ID3iconv

ID3iconv is a little Java command line tool to convert ID3 tags in mp3 files from whatever machine encoding you have (GB2312/GBK for Chinese, etc) to Unicode. It convert both ID3v1 tags and ID3v2 tags to Unicode-encoded ID3v2 (v2.3 or v2.4). This is sometimes useful because,

• ID3v1 or v2 don't really supports multi-byte encodings such as GBK or Big5. Most existing files falsely pretend they are ISO-8859-1 encoded. This means the softwares handle them in all kinds of weird ways.
• Even if the user can force the encoding in some players, it is then impossible to display tags of several international languages at the same time if files are so encoded.

I wrote this to convert all my mp3 files with Chinese (both simplified and traditional Chinese) tags to Unicode and play them using Rhythmbox under Linux. This is after much struggle with XMMS and other players that either cannot handle the large charsets GBK/GB18030 or cannot handle Chinese at all.

CAUTION: The tool updates mp3 files in place. So backup if you don't want to lose your precious music...

Author: Feng Zhou, zf _at_ cs.berkeley.edu

News

• 2/20/2004, repacked binary package available.
  The old 0.2.1 binary package failed to run under Blackdown 1.4.1 VM. This should fix the problem.
• 2/16/2004, ID3iconv 0.2.1 available.
  Bug fix: conversion speed very slow sometimes because non-buffered I/O used.
• 2/14/2004, ID3iconv 0.2 available. Added the following features,
  Option to force using id3v1 tag even if v2 tag exists
  Option to remove v1 tag after convertion

Download

java -jar <ID3iconv jar file> <mp3 files>

ID3iconv 0.2.1 Source Code
It uses the Java MP3 library.

All version

FAQ

What does it actually do to my files?

ID3iconv takes all text fields of your tag, assume they are in a certain encoding (specified by -e or using system default), and convert them to their Unicode equivalence as supported by ID3 v2.3. If the file has only v1 tag before, a v2 tag will be prepended to the beginning of the file. If the file has non-unicode v2 tag before, it will be converted to unicode format. You also have the option to remove any existing v1 tag after conversion is done. The output encoding is Unicode little endian, which seems to be the most compatible.

Does it convert all fields of the tag?

It converts all text fields (fields with name Txxx in ID3v2), except those marked as numerical text, such as TYER, as defined in ID3 v2.3 text.

Does it also convert file names to Unicode?

No. However, you can try convmv (a Perl tool) for that.

What encoding does ID3iconv assume the original tags are in?

The encoding can be specified via the -e option, using Java encoding names, as listed here. If no encoding is specified, the default OS encoding will be used. This is normally determined by the locale setting of your operating system. E.g., on *NIX, look at LC_CTYPE output of 'locale'.

What players can view tags in converted mp3 files?

Unfortunately a lot of players don't handle Unicode tags well, mostly because these files are rare, although there should be more. Here's my results.
Players that handle unicode tags correctly

• Rhythmbox 0.6.5. Gnome's default music player. (Note: This bug tracks support for native charsets)
• iTunes for windows.
• Windows explorer's file property dialog for MP3 files

Players that I haven't got working with Unicode tags

• Winamp 5. It seems to be treating all tags as the machine's native encoding, even if they are clearly marked as in Unicode
• Foobar 0.7.7b w and w/o id3v2 component. The Id3v2 component also generates wrongly-formatted Unicode tags (missing leading BOM characters), which only itself can recognize. :(
• XMMS (One workaround is to use id3v1 tags by disabling v2 tag support, Open options -> preferences -> Audio I/O plugins -> MPEG Layer 1/2/3 Player and click on "configure" at the "title" tab you will have an option "Disable ID3V2 tag" - chek it and xmms will use old ID3V1 tags. Thanks go to Alexandr Dmitrijev for pointing this out).

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