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Topic: Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API (Read 3396 times) previous topic - next topic
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Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API

I have written a complete VB.NET app to batch convert FLAC to MP3 etc - and copy the tags from one file type to another. I now see that fb2k does all this easily ;-)

However, there are a few things that would be great to change - can someone please tell me whether the following is already possible - or whether I need feature requests to accomplish the desired outcome.

1 Add/Change LAME or FLAC parameters. Example: the default LAME conversion is " -V 2 ". I would like to add "  --pad-id3v2-size 1024 " as an optional command line string to LAME processing. There does not appear to be a way to do this via "Converter setup > Output format". Is there something I have missed?

2 Copy tags from one file type to another. In a previous life, I converted all my CDs to WMA (I know - this was a bad idea). I spent ages tagging each and every file. 3 years later I re-ripped every CD to FLAC. I needed to copy all tags from WMA to FLAC. I wrote the VB.NET app to do this recursively for whole directory structures. Is there a way in fb2k to copy tags to existing files - rather than copy the tags as part of the convert process?

3 Expose the tagging API. Is there a DLL I can call from VB.NET to use for tagging? As far as I can see, there is no command line interface for tagging id3V2 - so how is fb2k doing this? It is not part of the LAME command line that you are building, is it? Is it possible to call the fb2k code which is doing the tagging. I am happy to contribute my VB.NET code/program as freeware for all to use if desired.

Many thanks,

Mike

Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API

Reply #1
1. You can do this by creating a "Custom" converter preset: select and right-click on the files to be converted, select "Convert", then "...".  For "Output format" select "MP3 (LAME), then "Edit".  Now, change the "Encoder" drop-down box to "Custom".  Insert your extra commandline options into "Parameters".  Save this configuration as a "Saved preset" under a name of your choice.

2. When you convert this way all tags are copied over automatically.

Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API

Reply #2
Is there a way in fb2k to copy tags to existing files - rather than copy the tags as part of the convert process?
Yes. Select your WMA album. Right-click > Properties. Ctrl+A. Ctrl+C. Escape. Select your FLAC album. Right-click > Properties. Ctrl+Shift+V.

Expose the tagging API.
Not happening except from components.

Is there a DLL I can call from VB.NET to use for tagging?
No.

As far as I can see, there is no command line interface for tagging id3V2 - so how is fb2k doing this?
Painstakingly written and debugged custom code.

It is not part of the LAME command line that you are building, is it?
No.

Is it possible to call the fb2k code which is doing the tagging.
Not from anything but components.

Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API

Reply #3
Thanks you both for the quick replies. Comments:

1 I see that the default fb2K LAME convert writes ID3v1 AND ID3v2.3 tags. Can this be changed - or be an option - to only write ID3v2.3 tags? The reason for this request - I have seen cases where various programs write v2.3 tags only - and then you have v1 tags which are different to v2.3 tags.

Workaround to above request is:

Custom Converter - LAME - command line options "--pad-id3v2-size 2048 -S --noreplaygain -V 2 - %d".

For some reason, fb2k does not create ID3v1 tags when copying tags from FLAC to MP3 using this custom converter.

2 Yes - you can copy tags using the method described (CTRL-A CTRL-C etc etc). However, this would be amazingly inconvenient for 1000s of files - yes? You would need to do this for every file/directory - and hope that you got the number of files exactly right etc.

fb2k is smart enough to allow Convert to skip existing files. What I would like to see is an option under "Convert - If file already exists - Copy tags only" - to copy tags from FLAC/MP3 to MP3/FLAC/whatever - in other words, exactly the same code as at present - just assume that the files have already been converted - and that fb2k only has to do the tagging part. From what I can see, you are doing this as a two stage approach anyway - (1) convert the files - and (2) copy tags. Is it possible to just do step (2) as an option? Or is this too hard?

Thanks for listening ;-)

 

Copy tags from FLAC to MP3 and/or Tag API

Reply #4
Update to Point 1 above:

The ability to only write ID3v2 tags is set in File > Preferences > Advanced > Tagging > MP3. Just set:

ID3v2 revision and quirks > Write ID3v2.3 tags
and
Tag writing scheme for untagged files > ID3v2

My apologies for missing this option.

For Point 2, I would be really interested if a developer could comment on how easy it is to implement my suggested improvement for writing tags when output files already exist.

Mike