I add Economist Audio files to the WMP 11 Library so I can sync them to my
Sansa View. To get them into the Library I have to extract all the mp3
files from their individual section folders and put them together in one
folder which I title "Economist". I have previously defined this folder as
one to monitor in the "Add to Library" window. They get added to the
Library this way but not as expected.

When I place the cursor over each audio file in Windows Explorer, the
information displayed is "Artist: The Economist", "Album Title: March 8th -
March 14 2008", "Track Number: 1" [etc].

What WMP ends up with in the Library is as follows: Artist is each of the
Sections ("01 Introduction", "05 Briefings", etc). Album is "March 8th -
March 14 2008". Songs are each of the audio files eg. "10 Briefing -
India's Civil Service". Genre is "Books". Contributing Artist is "The
Economist".

Actually WMP would be OK if the contents of "Artist" and "Contributing
Artist" were switched. This seems like a bug because WMP has the correct
info. I do not know how WMP extracts this info from the mp3 file but it
should do it in the same fashion as Windows Explorer. It does not.

Has anyone run into this problem? Is there a fix?

Re: A bug Adding audio files to the library ? by Wilkes

Wilkes
Wed Mar 19 11:00:33 PDT 2008

What do you get if you right click the mp3 in Explorer and go to properties?
Contributing Artist is not available when going to properties in Explorer.
If you then go to WMP11 and right click the mp3 and select Advanced Tag
Editor and go to the Artist Tab?

What I've found is that if Contributing Artist is not populated in the mp3
then WMP11 will propagate Artist to Contributing Artist. This is OK for most
albums where artist and Contributing Artist is Equal. On compilation type
albums I've found that I can populate Artist with "Various" and then
populate the Contributing Artist with the Artist for the song then all is
well.

The way I've found WMP11 to group stuff into a album is if the mp3 tags of
Album are the same, Artist is the same, Year is the same (Year is not
available in the WMP11 Advanced Tag Editor, but is available in the Explorer
Properties editor) and Genre is the same then it will be grouped as a album
in WMP11 and not pay attention to Contributing Artist for the grouping.

On the Artist / Contributing Artist thing it is a pain because you cannot
really tell if Contributing Artist is being displayed as a propagation from
Artist or if it is actually explicitly populated. It would be nice if WMP11
used some method of letting you know this, maybe if Contributing Artist
showed in a different color than the default black if it's not set and just
showing what's in Artist.

I realize this doesn't really answer your question, it's just the way that
I've found that the tags in mp3's are handled by WMP11.

Wilkes

"Bill Rankin" <bkds_rankin@msn.com> wrote in message
news:OIDNJwKiIHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>I add Economist Audio files to the WMP 11 Library so I can sync them to my
>Sansa View. To get them into the Library I have to extract all the mp3
>files from their individual section folders and put them together in one
>folder which I title "Economist". I have previously defined this folder as
>one to monitor in the "Add to Library" window. They get added to the
>Library this way but not as expected.
>
> When I place the cursor over each audio file in Windows Explorer, the
> information displayed is "Artist: The Economist", "Album Title: March
> 8th - March 14 2008", "Track Number: 1" [etc].
>
> What WMP ends up with in the Library is as follows: Artist is each of the
> Sections ("01 Introduction", "05 Briefings", etc). Album is "March 8th -
> March 14 2008". Songs are each of the audio files eg. "10 Briefing -
> India's Civil Service". Genre is "Books". Contributing Artist is "The
> Economist".
>
> Actually WMP would be OK if the contents of "Artist" and "Contributing
> Artist" were switched. This seems like a bug because WMP has the correct
> info. I do not know how WMP extracts this info from the mp3 file but it
> should do it in the same fashion as Windows Explorer. It does not.
>
> Has anyone run into this problem? Is there a fix?
>
>



Re: A bug Adding audio files to the library ? by Bill

Bill
Fri Mar 21 14:44:06 PDT 2008

Thank you. Your observations got me into looking at mp3 metadata Tags and I
discovered that the "Album Artist" data in the file is actually the Section
Name rather than the Publication or actual author. WMP was not doing
anything wrong.

I went into WMP and displayed Albums and there were about 10 each with the
same name but different Artists. I changed the Artists to "The Economist"
and it reduced it to one Album. The interesting thing I had not considered
was that this change was propagated to the tag in the mp3 file. I had
thought these were just WMP tables.

Thanks again,
Bill-R

"Wilkes" <w3wilkes@hotmail.nospam.com> wrote in message
news:ue$4hseiIHA.4740@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> What do you get if you right click the mp3 in Explorer and go to
> properties? Contributing Artist is not available when going to properties
> in Explorer. If you then go to WMP11 and right click the mp3 and select
> Advanced Tag Editor and go to the Artist Tab?
>
> What I've found is that if Contributing Artist is not populated in the mp3
> then WMP11 will propagate Artist to Contributing Artist. This is OK for
> most albums where artist and Contributing Artist is Equal. On compilation
> type albums I've found that I can populate Artist with "Various" and then
> populate the Contributing Artist with the Artist for the song then all is
> well.
>
> The way I've found WMP11 to group stuff into a album is if the mp3 tags of
> Album are the same, Artist is the same, Year is the same (Year is not
> available in the WMP11 Advanced Tag Editor, but is available in the
> Explorer Properties editor) and Genre is the same then it will be grouped
> as a album in WMP11 and not pay attention to Contributing Artist for the
> grouping.
>
> On the Artist / Contributing Artist thing it is a pain because you cannot
> really tell if Contributing Artist is being displayed as a propagation
> from Artist or if it is actually explicitly populated. It would be nice if
> WMP11 used some method of letting you know this, maybe if Contributing
> Artist showed in a different color than the default black if it's not set
> and just showing what's in Artist.
>
> I realize this doesn't really answer your question, it's just the way that
> I've found that the tags in mp3's are handled by WMP11.
>
> Wilkes
>
> "Bill Rankin" <bkds_rankin@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:OIDNJwKiIHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>I add Economist Audio files to the WMP 11 Library so I can sync them to my
>>Sansa View. To get them into the Library I have to extract all the mp3
>>files from their individual section folders and put them together in one
>>folder which I title "Economist". I have previously defined this folder
>>as one to monitor in the "Add to Library" window. They get added to the
>>Library this way but not as expected.
>>
>> When I place the cursor over each audio file in Windows Explorer, the
>> information displayed is "Artist: The Economist", "Album Title: March
>> 8th - March 14 2008", "Track Number: 1" [etc].
>>
>> What WMP ends up with in the Library is as follows: Artist is each of the
>> Sections ("01 Introduction", "05 Briefings", etc). Album is "March 8th -
>> March 14 2008". Songs are each of the audio files eg. "10 Briefing -
>> India's Civil Service". Genre is "Books". Contributing Artist is "The
>> Economist".
>>
>> Actually WMP would be OK if the contents of "Artist" and "Contributing
>> Artist" were switched. This seems like a bug because WMP has the
>> correct info. I do not know how WMP extracts this info from the mp3 file
>> but it should do it in the same fashion as Windows Explorer. It does
>> not.
>>
>> Has anyone run into this problem? Is there a fix?
>>
>>
>
>