Music Tags part 1

I was digging through some old work I did and found an old document I wrote about file tags and some problems they cause. I thought folks might find them interesting.

WHAT'S A METADATA TAG?

Metadata Tags (or more simply, “Tags”) are packets of information that are included in an mp3 or wma file along with the audio. Metadata (“data about data”) includes artist name, song title, album title, genre, etc… about the music in the file. Different file formats use different tagging schemes, but the basic procedure when a CD is ripped is always the same: the ripping tool creates a file “container” and puts metadata into the tags. Then it transcodes the music into either mp3 or wma format and adds the music to the file.

Why tags are crucial
Tags make it possible to organize and use media libraries. When a user scans their hard drive for new music files using a media player or device, the player finds the files, reads the tags, and constructs a media library index. After that, instead of a flat list of thousands of files, users can then easily play music from a particular genre, artist, or album.

So even though most users have never heard of them, tags are very important - so important that most enthusiast users spend many hours "cleaning up" the tags in their media libraries. But tags are only as good as the data they contain, and are also only useful if everyone creates and reads them in the same way - and often neither of these conditions is met. But before I talk about that, the next post will talk about the major tags standards in more detail.