You might be wandering on the web in search of old albums, or backup CDs that are rapidly creating a mess on a hard drive. To restore order, there is nothing like the ID3 tags that identifies almost every song in the world.
1 - What is ID3 tag?
Literally "ID3 Tag" that can be translated as "ID3 tagging". Specifically, it is a series of 256 bytes Related audio file containing summary information such as song title, name of artist, album title, year of publication and its musical genre. Text data from version 1, add up those multimedia under version 2 of these labels. These include for example, album covers, song lyrics and the guitar tabs or additional information about the song or artist, much like the bonus DVD videos.
2 - How do you get this information?
It depends if the user makes its own MP3 or if he recovers. In the first case, the extraction software / conversion will do the work, by connecting to a specialized database such as CDDB (Compact Disc Data Base) or FreeDB, which include information on CD worldwide. Many programs including Audiograbber, CD'n'Go, Easy CD-DA Extractor or CDex can query these catalogs. Thus, with CDex, handling turns childishly simple: just put the CD in the drive and launch an Internet connection. Before extraction, clicking on the button "Query CDDB" sends CDex to find the album title and song, and on behalf of the artist.
However, CDex and others are ineffective with previously encoded files in MP3, or gotten from the Internet without information or with incorrect information. Indeed, these programs need the unique identifier number of the original audio CD, to repatriate the information from music databases. If the audio CD is not a strict replica of the original, they can not recognize.
It is where other applications can recognize these files "Unknown." They operate by comparing noise footprints, using technology TRM (The Universal Barcode for Music and Media from relative). The shareware version of MusicMatch Jukebox and freeware Musicbrainz tagger both offer this feature.
3 - Recognition works does every time?
With an original disc or a true copy of it, it is close to 100%. With individual files and the technique of sonic fingerprint comparison, the rate drops to 50%. Imprint unknown, truncated or corrupted files, little-known artist ... the reasons for failure are numerous and easily avoidable.
4 - Adding information such as reproduction of the jacket for example, can lead to the disappearance of other data such as lyrics. Why and how to avoid it?
This is especially true with certain programs distributed on the mode of shareware that do not respect scrupulously the square under the ID3 tag for each type of information. One for the image, one for words, another for a text field to make more abundant, and so on. With most recognized software such as Microsoft Windows Media Player, MusicMatch Jukebox, RealOne Player or Nullsoft Winamp, accidents occur much more rarely. It is therefore advisable to use them.
5 - Without an Internet access or in case of failure, then I fill ID3 Tag to hand? And do they not risk being crushed at the next update?
Submitting your information is always possible. Right click on the music file within the playback software allows the display of tags and their modification. According to the program, it will issue issue of "information" of "advanced management label" to "Advanced Tag Editor", "information on file" or simply "a editing tags ... Later, if the bases CDDB or FreeDB send additional information or redundant, the software overwrite your instructions after receiving your approval.
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