#66 lame --pass-ID3-tags-unscathed

[jidanni]

It is terrible that
$ lame -V 9 big.mp3 small.mp3
doesn't copy the ID3 tag of big.mp3 into small.mp3.
All I wanted to do was to reduce the size of some .mp3s to make more
room on my player, and now I have to write a whole script to
$ eyeD3 --no-color > tmp big.mp3
$ lame `myscript tmp` -V 9 big.mp3 small.mp3
put the tags back.

[Anonymous]

jidanni, would you be willing to reply (with another comment), posting the contents of your "myscript" script? I would really appreciate using your workaround until this bug gets fixed. :)

[jidanni]

Sorry, I must have just made up the name 'myscript', as I looked on all my computers and could not find it.

[Anonymous]

There is funding available from a generous donor (D. Pignon) to implement this feature request. Interested developers can apply to me directly (Subharo Bhikkhu, subharo@forestsangha.net), the technical contact for this bounty.

Preference will be given to a developer who has already made substantial contributions to LAME, especially Robert Hegemann. Upon selection of a developer (made on July 25th, 2010, 3 weeks from now, if Robert doesn't respond sooner), $100 will be paid up front, via PayPal, as a gesture that this bounty is legitimate. The remaining $100 will be paid upon completion.

Here is a careful definition of what "completion" means, for collecting the full bounty:

1) The final code must be merged into the mainline code (and thereby become part of the official release, so it can be packaged downstream into the next version Ubuntu). Once I can check out (over CVS) and verify the fix in the mainline code, then payment can be released. I'm willing to check out the code to verify and test it before it gets into the mainline branch.

2) After re-encoding/converting an MP3, the existing ID3 tags must be preserved EXACTLY as were are before the encoding. That is to say, these kinds of qualities of the ID3 tags must remain unchanged:
-The version of the ID3 tags, be it v2.3, v2.4, etc. Do not convert one version to another.
-Any and all "unusual" tags. If there are tags for, say, "Translator," or "Location," etc. preserve them!
-Any and all images in the tags (such as JPGs)
-The character encoding, even if it seems unusual or improper
-A combination of both v2 ID3 tags and v1 should also be preserved

3) This feature must be possible to activate by the option "--pass-ID3-tags-unscathed". This is for users who want to be extra-sure this behavior occurs, who want to specify it explicitly as an option. This is a bit of future-proofing in case new options that cause different ID3-tag-related behavior ever get added in the future.

4) This feature must occur as LAME's default behavior, even if the option "--pass-ID3-tags-unscathed" is not used. After all, it's only common-sensical that an end user would not want their ID3 tags molested. (If the end user did want to convert or change their ID3 tags somehow, plenty of other software already exists to do this, such as Easytag or eyeD3).

5) LAME's "man" page, (and any and all other relevant documentation of LAME's options) must be updated to properly mention this feature.

[Anonymous]

Nobody responded to the offer of the $200 bounty, so the offer is withdrawn. I hope the developers at least noticed the offer on the mailing list ;)

[Anonymous]

I've found a decent workaround. I'm running Ubuntu 10.04, and I was able to install and run the freeware Windows software "Switch" v2.04 (http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html) under Wine with no snags (other than having to set the executable bit on the switchsetup.exe download, before double-clicking it to install Switch).

Switch can downmix the mp3 files without losing the ID3 info.

[Nobody/Anonymous]

Note that Switch does not preserve any images/pictures in the ID3 tags, so it's not a perfect solution.

[Robert Hegemann]

v3.100 copies an ID3v2 tag from old mp3 to new mp3, if
a) it's at the beginning of the file
b) user doesn't add any tags himself

ID3v1 tags are still lost.