LegRoom.net Kick back and relax

After a nearly two year hiatus, I finally got around to updating Universal Extractor. This release focuses heavily on bug fixes, reliability improvements, and component updates, so the "new features" list is rather short. It is, however, an important update and I recommend all Universal Extractor users upgrade when they get the chance. It also includes several new and updated translations. Please check out the changelog for all the details.

For more information:
Universal Extractor home page and downloads
Universal Extractor ChangeLog
Universal Extractor feedback and support

I've released a minor update to Convert to FLAC. This fixes a cosmetic bug that could result in inconsistent status output when converting multiple files concurrently (ie., when using the -t option). I also added a -V option to simply display the version of convtoflac and then exit; I'll be adding this to all of my scripts eventually.

Users w/ multi-core or multi-processor systems are encouraged to upgrade.

For more information:
Convert to FLAC home page and downloads
Convert to FLAC ChangeLog

Feedback and Support

I updated the Modify Path (modpath) Inno Setup script. This is a small but important (and long overdue) update that fixes support for Unicode versions of Inno Setup. If you've had trouble using Modify Path with recent versions of Inno Setup, grab this update.

The update can be downloaded from the script's home page:
Modify Path

I justed added a section for miscellaneous script section to my Software page. These are various scripts that I've written over the years for my own use, but I'd like to share them with others that may be able to benefit from them. Please note, however, that unlike the other applications I've released on my site (UniExtract, Convert to FLAC, etc.), these scripts are much less polished and robust. Please keep this in mind and review source code running any of them.

Right now there are only a handful of scripts there, but there are plenty of more that I'd like to add when I get the time (some require a little more cleanup than others).

To review and download the scripts:
Miscellaneous Scripts

Feedback and Support

In the 2.0 update for Convert to FLAC I added support for converting from Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) files. Part of the process of converting formats involves copying existing tags and metadata wherever possible, and in order to do this with ALAC files I use a separate utility called mp4info. This utility originally came from the MPEG4IP project, but unfortunately that project now seems to be defunct. As a result, I've switched over to the libmp4v2 project, which is still active and provides its own mp4info utility.

Unfortunately, the output from the two versions of mp4info is slightly different. As a result, I had to modify Convert to FLAC to support the new syntax. This change will only affect you if you're trying to convert ALAC files to FLAC. If that's the case, please note the following:

• You must use the libmp4v2 version of mp4info with convtoflac 2.0.2 and newer
• If you cannot, or do not want to, switch away from MPEG4IP, you must continue to use convtoflac 2.0.1
• convtoflac offers no error checking for this beyond verifying that the mp4info binary exists; if you do not follow the advice above, your files will be transcoded, but any metadata will be lost

Sorry for the inconvenience. To download the new version:
Convert to FLAC home page and downloads
Convert to FLAC ChangeLog

Feedback and Support

I just posted updates for apeinfo and Convert to FLAC, which is the first update in quite some time for both of them.

The apeinfo update was mostly to address compatibility issues. It's been updated to properly support GCC 4.x (which almost all Linux distributions ship with today), and I've also included a 64-bit binary for those of you running 64-bit Linux distributions. The older 32-bit still works fine if you'd prefer to use it, but using it on a 64-bit distro will require installation of 32-bit compatibility libraries.

Convert to FLAC received a much more significant update, and has been bumped up to version 2.0 as a result. The highlights include the ability to accept and process multiple input files, support for Apple Lossless (ALAC) and True Audio (TTA) input files, dynamic path setting for "helper" binaries (so you no longer need to edit paths in the script), and a rather import bug fix to ensure that both the decode and encode steps in the transcoding process are completed successfully. Anyone using Convert to FLAC is strongly encouraged to update to this new version.

For more information:
apeinfo home page and downloads
apeinfo ChangeLog

Convert to FLAC home page and downloads
Convert to FLAC ChangeLog

Feedback and Support

Enjoy!

Note: The following information was originally published at http://reactor-core.org/ogg-tagging.html, but this page is no longer available. I found this information to be extremely useful, so I'm posting a copy of it here for archival purposes. This copy was pulled from a mirror of the original site, located at http://age.hobba.nl/audio/mirroredpages/ogg-tagging.html, on 05/09/2009.

