When I download music, a lot of time the ID3 tags are not properly set up. This is ok if you're looking at the file list, because the files are typically named "Artist Name - Track Name.mp3". But when you copy the song into iTunes, it uses the entire filename as the Track Name and then truncates it to 31 characters.
For example, a recent download was a list of Rolling Stone's top 500 songs. After importing to iTunes, this is how these songs looked in iTunes and on the iPod:
As you can see, unless the artist and track info was extremely short, the name got truncated by iTunes. For some tracks, this completely renders the song unidentifiable (#39 - Buddy Holly And The Crickets -"...Can you guess what song that is?).
I just stumbled across Wes Barris' website where he wrote a simple renaming tool called NameToTag. You just point this tool at a folder of files named in the standard Artist - Name.mp3 convention and it will automatically populate the Artist and Track Name fields in the ID3 tags.
One major problem with his software is that it isn't configurable for other naming conventions, so my Top 500 download which uses the "Track Number - Artist - Track Name.mp3" would put the Track Number as the Artist and the rest as the Track Name.
Since this tools seems to be quite limited, please let me know if you have found a (FREE*) tool that has better support for batch ID3 tag updates based on filename.
NOTE: I did a quick virus scan of the NameToTag program above. However, as with any random .exe file that you come across, use at your own risk and with EXTREME CAUTION!
*FREE is defined as meeting any number of the following criteria:
- Shareware
- Freeware
- Cracked software
- Commercial software with registration crack or serial # provided
- Commercial software that requires purchase - but someone else purchases it for me
- Corporate editions of software that do not require registration/activation
1 comment:
Given enough time and energy, yes...all programs can be obtained for free.
However, right now I have very little of either one of those, so I need to limit my scope to programs that fall into one of the new above-defined categories of "FREE".
Actually, in about 2 hours, I could probably write a program that does exactly what I'm trying to do. If I don't find a better solution, I may go down that path when I have some free time.
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