Bugzilla – Bug 16991
Compilation tags in WMA files are ignored/not functionally recognized by SBS / the scanner
Last modified: 2011-05-26 12:58:18 UTC
as discussed in the thread at the URL, WMAs do seem to have a tag called Compilation that SBS can see in the raw tags at the track info level, but that SBS ignores. Values seem to be =Yes or =No ...not sure if =1 and =0 are also possible values.
I agree. Many ripping or transcoding tools will create and set the Compilation tag in WMA files if it infers it is a compilation album during ripping or if the tag is already set, e.g. in a FLAC/MP3. It is a legitimate way to mark a WMA as a compilation. Regarding the internal representation, I susopect all tools use Compilation ="1"/"0", it is just how it is shown that changes. W7 displays it as "Part of a Compilation" ="Yes", but MP3Tag and dbPowerAmp display it as "1". Any WMA file ***with a defined Album Artist*** (as most do as it is WMP's way of labelling compilations) will server to test this problem. The album will never show up as a compilation in SBS. A WMA album without a defined Album Artist is NOT a good test, as it may qualify as a compilation in SBS due to having differing "Artists" in the same album/folder.
SBS supports the standard 'WM/PartOfACompilation' tag.
hmm, well, i'm no WMA expert, but apparently some WMAs are made with non "WM/" comp tags. hopefully David can upload some examples of his WMA files... like one transcoded from FLAC and his "natively" made ones (not sure by what app) that have comp tags that mp3tag/windows recognizes, but SBS does not.
If they weren't made by Windows Media Player or some other official Microsoft tool, it's buggy and you'll need to change your tags to match the standard.
As far as I can see NO ONE uses the "WM/PartOfACompilation" Tag!! WMP does not even use it (at least when ripping, maybe there is some way to set it?). It just uses "Album Artist". All other tools I have used will copy across the regular Compilation tag. So the current implementation just does not seem to match with the real world. I can't see why the regular Compilation tag should not also be used. The only issue would be if "Compilation" and "WM/PartOfACompilation" were set differently, but as "WM/PartOfACompilation" doesn't seem to be used it is a little moot!
Andy, I should also have added what is in the thread: Windows 7 itself, if you right-click and choose properties/details, will display "Part of Compilation" = Yes" if the 'normal' Compilation tag (not 'WM/PartOfACompilation') is set to "1"/"Yes". And, if you set "Part of Compilation" to "Yes" using properties/details it is the regular "Compilation tag that gets created, NOT 'WM/PartOfACompilation'. This totally legitimizes this change request IMO. It seems even MS have deprecated their "WM/" variant of this tag.
OK, if MS does it, we'll do it too. Please attach an example file or send it to me via http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Large_File_Upload
David, please be sure to make the file as a WMA straight... meaning, don't make a wav first and convert it or all that other stuff you were saying. just find some public domain classical tracks or whatever, and just make full native WMAs using WMP. you could also include some transcoded from FLAC by dbpoweramp, so he can make sure they are the same. but whats really important to Andy is that he gets what the TYPICAL user would make, and you should describe that in depth to him. if you do what you were saying in the thread, that voids the "sample" as a valid representation of what is made in the real world. be sure to note the OS and WMP version. Andy might have a tool to strip the audio for WMA tho, leaving tags intact, do you Andy?
I have a way to strip audio but it's not easy to explain. Just send me a vanilla file created by some version of Windows or WMP that includes a different compilation tag.
OK got your files. Native WMP: tags => { Author => "Dire Straits", AverageLevel => 8827, IsVBR => 0, PeakValue => 32673, Title => "Money For Nothing", "WM/AlbumArtist" => "Various Artists", "WM/AlbumTitle" => "The Ultimate Eighties Disc 2", "WM/Composer" => "Knopfler / Sting", "WM/EncodingTime" => "129428660071170000", "WM/Genre" => "Rock", "WM/Lyrics" => "", "WM/MediaPrimaryClassID" => "{D1607DBC-E323-4BE2-86A1-48A42A28441E}", "WM/Track" => 0, "WM/TrackNumber" => 1, WMFSDKNeeded => "0.0.0.0000", WMFSDKVersion => "12.0.7600.16385", }, After W7: tags => { Author => "Dire Straits", AverageLevel => 8827, IsVBR => 0, PeakValue => 32673, Title => "Money For Nothing", "WM/AlbumArtist" => "Various Artists", "WM/AlbumTitle" => "The Ultimate Eighties Disc 2", "WM/Composer" => "Knopfler / Sting", "WM/EncodingTime" => "129428660071170000", "WM/Genre" => "Rock", "WM/Lyrics" => "", "WM/MediaPrimaryClassID" => "{D1607DBC-E323-4BE2-86A1-48A42A28441E}", "WM/Track" => 0, "WM/TrackNumber" => 1, WMFSDKNeeded => "0.0.0.0000", WMFSDKVersion => "12.0.7600.16385", compilation => 1, }, I'll add support for this, thanks.
