Hey all you purists,

First off: A Happy New Year to you and your kin.

I've often seen opinions here about how bad it is to use ID3V2 tags. With
the crucial criticism that they are PREpended to the file, forcing either
filing system hacks or a complete rewrite of the file under certain
circumstances (not least of all the process of adding one in the first place.)

I've always been convinced by this argument (not that it has stopped me
using them - which can be nothing short of painful on my old machine
sometimes) ...That is, until I just read this:

http://www.id3.org/id3v2.4.0-structure.txt

3.4. ID3v2 footer

    To speed up the process of locating an ID3v2 tag when searching from
    the end of a file, a footer can be added to the tag. It is REQUIRED
    to add a footer to an appended tag, i.e. a tag located after all
    audio data. The footer is a copy of the header, but with a different
    identifier.

I repeat: "It is ... an appended tag, i.e. a tag located after all audio data."

So my thought on the matter is now this: As the spec allows for APpended
tags; And as this would resolve what appears to be the worlds major gripe
about ID3V2 ...Why don't any of the tag editors (that I have tested, and
there were many many of them) implement this feature?

And secondly, with this problem removed. Imho, ID3V2 exceeds APEv2, as it
allows large blocks of embedded data (which I personally use extensively -
Lecture transcripts, Slides, etc), which would breach the 8K APE tag limit.
http://www.personal.uni-jena.de/~pfk/mpp/sv8/apetag.html
...they even went to the effort of making the word "NEVER" flash!!

APE suggest you split your related files out into lots of seperate files
...A _unnecessary_ distribution nightmare!

Any comments?

Bluechip
Received on Sun Jan 1 08:19:21 2006