• Registered: 2011-09-15

Topic: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

I'm trying to use tagger script to add the release type to either the comment or grouping fields, as read by itunes, but I can't get it to work.

I can successfully set albumartistsort to ID3 TSO2 using the following string:

$copy(_id3:TSO2,albumartistsort)

So I thought I could set ID3 COMM in a similar manner:

$copy(_id3:COMM,releasetype)

But no luck. Also tried:

$set(releasecomment,%releasetype%)
$copy(_id3:COMM,releasecomment)

Any idea how to do this?

  • Registered: 2012-03-27

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

According to MusicBrainz tag mapping iTunes grouping is stored in "©grp" & comment is stored in "cpil" but this is for .mp4 files.

3 Reply by ym (edited by ym 2012-05-08 06:23:25)

  • ym
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Istanbul, Turkey
  • Registered: 2008-10-08

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

grouping is stored in TIT1
comm is stored as  COMM:description
see http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Picard_Tag_Mapping for more details.

edit: there is also an ongoing discussion about sortname vs grouping. if you will be using grouping you might want to be part of discussion.
see http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/ … 15363.html

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

SoberWarlock wrote:

According to MusicBrainz tag mapping iTunes grouping is stored in "©grp" & comment is stored in "cpil" but this is for .mp4 files.

Its actually ©cmt. How do you tell the script you are trying to write an itunes tag? For ID3 it's "_id3:".


ym wrote:

grouping is stored in TIT1
comm is stored as  COMM:description
see http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Picard_Tag_Mapping for more details.

I tried using both to no avail using both $set and $copy.

ym wrote:

edit: there is also an ongoing discussion about sortname vs grouping. if you will be using grouping you might want to be part of discussion.
see http://lists.musicbrainz.org/pipermail/ … 15363.html

I'm not really worried about using grouping properly at the moment, I'm just using it because it's a blank field for me. I want to put 'releasetype' in the comment or grouping field.

5 Reply by voiceinsideyou (edited by voiceinsideyou 2012-06-17 17:09:54)

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

You shouldn't really try and directly copy to underlying tag-specific fields when there are Picard-identifiers for the fields and tag-agnostic mappings. Look for what you want at Picard Tags first.

One of these options should work, depending on where you want it to go (grouping or comment) and what iTunes supports

$copy(grouping,releasetype)
$set(grouping,%releasetype%)
$copy(comment:releasetype,releasetype)
$set(comment:releasetype,%releasetype%)
$copy(comment,releasetype) #EDIT WONT WORK IN PICARD <= 1.0
$set(comment,%releasetype%) #EDIT WONT WORK IN PICARD <= 1.0
$copy(comment:,releasetype)
$set(comment:,%releasetype%)

$copy(_id3:COMM,releasetype) may not work without a description for the comment; or possibly due to PICARD-136

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

Update:

I managed to write to the grouping tag using both:

$copy(grouping,releasetype)
$set(grouping,%releasetype%)

However, I still can't write to the comment tag using any of the above formulations.

I also tried:

$copy(_id3:COMM:releasetype,releasetype)
$copy(_id3:COMM:releasetype,%releasetype%)

Neither worked.

Interestingly, if I manually add a comment to file and save, without loading additional data from MB (i.e. in the left-hand pane), the comment is written fine and can be read in itunes. However, when tagging with MB data (right-hand pane) the field is correctly filled in picard but does not write. This leads me to believe that some data (or lack of) from MB is overwriting the data I'm trying to write to the field. This could be related to PICARD-136.

Also, this shows that picard does write comments to a field readable by itunes, presumably ID3; so the problem must be internal to picard.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

Lixobix wrote:

However, I still can't write to the comment tag using any of the above formulations.

Assuming you are trying with mp3s, I think you must have done something wrong. It works fine for me with ID3v2.3:

http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/-/images/c/cf/Mp3tag_comment.png
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/-/images/d/da/Picard_comment.png

This was with $set(comment:releasetype,%releasetype%)

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

Tried $set(comment:releasetype,%releasetype%).

Tried on ALAC and mp3 files.

Tried ID3v2.3, 2.4.

Not writing.

Picard shows that the tags have been written, but itunes and Kid3 (tag editing app) show blanks in the comment field.

I'm using osx 10.6.8, Picard 1.0.

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

Later, I will try disabling my tagger/file naming scripts and all plugins to make sure they're not causing a problem. Will let you know.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

kid3 doesn't understand comment tags with descriptions properly. I note that kid3 does see there's a comment tag for me (it appears in the list) but its value is blank; it has no description. The comment tag works fine in MediaMonkey (which also uses id3lib) so kid3 must be ignoring the description-based comments.

Worked it out for iTunes as well. The problem is that iTunes doesn't seem to understand comments with custom descriptions, as far as I can tell. Or at least, it wont conflate them together and display them in the Comments box. It appears to ignore them. It doesn't remove them or anything; just doesn't display.

What does work with iTunes and kid3 is

$set(comment:,%releasetype%)

(or the $copy equivalent)

The confusion is that without the colon, it won't write it. It probably should. http://tickets.musicbrainz.org/browse/PICARD-239

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • Registered: 2011-09-15

Re: How to add value to comment/grouping (itunes)

Thanks! Working now.