Tags of .wav files on the Unitiqute
Posted by: gogetgil on 01 January 2012
Dear all,
First of all, best wishes for 2012.
My question is how can I get the artist/album et cetera to be included as tag on .wav files and shown on my Naim display (and Ipod remote control). A small introduction to the problem:
I am a proud owner of the Unitiqute. I have ripped all my cd's to .wav using the program XBL (and itunes for the last 4 cd's). On my NAS, I first made the artist (as folder name), then the album (as folder name), then the songs. All looked really nice when I search via "Folder" on my Unitiqute. However (after having ripped 400+ cd's) when I search via "Artist/Album" some artists do not show up on the Unitiqute. When I imported the music database into itunes, itunes also didn't recognized these artists but instead showed the track name (including the #, the artist and the name of the song).
I cleaned my itunes by buying the program Tune up. Worked ok as it found most of the music files and changed/adjusted these for itunes, but... Tune Up didn't or couldn't adjust the actual music file so when I search on my Unitiqute (or Ipod Naim software) via "artist/album" the artists still are not showing up (but do show up on my itunes now as I used Tune Up for it).
Can somebody tell me whether I should ripped the cd's again and using a different setting (both XBL and itunes give the same result up to now for my .wav files)?
Best, Giliam
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by YanC
As far as I know WAV file format does not support embedding of tags. Apps (such as iTunes) use their own database to hold those extra bits of info. So you will need to find a way to pass the metadata into the Qute (and not into the file).
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Hi Giliam, extendable WAV files support id3 tags, but not everyone reads them. The usage is more my consent rather than a strict standard. The nature of WAV files allows this. Rippers such as dBpoweramp use WAV tags, and upnp streamers such as Asset made by the same people read them. However as far as I understand it Naim doesn't use WAV id3 tags and use thier own custom database instead.
Simon
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by YanC
Apololgies for the cross posting, as there is another thread that covers this more extensively.
Yes, it's correct that the WAV format (as most file formats including AIFF) can be used to contain any information as long as it is embedded in a way that it does not "break" the format.
However my understanding is that dBpoweramp or any other app that embeds tags into a WAV file does so in a proprietary manner, as there is no standard way (i.e. a method agreed upon by the major SW vendors) to embed such tags. (Even if the Qute decodes these tags) I suspect that Naim programmers may have adopted (licensed?) dBpoweramp's method. But as no standard exists, I suspect the interoperability and longevity of these tags may be short.
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Could be, but I can read the tags in MS windows by right mouse clicking, and there are many players now that decode the id3 tags. WAV files are designed to use chunk descriptors as people feel the need to create them. (in fact that is also a criticism of WAV files as there are many alternative ways of doing things) As long as people want id3 tags software will read them. The WAV file structure is open so there is no concept ( afaiama ) of licensing the ability to read chunk ids... That is why it has become one of the industrial file types for packaging audio and why it has lasted so long in the consumer space. ( since the early 90s)
As far as interoperability is concerned, the id3 data structure standard is defined, ( ie its the same as in mp3 files etc) and because the nature of the RIFF WAV file structure standard can be easily adopted allowing any id3 aware device to parse the file successfully. Id3 tags abre also used in broadcast WAV file standard, (one of the industrial variants) which uses precisely this RIFF id3 structure. It won't be disappearing for the forseeable future.
Simon
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by YanC
On the right click info on Windows it is most likely because dBpoweramp installs it's own contextual menu plugin. Remove it and Windows will most likely show none of that.
Longevity wise it is hard to tell.
Until Microsoft, Apple (maybe Adobe too?) put a stake in the ground, I wouldn't be so sure. And I am not sure they are interested as they are promoting their own lossless formats.
For the sake of accuracy, the WAV format (like AIFF) is indeed in the public domain, and can include any chunks of information (limited to 65k bytes if memory serves right). However embedding tags is not standardized. For example even if an app decided to use the id3 or the XMP format to record tags in a chunk, the app would still need to define its own method of finding the chunk in the file. That could be easily hacked by another developer, until one day a third developer decides to write the same info under a different heading, or use an entirely different format altogether.
Really all I am saying here is that I would be a little nervous to tag thousands of files and spend hours in doing so using a non-standard method.
The photographic industry is a major example of how incompatible such systems may be, especially in the early days of adoption.
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by gogetgil
Thank you all for your replies. In case anyone would like to add something please continue to do so. I will try to use dbPoweramp on my PC (instead of XBL/itunes on my Mac) for a couple of cd's and let you know the outcome and whether the Unitiqute picks it up as album etc.
And if this is not successful I will take YanC's advice and leave it as it is, as it remains a non-standard method.
Regards, Giliam
Posted on: 02 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Ok, yes dBpoweramp has its own extension it loads in windows, but windows has its own native info from WAV.
The standard way of defining metadata data in. Extensible WAV files is by the use of the iINFO RIFF chunks. This contains a list of defined chunks with author, title, copyright etc based on the exif standard, additionally there is the 'assumed' method used by an increasing number of current audio software vendors, excluding apple of using a ID3v2 block in a chunk titled ID3. However this latter mode is not formally standardised.
Now vendors such dBpoweramp by default write both metadata methods into the WAV file for interoperability, so if you can't parse the id3 chunk, then you read a subset of metadata from the INFO list.