== Auto-comment from SVN commit #31939 to the slim repo by agrundman == == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=31939 == Fixed bug 16991, support WMA tag 'compilation' which is written by Windows 7
Thanks Andy!! I was busy writing a long spiel on this, telling you exactly what I'd done and by the time I was ready to send you'd fixed it! Great!
David, could you explain for the purposes of documenting the bug? by what Andy posted, it looks like WMP doesn't add a comp tag, but win7 does? is that right? how did the comp tag get there?
Argh! It was a long post and its gone now! OK, the short version :) I ripped two tracks from an obvious compilation album using WMP 12 (latest W7 version) - Track contains no compilation tag at all but "Album Artist" is set to "Various Artists" - W7 explorer shows "Part of Compilation" = "No" if you add this tag to the "details view" or if you hit "right-click/properties/details" - other tools (dbpa/MP3Tag) will show "Compilation"="0" I then copied the "Various Artists" folder containing the two tracks to another folder that I called "After W7 sets PoC" and I used W7 "right-click/properties/details" to set "Part of Compilation" = "Yes". - Track contains a tag "compilation"(sic) = "1" (no "WM/"), which W7 explorer shows as "Part of Compilation" = "Yes". -other tools (dbpa/MP3Tag) will show "Compilation"="1" So: - Even the latest WMP does not use any "Compilation" tag, but still uses "Various Artists" in "Album Artist" to flag an album as a compilation. - You can create a "Part of Compilation" tag, using W7 Explorer, but that creates a tag called "compilation", not "WM/Compilation".
ANdy, I know this is cheeky and maybe inappropriate, but if changes like this can be made so fast can we not please fix this one: https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9523 This has recently been discussed here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=85718 It is also a problem of SBS not handling files created by WMP (or Winamp or others) correctly. As you can see from the files I just sent you, even the latest WMP does not use the Compilation tag, it sets "Album Artist" to "Various Artists" and this causes compilation albums to disappear completely from the Artist view. The solution is to do one of the follwoing: - (Quickest, maybe a short term fix) If "Album Artist" = "Various Artists" THEN set SBS-COMPILATION=YES (regardless of the state of the Compilation Tag, or if you like, only if the compilation tag is missing) (the only possible problem with this is I do not know if it works for non-English installations. If they use a local translation for "Various Artists" when ripping it will not be picked up. However, it will not break anything even there.) - (Better) Add a field in SBS config: "Album Artist value(s) which indicate an album is a compilation". By default, this would have "Various Artists", but people could add others, separated by commas. You then apply the same test as above using all the values entered into SBS settings. The user can remove them all if he wishes.
End of that discussion here I promise!
That's a much, much more complex issue, I'm afraid.
Andy, can we please discuss the issue? i really think its rather simple, not complex at all. as david just explained, its a very real issue, and bug 9523 has been around since 2008. any user with AA tags that = Various Artists but no comp tags, like WMP/winamp users are affected. the easiest solution is to just change the default "special category SBS name" of "Various Artists" for comps to ANYTHING else, like eg. "Various Artists." that shouldn't involve much coding, ('find and replace'?), and users could still change it back via an existing SBS setting if they wish. or the approach of bug 15603 would be fine with me too, (and Phil; it has many votes), it just would require slightly more coding for you i think. a secondary issue is ID'ing comps to SBS that have AA tags but no comp tags. some sort of AA string recognition makes sense for that. i will file a bug to log the req. basically a user could define what AA strings they wanted SBS to recognize, or void it altogether. the UI would be similar to "guess tag format" where each time you add an entry, a new blank box is created. a sensible default entry for such a setting would be if AA = Various Artists (obviously). both AMG and Gracenote tag that way. not trying to bug you/pick at you, but i do wonder why these issues continue to languish? they truly aren't that complex. thx.
that should say bug 15604 above, sorry.
