RE: old burned cd file in wav

Thanks Fred,

 

Here is my confusion.  I am assuming from your comment “My copy of EAC (and Easy AC) doesn't add ID3 tags to FLAC files, because I didn't tell it to do such a stupid thing” means you uncheck the box in the config window to add ID3 tags.  But what I don’t understand is why that should be an issue.  EAC uses the FLAC.exe compression engine to compress the files and passes along the tags from the main window based on the additional command line options.  This matches up the data from EAC to the vorbis comments.  How would ID3 tags get written and why would they be written elsewhere than to vorbis comments.  Isn’t this controlled by flax.exe and wouldn’t it ignore ID3 data?

 

Mike

 

 

 

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2020 7:48 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [EAC] old burned cd file in wav

 

  

Hi Mike,

 

FLAC takes its own form of embedded tags called “Vorbis comments.”  Software creating FLAC files puts the metadata (artist, album, track title, track number, disc number, copyright, etc.) into the proper FLAC Vorbis comments, usually following the recommended field names.  When converting from another format that has different tags, such as MP3 which uses ID3 tags, the information from the alien tags are transferred to the FLAC tags (Vorbis comments).  For the most part, it’s automatic and not something you need to be concerned about.

 

That said, there are some applications which insert ID3 tags into FLAC files.  This non-standard addition of ID3 tags causes problems for some players which expect FLAC files to follow the documented standard.  In other cases, the music players have code in them to recognize and skip over these these standards non-compliant ID3 tags.  

 

That can lead to hassle and confusion.  You send someone FLAC files that play fine for you, and they don’t play for the person who receives them.  Or they play great on your computer but don’t play on your phone.

 

When you have both kinds of tags, it can get confusing.  You use your tag editor to correct a typo in, say, the artist name.  But then your player still shows the typo.  One is looking at the proper Vorbis comments and the other is looking at ID3 Tags, which should not be there.

 

All of that said, the problems I note are not that common.  You may never encounter any of them.  My discussion with Mark Fishman is somewhat “down in the weeds,” so don’t mistake ‘could happen’ for ‘likely to happen.'

 

 





On Sep 29, 2020, at 7:23 PM, 'M' [email protected] [EAC] <[email protected]> wrote:

 

 

Fred,

 

I am one of those less technical people you mentioned.  I am confused by your comments.  FLAC doesn’t take ID3 Tags, my assumption is that data would be discarded when writing the file, but your comments make it seem like they would be written to the file, just ignored by a music player.  Can you point me to a primer that might help me get the necessary understanding?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike W.