Of couse you need to support the extensible WAV format for this. This is the WAV format that supports hidefinition amongst other things. apple and twonky only support the older canonical WAV format for standard def audio. By the nature of the RIFF construct of WAV a valid canonical file reader should be able to read the basic chunks from the extensible WAV file.
My point is I see no issue or minimal risk in writing metadata in WAV files in both a standardised way and an assumed way. To me that is the best robust approach. I have over 10,000 WAV rips containing this construct. I researched this to a fair extent befor I did my mass rips:
1. AIFF is not widely used in industry, and only really used by apple in the consumer space
2. ALAC even less used and only pushed by apple in consumer. Until recently there have been licensing issues.
3. FLAC some industrial support and increasing support in consumer, but it is still plagued by some interoperability issues, with files not playing or stopping partway through. Also the format is closed to extensions. This was/is my number two encoding format
4. WAVE the most widely used sound file and is extremely robust, however not everyone reads the metadata. but the file type allows mitigations such as Mutiple metadata writing. The format is open so as technology develops new chunks can be added without re ripping the data. This gives me great peace of mind with 10,000 WAV rips. I chose this method.
Simon
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by YanC
fair enough.
"ID3v2 block in a chunk titled ID3" sounds like a good implementation to me anyway. (Though duplication of tags within a single file is a big no-no).
Eventually, it may be down to companies like Naim, Meridian, etc that have a direct interest in the subject, to form a consortium that defines a standard schema for the popular audio formats (that do not currently define one).
P.S.
I wouldn't dismiss AIFF so quickly as it is used by most (all?) recording engineers I know of. Though it's not that I know very many :-)
P.S.2
Nice exchange Simon. I m new to this forum and pretty impressed with the info that is being exchanged. All the best. Yannis.
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by gogetgil
Dear Simon,
Thanks for the info. I am a bit puzzled by the technicality but I will get there eventually. What program do you use to tag the wav files and which settings? I will then try your approach.
Thanks in advance for your reply,
Best Giliam
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Giliam
I use dbpoweramp to tag the files. MediaMonkey is another popular media management suite of software that allows easy writing of wave id3 tags.
BTW I don't know if Naim reads WAV tags when in disk mode, but if you use uPNP mode and use a uPNP server that supports tags, of which there are several, but Asset is the one I am familiar with and use with my NDX, then these tags are sent to the network player and control point using the uPNP protocol via the uPNP server and not reliant on the network player at all for parsing the ID3 tags. (I hope that makes sense... I realise it can all sound confusing - but if I say it just works perhaps it would be less convincing 
)
YanC - welcome to the forum - and Happy New Year. Do your recording engineers friends record with Macs? That might explain that... also AIFF is another closed standard that does put me off.
AIFF to me looks like a consumer standard that evolved from the Amiga IFF of the 80s and then developed by Apple.
It appeared to bridge the gap between the original canonical WAV file and the much later Extensible WAV format that supports hidef and multi channel. I think currently the biggest AIFF users on the Mac audio front are Logic Pro and GarageBand. Perhaps its Logic Pro your friends use on the Mac OSX system?
Simon
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by YanC
Originally Posted by Simon-in-Suffolk:
Do your recording engineers friends record with Macs? That might explain that... also AIFF is another closed standard that does put me off.
AIFF to me looks like a consumer standard that evolved from the Amiga IFF of the 80s and then developed by Apple.
That may have something to do with it :-)
From memory (I haven't worked in this area since the early 90s), I remember AIFF was preferable because it defined native support for audio markers and in/out points.
FWIW both WAV and AIFF are essentially the same format. I am referring to the uncompressed versions here, with the original extensions. The reason that over the years they haven't been used by all apps is only down to the various vendettas between Redmond and Cupertino.
RIFF was developed by Amiga in the 80s. When Amiga disappeared most of the engineers went to Apple, and indeed the original Mac OS had "borrowed" several concepts from the RIFF format (such as the 4-letter human readable code that designates a chunk, which was prelevant in what was called the resource fork of Mac Files). Microsoft later adopted the format I believe with Win 3.1.
Aplologies for the geeky details.
Y.
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by Guido Fawkes
No apology required - any idea where I can get a 21st century web browser for an Amiga 1200?
WAV always concerns me as it seems to be promoted by Redmond .... sonically I still can detect no difference between ALAC, FLAC, AIFF or WAV. I wish Apple would support FLAC though purely for convenience.
IFF was the Electronic Arts format that the Amiga adopted .... still the my favourite home computer, but I do like the iPAD and use Mac OSX for almost everything else.
Posted on: 03 January 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk
YanC
I think your summary on AIFF and WAVE is spot on with respect to Apple and Microsoft, I think the order of the bytes are reversed in the data chunk but other than that they are pretty similar.
At the end of the day for me the file should be a robust future proofed format, I can always transcode that file to another format if I need to, ie I stream MP3 transcoded from my WAVs on my NAS using Asset to my wireless network players in the kitchen or conservatory, and stream WAV files to my Naim. Where I download FLAC hidef files, I leave them as such, and when I stream I transcode to WAV. Its seamless and transparent, and unlike Guido I can hear a difference ( but that is nought to do with the file but the side effect of decoding them)
Guido - I was more a NASCOM 2 man before we got the Amiga ;-) but yess AIFF was Apples IFF, and for its time was quite revolutionary. Remember before the IFF there was whole plethora of file types for players called 'Trackers' such as .MOD and .S3M which were used for carrying PCM and blocked sample audio. Those were the days hey ;-)
Simon