I don't have time for it. If it's so easy, attach a patch to the bug. :)
ha, funny. for clarification, i meant simple as in 'easy to understand' altho i'd suspect its also easy for * you * to fix. when it comes to coding, NOTHING is easy for me, i simply don't know how to do any of it. do you think you might have time after 7.6 is out? i'm just curious when these serious issues will come to the table to be handled? where do they fit in?
@Andy, just had a chance to check this fix. Please can we make a small ammendement! As I suspected from a look at the fix you are currently doing a case sensitive check for "compilation". This works for W7, which currently, for some inexplicable reason, does not use a capital "C" when it creates the tag, but does not if dBpoweramp (and probably just about any other tool), creates a "Compilation" tag, WITH a capitalised first letter. It is quite possible that any future update to W7 might start to capitalise the first letter, as is true for all other tags. It is also worth noting that W7 itself does a case INSENSITIVE check on this tag, i.e it shows "Part of Compilation = Yes" whether "compilation = 1" (as created by W7) or "Compilation = 1" (as created by dBpa) Please make this check case insenitive.
i reopened due to comment 22 i am confused though, i always assumed that tag field/frame names were checked/read by SBS as "case insensitive"...? but i guess not? or was it just an oversight here? does it have anything to do with the diacritics bug?
Hmm all tags should be case-insensitive already.
(In reply to comment #24) > Hmm all tags should be case-insensitive already. Good to know it should work, but it definitely is not right now. Do you want me to zip up the offending files and upload? I am using 7.5.4 nightly, not 7.6, if that affects the diacritics bug. I had assumed 7.5.x was not affected.
Yes, can you send me at least 2 files that don't scan correctly into a compilation?
(In reply to comment #26) > Yes, can you send me at least 2 files that don't scan correctly into a > compilation? They are uploading as we speak!
Andy, not trying to bug you, (terrible pun, sorry), but was this resolved? what was the cause? was the diacritics fix at all involved? David, please vote for this bug: https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17031
The problem is that in SBS all tag mapping is case-sensitive, so in the examples in this bug we have both "Compilation=1" and "compilation=1". I've added both mappings. It would be nice if tools could be consistent...
== Auto-comment from SVN commit #32009 to the slim repo by agrundman == == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=32009 == Fixed bug 16991, map WMA 'Compilation' tag in adition to 'compilation'. Yes it might make sense to make all tag mapping case-insensitive but I don't want to commit to that unless absolutely necessary
i'm sure David will be happy. i guess it was a surprise to you as well that it isn't case insensitive? i can understand not wanting to get into all that work, but philosophically speaking, i don't see a downside to doing it. imo, case for tag names/frames should not be relevant.
(In reply to comment #31) > i'm sure David will be happy. > > i guess it was a surprise to you as well that it isn't case insensitive? i can > understand not wanting to get into all that work, but philosophically speaking, > i don't see a downside to doing it. imo, case for tag names/frames should not > be relevant. Yes, thanks a lot Andy. That should deal with this issue. I do think, when someone has a spare bit of time(!), making all case-insensitive would be good. Who knows what other odd case settings for any tag might come up in future, eg. ALL CAPS. This would lead to odd observed behaviour that might be hard to pin down. Not least because most other tagging tools ARE case-insensitive and often display tags in a different way to the way they store them. Eg. W7 displays "Part of Compilation" but sets "compilation", MP3TAG displays tags in all capitals, but happily matches regardless of case (actually not sure what case MP3TAG sets if it CREATES the tag, maybe I need to check that!)
In fact, now I think of it, there is a thread on the forum right now where someone is having problems getting some of his music to show up. He is being advised to rip all the tags out and re-write them with a known good tool to clean them up. Of course there could be several reasons for this, but case sensitivity could be one of them.
interesting, can you PM me the link? one thing to note, is that i THINK SBS will show you the raw tags, including what case they are, if you drill down to the song info level, so assuming something is visible at all in SBS, you should be able to nail down exact case status that way. is that right Andy?
