Devil_Himself · 23-11-2007, 09:28 AM

Thanks for replying sykora.

I was asking about any id3 tagger software which can tag a whole album/folder to make things easier for me.

Amarok used to automatically download album arts in my Mint install but it wasn't putting them in songs metadata and I cudn't find the folder it stores them to.

Now I am using rythmic box and I have the same problem:it downloads album art alright but it isn't putting them in songs metadata so when I transfer my songs to Znne via Zune software there is no album art.I can manually set album art to songs in Zune software(there is a drag and drop option for that) but I can't find the location where it stores the album arts to.But I think doing it manually for thousands of songs is not at all feasible so can anybody recommend me a softwares which plays songs,downloads album art automatically,and most importantly put these album arts in respective song's metadata(again both windows+linux alternatives if possible)