tagging mp4-files correctly with ReplayGain values.

[j33n5]

Hello!


I recently was looking for a nice way to provide my m4a files with ReplayGain information under Mac OS X and finally found "Play" http://sbooth.org/Play/ which is able to scan and write RG values to mp4 files. I did that and noticed that Rockbox is not able to read any tags from those files. The same procedure with foobar works. I am aware of the fact that foobar by default writes the meta-data atoms to the beginning of the file which Play does not.

But I am also aware of the fact (?) that the atoms containing meta-data can be in random location within the files.
Rockbox doesn't seem to cope very well with this.
So, is this to be fixed in a future release of Rockbox? Or is this no bug?

[Lear]

It's more like a known limitation.

The placement of the metadata atoms isn't really random (there are some limitations, after all), but Rockbox should be able to read the metadata as long as it is located before the audio data.

As for improvements on this, once the "metadata on buffer" feature is implemented, it should at least be possible to do something about it.

[j33n5]

what is this "metadata on buffer" and when is it to be expected?

[GodEater]

It's a feature where the track's metadata (i.e. id3 tags or the like) are loaded into the audio buffer as well as the audio itself. This is more flexible than the current method which has a seperate area of memory for this information.

It's in the works now (in fact I'm testing it on my ipod at this very moment) - and therefore is expected soon - for various values of "soon".

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome?topic=MetadataOnBuffer

[j33n5]

thanks a lot!

[j33n5]

GodEater, maybe I could send you a file which was tagged with Play and you could test it? would that be possible?

[GodEater]

The testing that's going on at the moment only involves the buffering code - no-one's got round to the metadata changes yet...