This is the thread I was talking about: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=86065
Win 7 -scanned 2 compilation CD's with Media Player. Installed 7.6.0.32419 ---scanned library. -----Didn't add any tags- In the web interface: Artists / Various Artists / is Empty, same way on the Touch. The tracks DO show-up under Albums and under Browse Music Folder. It did not seem to help in Win 7 if I set the IsCompilation to '1'
Please don't open/reopen scanner bugs without also providing the files used to reproduce the bug. http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Large_File_Upload
Also please CC yourself to bugs you modify...
(In reply to comment #36) > > It did not seem to help in Win 7 if I set the IsCompilation to '1' This confuses me. Where did you set "IsCompilation" to "1". Using what tool. As far as I have seen, if you set the Compilation tag using Windows Explorer the field is called "Part of Compilation". When you set this to "Yes" a tag called "compilation" is created with a value of "1". So there is no tag called "IsCompilation". If you manually created one then that will be your problem. It will not be recognised.
Paul, where do you see "iscompilation" ? also, if you rip files with WMP or winamp, and there are no comp tags, or comp tags that SBS doesn't recognize, you WILL fall victim to: bug 9523 which would explain to me why you don't see the rips where you'd otherwise expect to see them. i've only been complaining about this for 4 years btw.
Created attachment 7288 [details] tag view in SB web control This shows the IsCompilation tag (appears AFTER I set the 'compilation' to yes in windows)
Paul, are these WMA files? this is all very bizarre. if SBS actually sees the comp tag, it should classify the tracks as actually being a comp in the SBS DB, and therefore bug 9523 wouldn't/shouldn't apply. did u upload the files to Andy? Andy, i really think the diacritics fix is causing case, space, and other similar issues. maybe i'm wrong, but you first said case shouldn't matter, then after the diacritics fix you say it does. if SBS is in fact classifying these as comps in the DB, and still not showing them, then this is new [bad] behavior and the work-around for bug 9523 no longer works. unless i'm missing something obvious, this looks like a very ugly problem, one way or the other.
These are WMA files and I seem to get the same effect if I do WMA PRo or WMA Lossless. I did upload a file called "ballet.wma' to the FTP site---on that one I did manually set the 'part of compilation' tag to 'yes' (and you can see the IsCompilation tag in SBS) (In reply to comment #42) > Paul, > > are these WMA files? > > this is all very bizarre. if SBS actually sees the comp tag, it should > classify the tracks as actually being a comp in the SBS DB, and therefore bug > 9523 wouldn't/shouldn't apply. > > did u upload the files to Andy? > > Andy, i really think the diacritics fix is causing case, space, and other > similar issues. maybe i'm wrong, but you first said case shouldn't matter, > then after the diacritics fix you say it does. > > if SBS is in fact classifying these as comps in the DB, and still not showing > them, then this is new [bad] behavior and the work-around for bug 9523 no > longer works. > > unless i'm missing something obvious, this looks like a very ugly problem, one > way or the other. (In reply to comment #42) > Paul, > > are these WMA files? > > this is all very bizarre. if SBS actually sees the comp tag, it should > classify the tracks as actually being a comp in the SBS DB, and therefore bug > 9523 wouldn't/shouldn't apply. > > did u upload the files to Andy? > > Andy, i really think the diacritics fix is causing case, space, and other > similar issues. maybe i'm wrong, but you first said case shouldn't matter, > then after the diacritics fix you say it does. > > if SBS is in fact classifying these as comps in the DB, and still not showing > them, then this is new [bad] behavior and the work-around for bug 9523 no > longer works. > > unless i'm missing something obvious, this looks like a very ugly problem, one > way or the other.
Created attachment 7298 [details] DG SBS tag view
Sorry, not looked at this for a while. IMO the odd thing still here is that you have a "WM/IsCompilation" tag. Windows 7 normally creates a tag simply called "compilation" (no 'WM/', see attachment). MP3Tag creates "Compilation" SBS will recognise either, or "WM/PartOfACompilation", but not "WM/IsCompilation". So I'm still stumped by how that tag got in your library.
This is interesting. I found this somewhat old document on MSDN that seems to conform with the current practice most of us are seeing from WMP: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms867702.aspx It talks about using WM/AlbumArtist when defining a compilation. But digging further I found this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff384862(v=VS.85).aspx It indeed mentions a "WM/IsCompilation" tag, but I've no idea if or how it is used since WMP AFAIK still just sets WM/AlbumArtist - "Various Artists" and W7 sets "compilation" = "1". So, somewhat confused!
