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Topic: MP3 ID3 Tagging (Read 5340 times) previous topic - next topic
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MP3 ID3 Tagging

So I'm rebuilding and repairing my V0 MP3 collection. I have a question about the version of ID3 tag I should embed in my files though. Should I use:
  • ID3v1
  • ID3v2.3
  • Both ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 simultaneously

Could someone please explain the benefits of each version and which I should go with?

Many thanks.

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #1 –
There likely is no answer, only opinion.  ID3v2.3 is the current de facto standard, and it's really up to you if you want to keep ID3v1 in there as well for any ancient devices that may not support ID3v2.

ID3v1 is far too limitating to be useful on it's own, in my opinion... the character limit being the worst drawback.

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #2 –
I'd go with both ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 as that'll cover most, if not all, software and hardware players that can read ID3 tags.

As grommet mentioned, using only ID3v1 is practically useless on its own due to the 30 character limit.

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #3 –
Also if you intend to play back in a car stereo or similar don't use UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding, most only support ISO-8859-1 encoding.

mp3tag will allow you to chose easily so you can always alter it globally if it doesn't work

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #4 –
(just my 2 cents ...)

I use ID3v2.3 ISO 8859-1 only.

ID3v1 is pathetic and useless, as practically every device today suports ID2v2 ...
Use the ISO character encoding for maximum compatibility if possible.
If you need "foreign" / "strange" (Asian, Eastern European) characters, use ID3v2.3 UTF-16.

ID3v2.4 is still some kind of exotic, and I reckon this is never going to change ...
ID3v2.3 is simply the de-facto standard.

Tip: I recommend MP3TAG (wwww.mp3tag.de) for all your tagging needs.
Just set it to write ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 (or UTF-16 if needed) only in the options dialogue.

Best regards,
Klaasklever

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #5 –
I agree with the above said. id3v1 allows to store very little information about a track. id3v2 alsmost has no limits as to tag fields, allows to store text and images inside the file and most of modern devices support this id3 version.

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Klaasklever on
ID3v2.4 is still some kind of exotic, and I reckon this is never going to change ...
ID3v2.3 is simply the de-facto standard.


I've bought two portable devices in the last year, a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet and a Sansa Fuze audio player.  Both support ID3v2.4 with no issues.  So does the tagger I use, and so do the software audio players I use, both GUI and console based.  Also my old (ancient?) iRiver H140 and H340 run Rockbox so they also support ID3v2.4 and have done so for 4 years now.  I didn't care or know if ID3v2.4 was supported when I bought/installed any of these these, it just happened to be the case.  All the applications and devices which don't support ID3v2.4 look like legacy stuff to me.  ID3v2.4 has been around now for 10 years!  I'm not convinced that the failure of Microsoft Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player to add support after such a long time makes the standard exotic.

edit:typo

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #7 –
I had trouble with 2.4 when I had an 80gb iPod Classic. I was using the latest version of iTunes at the time which supported 2.4. But both iTunes and the iPod kept displaying square characters instead of the correct Japanese characters for some of my songs. Switching back to 2.3 solved that.

It's a pathetic Apple and Microsoft with all their resources can't add a simple feature like (working) 2.4 support.

MP3 ID3 Tagging

Reply #8 –
Re 2.3 vs 2.4, it's sad but my gut says v2.3 is probably never going to be replaced by 2.4, because 2.3 was just where the market happened to be when it shifted from being dominated by early adopters and went mainstream. There's now a huge inertia there. I just spent a frustrating afternoon trying to figure out why my new Android phone couldn't see the tags that foobar2000 could - in the end the only way to get them all playing nice together was to switch foobar to compatibility mode and re-encode all the tags to 2.3

Re the original question, I'd add one extra reason to use v2.3 exclusively: some devices/players have (or at least had) the bizarre habit of stopping looking for tags once they see a v1 tag. Meaning they then don't see your v2.3 tags at all, including any album art etc. I have no idea if that problem is more prevalent then the inability to see v2 at all, and perhaps it goes to show that in the absence of adhered-to standards you can never really win...