This is currently a direct copy of the original source content, modified only slightly in order to match the format of my site. In time I may modify or extend it, but any changes will be clearly indicated.

Updated 06/03/2010:  Additional proposed fields added below, indicated by "proposed by Legroom.net."

Suggestions For Tagging Vorbis/FLAC Files

Originally published Thu Jul 3 20:35:53 PDT 2003

The following recommendations were developed by a community of Ogg/Vorbis users for their own use.

The purpose of the set of tags in this recommendation is to provide information about the track that contains the tags. It is not the purpose of the tags to provide general information about the piece of music in the track, such as a listing of every recording that contains that same piece of music. External databases and the internal Ogg metadata stream are appropriate for information about the music, except where it fills one of the 4 goals listed below.

Goals

1. Identify a track so the listener can know what he is listening to.
2. Identify a track to allow music companies to profit from it.
3. Meet goals 1 and 2 without access to external data sources.
4. Identify a track within a database that contains information about the track.

NOT goals

1. Stuff every available bit of information about a track and the CD it is on into the TAGS section. (liner notes, lyrics, the bandleaders dogs name...)
2. Backward compatibility with ID3 and MP3 tagging schemes, structures, and infrastructures.

Piracy happens. We can't prevent it. At least we can encourage less damaging behaviors, such as making sure than when someone likes a track, they have enough information to reimburse the artist by going out and purchasing the original source media the music came on.

These recommendations are written in the context of http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html, which is authoritative.

All tags are OPTIONAL; you can have an ogg file with NO tags present and it will still be compliant. It is RECOMMENDED that you put enough tags in the ogg to meet goals 1 through 4 above. The tags needed will vary with each recording, and will often be no more than the tags already used.

Before we continue, here is a nifty bourne shell function you can stick in your ~/.bash_profile:

You could use it like this:

It would display, one per line, all the ogg files where Karajan was the conductor of the piece.

What is the effect of following these Recommendations?

USERS

Users will be playing their oggs; their player software is expected to display the tags that exist in an oggfile, intelligently.
Therefore the users are not affected by these recommendations and need know nothing about them. Player programs ARE affected, and their job should be made as easy as possible.

ENCODERS

There will be a subset of users who create ogg files. Inasmuch as it is their responsibility to tag their files correctly, it would be nice if they knew about these recommendations. However, their ripping software should make it trivial for them to fill in the correct tags in the common cases, and let them access the full tagset if they feel they need it.
Therefore, encoders will almost not notice the adoption of these recommendations, unless they wanted to benefit from its increased flexibility, in which case they will rejoice. Ripper and tagging SOFTWARE on the other hand will need to support these recommendations, and again, its job should be made as easy as possible.

CODERS

Coders are those who write the software used by users and encoders. They are the ones who will need to make their software compliant, and the ones who need to make sure their software is easy for people to use.
Therefore, it is the coders who will be affected most by these recommendations. Their job should be made as easy as possible so they can support it trivially and well.

Compliance

A compliant Ogg player program will intelligently display, or let the user specify how to display, all the tags in an Ogg file.

A compliant Ogg file may contain tags not in these recommendations.

Compliant tag editors and rippers may support tags not in these recommendations, but should encourage use of recommended tags over tags not in this document.

Character Set Encoding of Tags

UTF-8 is the default encoding for tag data. Unfortunately UTF-8 muffed it for Asian languages by doing the equivalent of giving the same character codes to English, Russian, and Greek letters.

Fortunately UTF-8 itself has an internal, standard solution to the problem: http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr27/#tag which basically says: mark the language of text with U+E0001 LANGUAGE TAG, followed by the RFC 3066 language ID (ie. "ja") encoded in lowercase ASCII plus 0xE0000. This is the only mechanism recognized by this document.

Programs which don't want to interpret such markup can simply ignore it; it is zero width. The scope of the language setting is until the end of the tag, or until a new language setting is encountered, whichever comes first.

We have the following STANDARD tags

Singleton tags, which should only appear once. If one of these tags appears more than once, its last appearance should be displayed if there is only room to display one instance of the tag.

