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Sorry, my 'bug' report was wrong. gmb can already handle 3-char frame id's, for the
most part.
It didn't occur to me for quite a while that my generated list of files with 3-char frames
constituted nearly half the mp3's I have on the disc, and I was pretty sure that I wasn't
getting that many <unknown> <unknown>s in the track list.
(It was the <unknown>s that caused me to look into the files in the first place ... after the
right-click->song properties,->get the file name, I'd fire up kid3-qt and see that the file
already had tag data. If I saved the tag - by changing one letter in the title, or deleting one
of the comment frames, say - then the tag would be re-written with 4-frameIDs).

It seems that if id3v2 -l produces a listing like:
(from thisamericanlife.org, weekly podcast from Chicago public radio)

  id3v2 tag info for TAL-20121019-477.mp3:
  PIC (Attached picture): ()[JPG, 0]: , 19854 bytes
  TT2 (Title/songname/content description): #477: Getting Away With It
  TP1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): This American Life
  TP2 (Band/orchestra/accompaniment): Chicago Public Media
  TYE (Year): 2012
  TCO (Content type): Podcast (255)
  COM (Comments): ()[eng]: (C) 1995-2012 Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass
  TAL-20121019-477.mp3: No ID3v1 tag

then gmb will happily show the info.

I've pasted [songs] from gmbrc into a spreadsheet, and I think I can use that to produce
a manageable list of files I have to examine.

The following table gives  the value of the TEN (encoder) frames,
   - how many files had that value,
    the version.revision numbers of the containing ID3 tags
  (e.g. all 13 files encoded with 9.0.2.25 had v3.0 tags only)

iTunes 10.1.1      - x7     v2.0
iTunes 9.0.2.25   - x13           v3.0
iTunes 9.0.3.15   - x1     v2.0
iTunes v4.0.1      - x3     v2.0  v3.0
iTunes v6.0.4.2   - lots   v2.0  v3.0
iTunes v7.4.2      - x5     v2.0
iTunes v7.5         - x1     v2.0

(Attached: noobie script to print TEN frames. Caution: it might make your eyes bleed :/ )

id3v2 tag info for 1-12 Rock & Roll Suicide.mp3:
TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): Rock & Roll Suicide
TPE1 (Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s)): David Bowie
TCOM (Composer): David Bowie
TALB (Album/Movie/Show title): The Singles Collection [Disc 1]
TRCK (Track number/Position in set): 12/19
TPOS (Part of a set): 1/2
TYER (Year): 1993
TCON (Content type): Rock (17)
TENC (Encoded by): iTunes v6.0.4.2
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]:  00000588 00000682 00005604 00008D25 00029229 00028414 00007A69 00007C6E 000289CB 00023500
COMM (Comments): ()[eng]:  00000000 00000210 000007F8 0000000000786378 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
TPUB (Publisher): EMI Music Distribution
PRIV (Private frame):  (unimplemented)
TPE2 (Band/orchestra/accompaniment): David Bowie
COMM (Comments): (iTunes_CDDB_IDs)[eng]: 19+664D58DC1D548BB110A3A9DB134B46DD+127

   I checked to make sure that the file still has 3 character id's.


find . -name "*.mp3" -type f  -exec xxd -l 16 '{}' \; | ( grep "TT2" ) > ~/Desktop/IDchk

   I used the above to try to get an idea of how many files have 3 char id's. IDchk contains
   a little over 1400 lines.

   The first four bytes for each grep are a mix of ID3 x02 and ID3 x03.
   There would have been more, but I've been moving files around and fixing album info
    for a while, now, and that's probably updated several tags already.

I'll figure out a way of getting the TENC info for the affected files and report back (I suspect
it will be iTunes)

The only other players I currently have are VLC and Parole.
    VLC doesn't report any tag data, and uses the file name as the Title.
    Parole shows the proper name in the playlist, but I don't know if that's because it
          processed the TT2, or because it was clever with the file name. I don't know how to
         make it show tag data.

    I'll find some other players to try after I've got the encodings.

Thank you for your consideration.

I have a large number of files that don't appear in the artist or album lists.
After lots of fluffing about I found that the identifiers were only 3 characters long.
kid3-qt can process the 3-char fields and I used that to rewrite the tags. The
identifiers were now 4 characters long, and the files appeared in the lists.

What is the likelihood that gmb could be made to process 3-character identifiers?


A hex dump of the first few lines of a sample file ...

Original File:
0000000: 4944 3303 0000 0000 112f 5454 3200 0000  ID3....../TT2...
0000010: 0014 0000 0052 6f63 6b20 2620 526f 6c6c  .....Rock & Roll
0000020: 2053 7569 6369 6465 5450 3100 0000 000c   SuicideTP1.....
0000030: 0000 0044 6176 6964 2042 6f77 6965 5443  ...David BowieTC
0000040: 4d00 0000 000d 0000 0044 6176 6964 2042  M........David B
0000050: 6f77 6965 0054 414c 0000 0000 2000 0000  owie.TAL.... ...
0000060: 5468 6520 5369 6e67 6c65 7320 436f 6c6c  The Singles Coll
0000070: 6563 7469 6f6e 205b 4469 7363 2031 5d54  ection [Disc 1]T
0000080: 524b 0000 0000 0600 0000 3132 2f31 3954  RK........12/19T
0000090: 5041 0000 0000 0400 0000 312f 3254 5945  PA........1/2TYE
00000a0: 0000 0000 0500 0000 3139 3933 5443 4f00  ........1993TCO.
00000b0: 0000 0005 0000 0028 3137 2954 454e 0000  .......(17)TEN..
00000c0: 0000 1000 0000 6954 756e 6573 2076 362e  ......iTunes v6.
00000d0: 302e 342e 3243 4f4d 0000 0000 5f00 0000  0.4.2COM...._...
00000e0: 656e 6700 2030 3030 3030 3538 3820 3030  eng. 00000588 00

File after being saved from kid3-qt (Title changed)
0000000: 4944 3303 0000 0000 112f 5449 5432 0000  ID3....../TIT2..
0000010: 0014 0000 0044 7563 6b20 2620 446f 6c6c  .....Duck & Doll
0000020: 2053 7569 6369 6465 5450 4531 0000 000c   SuicideTPE1....
0000030: 0000 0044 6176 6964 2042 6f77 6965 5443  ...David BowieTC
0000040: 4f4d 0000 000d 0000 0044 6176 6964 2042  OM.......David B
0000050: 6f77 6965 0054 414c 4200 0000 2000 0000  owie.TALB... ...
0000060: 5468 6520 5369 6e67 6c65 7320 436f 6c6c  The Singles Coll
0000070: 6563 7469 6f6e 205b 4469 7363 2031 5d54  ection [Disc 1]T
0000080: 5243 4b00 0000 0600 0000 3132 2f31 3954  RCK.......12/19T
0000090: 504f 5300 0000 0400 0000 312f 3254 5945  POS.......1/2TYE
00000a0: 5200 0000 0500 0000 3139 3933 5443 4f4e  R.......1993TCON
00000b0: 0000 0005 0000 0028 3137 2954 454e 4300  .......(17)TENC.
00000c0: 0000 1040 0000 6954 756e 6573 2076 362e  [email protected] v6.
00000d0: 302e 342e 3243 4f4d 4d00 0000 5f00 0000  0.4.2COMM..._...
00000e0: 656e 6700 2030 3030 3030 3538 3820 3030  eng. 00000588 00