I'm trying to get MP3Tag v2.41 to read XML file tags within an MP3 file - I'm told this is possible but cannot find a way to import them into my browser columns. The tags have been created in a radio playout program called mAirList and I'm told that the tags are stored using TXXX with a description of mAirList. A typical value that I'm trying to read is <EndType>e</EndType> - I'd like to display the e in a column called EndType.

I have been able to read custom ID3 tags which were created in another playout package (AudioEnhanceDPS) by adding %category% - this works a treat but I'm struggling with reading the XML tags...

My ultimate goal is to read the Vocal Intro, Segue Point and EndType tags so that I can export them to a tab-delimited txt file to import into a music scheduler (the easy part!)....

I attach an MP3 file with the tags in, just in case my description didn't make sense.. Open this file in Notepad and you'll see what I mean

You cannot see the MAIRLIST tag because

1) This file has two different ID3v2 tags. Why??
Mp3tag shows the first ID3v2 tag, but the xml tag is in the second. You can delete the first tag with "Remove Tag" [Ctrl+R] command.
Then you will see no tag at all because...

2) The flags of the ID3v2 header of this part are set wrong! But you can use a hex editor to change the 6th byte from $03 to $00

Then use Alt+t to see your tag

________________

But if you look at the tags of your original file with Alt+t, maybe you don't need the xml tag?
Tags of HookSweeper.mp3:

ARTIST: FX
COMMENT: mAirList Hook Element
COMPOSER: FX
GENRE: FX
TITLE: HookSweeper
TRACK: *
YEAR: 2008
OPENER: *
END: e

Hi,
I tagged the file in MP3Tag to begin with, but then tagged it with mAirList so I could show you the tag examples... There are custom mAirList tags that I want to display (and export) that are stored in that custom XML tag format.

Still stuck with this... is there any solution to viewing these XML tags ?

mAirListUser: You might want to point Torben to this thread. mAirlist is an excellent piece of software and Torben usually very helpful. If writing a second set of tags is a mAirlist bug, Torben will surely sort it out.

Nevertheless, opening your file »HookSweeper.mp3« with MP3Tag v2.41 shows me:

• An ID3v1 Tag containing:
  • ARTIST FX
  • COMMENT mAirList Hook Element
  • TITLE HookSweeper
  • YEAR 2008
• An ID3v2 (UTF-16) Tag containing:
  • ARTIST FX
  • COMMENT mAirList Hook Element
  • COMPOSER FX
  • END e
  • GENRE FX
  • OPENER *
  • TITLE HookSweeper
  • TRACK *
  • YEAR 2008

OPENER and END are perfectly well-formed UTF-16 TXXX type tags and I can easily add a column for them in MP3Tag’s Column View (or the Tag Panel).

So it looks like mAirlist’s XML is converted correctly into standard MP3 tags—no XML inside the MP3. (Since everything went so smooth, I didn’t bother to check for each and everything with a stream editor.)

But maybe I just misinterpret what you want. Somehow.

@ dano: May I ask which stream editor you use to check that? Sounds like I could need a thing like that ;-)

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Ah, I guess for some reasion you need to read the TXXX mAirList tag:

Time to ask Torben for help and modify his tag writing, I guess.
And time to ask Florian for Mixed-Case Tag Support, maybe.

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N.B.: I left a note over in the mAirList Forum.

Thanks - I have been in touch with Torben about this - especially as mAirList "Save Tag" appears to kill the Genre and Compose ID3 fields ;( Torben did say that the XML can be displayed, I assumed that I had a config error in my columns or perhaps I needed some add-on for XML tags.

I'll see what Torben comes back with

Yeah, let us know. I’d be eager to have »The best MP3 Tool« MP3Tag and »The best player for broadcasting« mAirList work together, especially since I always recommended MP3Tag to all my mAirList and SAM Broadcaster users.

Hi everybody.

First of all, let me introduce myself - I'm Torben, the developer of mAirList, mentioned above.

Thanks to the information provided by the users, and in particular by dano, I was finally able to track down the reason why mAirList would write tags which aren't recognized by Mp3tag or Winamp. It's a bug in the ID3 library I use (JvID3v2 from JVCL) which fails to initialize the memory in which it constructs the header, so in the end, the "flags" byte might have random bits set. It's perfectly ok for Mp3tag to ignore the tag then. This is the behavior proposed by the official documentation on id3.org: "If one of these undefined flags are set that might mean that the tag is not readable for a parser that does not know the flags function." See http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0#head-697d09c5...9d93585e2652b0b

I have released an update of mAirList, see http://forum.mairlist.com/index.php/topic,3246.0.html

However, I haven't found out why mAirList would write double tags. This is obviously not related to the first issue and might be another bug in the JvID3v2 library. Can "mAirListUser" please post or mail me the original version of the audio file with which this happened? Because I cannot reproduce it with my files.

Finally, let me take this opportunity to say hello and thank you to the Mp3tag team (or is it just a single person like me?). It's a very great tool which has proved its helpfulness many times, not only when chasing nasty bugs like this.


Torben