ALBUM

if appropriate, an album name

ARTIST

for information to be displayed on systems with limited display capabilities. it is not a replacement for the ENSEMBLE and PERFORMER tags, but typically will summarize them.

PUBLISHER

who publishes the disc the track came from

COPYRIGHT

who holds copyright to the track or disc the track is on

DISCNUMBER

if part of a multi-disc album, put the disc number here

ISRC

this number lets you order a CD over the phone from a record shop.

EAN/UPN

there may be a barcode on the CD; it is most likely an EAN or UPN (Universal Product Number).

LABEL

the record label or imprint on the disc

LABELNO

record labels often put the catalog number of the source media somewhere on the packaging. use this tag to record it.

LICENSE

the license, or URL for the license the track is under. for instance, the Open Audio license.

OPUS

the number of the work; eg, Opus 10, BWV 81, K6

SOURCEMEDIA

the recording media the track came from. eg, CD, Cassette, Radio Broadcast, LP, CD Single

TITLE

"the work", whether a symphony, or a pop song

TRACKNUMBER

the track number on the CD

VERSION

Make sure you don't put DATE or LOCATION information in this tag. "live", "acoustic", "Radio Edit" "12 inch remix" might be typical values of this tag

ENCODED-BY

The person who encoded the Ogg file. May include contact information such as email address and phone number.

ENCODING

Put the settings you used to encode the Ogg file here. This tag is NOT expected to be stored or returned by cddb type databases. It includes information about the quality setting, bit rate, and bitrate management settings used to encode the Ogg. It also is used for information about which encoding software was used to do the encoding.

Additional singleton proposed by Legroom.net.

WEBSITE

a full URL linking to the album's official web site

The remaining tags are multiples; if they are present more than once, all their occurrences are considered significant.

COMPOSER

composer of the work. eg, Gustav Mahler

ARRANGER

the person who arranged the piece, eg, Ravel

LYRICIST

the person who wrote the lyrics, eg Donizetti

AUTHOR

for text that is spoken, or was originally meant to be spoken, the author, eg JRR Tolkien

CONDUCTOR

conductor of the work; eg Herbert von Karajan. choir directors would also use this tag.

PERFORMER

individual performers singled out for mention; eg, Yoyo Ma (violinist)

ENSEMBLE

the group playing the piece, whether orchestra, singing duo, or rock and roll band.

PART

a division within a work; eg, a movement of a symphony. Some tracks contain several parts. Use a single PART tag for each part contained in a track. ie, PART="Oh sole mio"

PARTNUMBER

The part number goes in here. You can use any format you like, such as Roman numerals, regular numbers, or whatever. The numbers should be entered in such a way that an alphabetical sort on this tag will correctly show the proper ordering of all the oggs that contain the contain the piece of music.

GENRE

like the genre tag from the cddb but without the limitations. You can put any genre you want in this tag. If you think "Pink Floyd" are a genre unto themselves, say so here. For crossover works, or ambiguous works, use as many GENRE tags as you think it takes to describe the styles used.

DATE

date or date-time of relevance to the track. The date must be in ISO 8601 format, but may be followed by a space character, then any text you wish, including the same date in any other format. None of the alternate formats in ISO 8601 may be used. Only the primary format in ISO 8601 is to be used. q.v. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html eg, DATE="1999-08-16 (recorded)" or DATE="1999-08-16 recorded August 16, 1999"

LOCATION

location of recording, or other location of interest

COMMENT

additional comments of any nature.

Examples of Tag Usage

Here is a typical example for most POP music.

Here is what you might see if you played it with ogg123:

Here is a typical example for CLASSICAL music.

And here is what you might see if you played it with ogg123:

Here is a really whacked example that uses all the tags in this document.

And here is what it would like like from ogg123

This document is provided for reference purposes only. It is not endorsed by Reactor Core staff or Jonathan Walther, unless otherwise stated. The battle for Christ's Kingdom is always changing, moving to new fronts. The Christian soldier must be trained to prove every thought, ideology, train of reasoning, and claim to truth he meets. Slander is from Satan; Truth is from the Holy Spirit. The wise and the just check every fact for themselves before judging. (1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 John 4:1-3, John 14:26, John 16:26, Revelation 12:10, Proverbs 14:15, Proverbs 18:13)