Wölfischhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/2009-10-22T20:41:00+00:00Jörg's BlogNot so much fun with mp3 tagging2009-10-22T20:41:00+00:00o'wolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/author/owolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/not-so-much-fun-with-mp3-tagging<p>I've been observing problems mp3 tags not being displayed on some devices, while others display the information just fine. By chance, I found out why.</p><p>My new Tomtom Go 930 GPS navigation device can play mp3s, which is quite important to me, as the built-in speaker is quite bad. I can barely understand the spoken instructions. I'd rather have the GPS unit hooked up to the line in of the radio. But of course, without the mp3 player it would be quite a boring ride. Actually, the player works quite fine most of the time. But on boot the Tomtom needs several minutes to scan 520 files. During that time, it gets less and less responsive and the GUI almost comes to a halt. This is not acceptable, I cannot wait ten minutes for the GPS almost each time I want to leave.</p><p>Running a search on Google didn't turn up much useful, does everybody only have ten songs on their SD card, or what? I found someone mentioning that the player doesn't like embedded cover art pictures. After discovering that the MP3s indeed had one set and removing them, the Tomtom at least remained somewhat usable during the scan. However, it still took many minutes. But while I was at it, why doesn't it read the title, album and artist information anyway? What's wrong with the id3 tags? Let's have a look at one of the files:</p><p><pre>$ mid3v2 01\ -\ Uprising.mp3 <br/>IDv2 tag info for 01 - Uprising.mp3:<br/>TDRC=2009<br/>TIT2=Uprising<br/>TRCK=01<br/>TLEN=302826<br/>TPE1=Muse<br/>TALB=The Resistance<br/>TSSE=LAME 64bits version 3.99 (alpha 1, Oct 6 2009 09:40:19) (http://www.mp3dev.org/)<br/>$ </pre><br/>Hmm, a pretty normal looking id3v2 tag. What does the Tomtom need, anyway? Some experiments later by manually tagging a file: it needs exactly that, an id3v2 tag. And it will ignore any v1 tag. Didn't I tag everything with both?</p><p><pre>$ mpginfo 01\ -\ Uprising.mp3 <br/>[..]<br/>01 - Uprising.mp3<br/> Audio : Mpeg 1 layer 3<br/> Estimated Duration: 05:02.95s<br/> 128 kbps 44100 Hz<br/> Frame size: 417 bytes<br/> Joint Stereo: (Intensity stereo off, M/S stereo on)<br/> No emphasis, original<br/> ID3 v1.1 tag<br/> ----------------<br/> title : Uprising <br/> artist : Muse <br/> album : The Resistance <br/> track : 1<br/> year : 2009<br/> ----------------<br/> ID3 v2.4.0 tag (more info on http://www.id3.org/)<br/> ----------------<br/> TSSE : LAME 64bits version 3.99 (alpha 1, Oct 6 2009 09:40:19) (http://www.mp3dev.org/)<br/> TIT2 : (empty)<br/> TPE1 : (empty)<br/> TALB : (empty)<br/> TRCK : (empty)<br/> TLEN : 302826<br/> TDRC : (empty)<br/> ----------------<br/>$ </pre><br/>Err, what? The v2 tags are present, but do not have any content if there is a v1 field for the same information available. Okay, let's recreate the idv2 section:</p><p><pre>$ mid3v2 -d 01\ -\ Uprising.mp3<br/>$ mid3v2 -C 01\ -\ Uprising.mp3<br/>$ mpginfo 01\ -\ Uprising.mp3 <br/>[..]<br/>01 - Uprising.mp3<br/> Audio : Mpeg 1 layer 3<br/> Estimated Duration: 05:02.95s<br/> 128 kbps 44100 Hz<br/> Frame size: 417 bytes<br/> Joint Stereo: (Intensity stereo off, M/S stereo on)<br/> No emphasis, original<br/> ID3 v1.1 tag<br/> ----------------<br/> title : Uprising<br/> artist : Muse<br/> album : The Resistance<br/> track : 1<br/> year : 2009<br/> ----------------<br/> ID3 v2.4.0 tag (more info on http://www.id3.org/)<br/> ----------------<br/> TIT2 : Uprising<br/> TPE1 : Muse<br/> TRCK : 1<br/> TALB : The Resistance<br/> TDRC : 2009<br/> ----------------<br/>$ </pre><br/>Further investigation showed that all applications which write the incomplete v2 tags in presence of v1 tags are using <kbd>libid3tag-0.15.1b</kbd>. I haven't found out yet whether this is a bug of the library or the application.</p><p>After re-tagging all 520 titles on the card, the Tomtom Go finally shows the tag information. Scanning the files now takes just a couple of seconds and the Go stays responsive. Mystery solved!</p>Final Pawpet Rehearsal2008-08-18T09:28:00+00:00o'wolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/author/owolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/final-pawpet-rehearsal<p>For the last couple of days we had the last rehearsals of the Eurofurence puppet show. Well, except for the dress rehearsal, of course, which will happen on site. As usual, it was a very busy and productive weekend. Without flooding, fortunately. I was a bit concerned after the first run on Saturday, as quite a lot of things just didn't work and every scene had to be played twice. But yesterday's rehearsal went quite smoothly and I'm reassured that it will be working in Suhl.</p><p>We were back in Nürnberg at midnight, but I'm still tired as hell and don't know how to survive the day at the office without falling asleep. I'm still very happy with my new car, though we managed to completely fill the boot with props and puppets again (and I'm starting to wonder if we have to rent a lorry at some time in the future...) The car is very comfortable to drive and has enough power to transport five people including luggage and pawpet stuff. Traveling with it through half of Germany did not add to the level of tiredness. Very good.</p>Dear avian friends,2008-06-21T20:03:00+00:00o'wolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/author/owolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/dear-avian-friends<p>my new car is not a public restroom.</p>Project: Gasoline Merlin2008-06-18T17:53:00+00:00o'wolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/author/owolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/project-gasoline-merlin<p>I got my new car today. A brand new Škoda Octavia Combi¹ Team Edition.</p><p><img height="187" src="http://yaina.de/~jreuter/lj/octavia-team.jpg" width="320"/></p><p>75 kW motor power, lot's of very nifty features, lots of space, lots of fun.</p><p>¹ Estate car or station wagon</p>Wednesday...2008-06-16T14:54:00+00:00o'wolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/author/owolfhttps://woelfisch.de/blog/wednesday<p>Yup. Wednesday.</p>