Interestingly "IsCompilation" is one of only two tags in that list that does not have a hyperlink to its own definition page on MSDN. It seems MS do not actually use this (unless Paul can show us how) but maybe some third party tools have read the link above and supported it. Not dbPoweramp or MP3Tag, however. They both use "Compilation".
Paul, please, PLEASE specify what OS, what service pack, what ripping app and version, and HOW exactly you edited your tags! your niche case can't be fixed and addressed if others can't reproduce!
I went ahead and added support for WM/IsCompilation, it's easy enough to support. Please still post details on where it came from.
== Auto-comment from SVN commit #32462 to the slim repo by agrundman == == http://svn.slimdevices.com/slim?view=revision&revision=32462 == Fixed bug 16991, recognize WM/IsCompilation tag
Windows 7 32-bit (no service pack 1) Ripped with WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER. No Comp tag RIGHT CLICKED on the file and chose "Properties" then went to the DETAILS tab and found the "Part Of A Compilation" field---I set this to YES. When I open the file in SBS and go to the View Tags link, I see the WM/IsCompilation tag = 1 So no 3rd-party stuff JUST THE MOST POPULAR OS. (In reply to comment #48) > Paul, > > please, PLEASE specify what OS, what service pack, what ripping app and > version, and HOW exactly you edited your tags! > > your niche case can't be fixed and addressed if others can't reproduce! (In reply to comment #47) > Interestingly "IsCompilation" is one of only two tags in that list that does > not have a hyperlink to its own definition page on MSDN. > > It seems MS do not actually use this (unless Paul can show us how) but maybe > some third party tools have read the link above and supported it. Not > dbPoweramp or MP3Tag, however. They both use "Compilation". (In reply to comment #47) > Interestingly "IsCompilation" is one of only two tags in that list that does > not have a hyperlink to its own definition page on MSDN. > > It seems MS do not actually use this (unless Paul can show us how) but maybe > some third party tools have read the link above and supported it. Not > dbPoweramp or MP3Tag, however. They both use "Compilation". (In reply to comment #47) > Interestingly "IsCompilation" is one of only two tags in that list that does > not have a hyperlink to its own definition page on MSDN. > > It seems MS do not actually use this (unless Paul can show us how) but maybe > some third party tools have read the link above and supported it. Not > dbPoweramp or MP3Tag, however. They both use "Compilation".
(In reply to comment #47) > Interestingly "IsCompilation" is one of only two tags in that list that does > not have a hyperlink to its own definition page on MSDN. > > It seems MS do not actually use this (unless Paul can show us how) but maybe > some third party tools have read the link above and supported it. Not > dbPoweramp or MP3Tag, however. They both use "Compilation". I didn't use a 3rd party tool. Just right-click and set "part of compilation" to = yes. What version of W7 are you running? I attached a screen shot off my tag.
A failure using the built-in tools of the most popular OS is NOT a NICHE case IMHO.
i agree, but whats interesting is that your win7 did it one way, while Davids did it another. read the earlier posts. so don't get pissy, we're al just trying to figure out what circumstances create things one way, or the other. this is really perplexing. so assuming you both created regular WMA files with WMP12, and then used windows explorer right clicking to properties to edit the tags, and you both are on win7 32 bit, the question is why is the behavior different between you?
Maybe a few more people could try using W7 to set "Part of Compilation" = "Yes"? I tried again today and got the same result as before with both regular WMA and WMA Lossless. I'll admit the "compilation" tag (small "c") that my W7 (Pro, 64-bit) creates always looked really sloppy. I guess it is possible that something I have added to my system has changed it's behaviour, although clearly it should not.
David, what could u have added that did that? dbpoweramp? seems like it would have to be something that alters the behavior of the windows shell. do u have any idea? it does start to seem tho like perhaps what Paul is seeing is more expected as default than what you've been seeing... damn perplexing!
Really nothing should alter the behaviour of the Windows Explorer properties details tab. I don't believe there is even any way for a tool to do it. dbPa adds its own tab to the shell, but that is something different altogether. But, I agree it's odd. We badly need a few more people with W7 to try setting "Part of Compilation" to yes and see what affect it has on the tags.
Just tested this on my Windows 7 x86 system, with dbpa installed. If I change the windows property 'part of compilation' to 'yes' it adds a tag COMPILATION=1