There seems to be a problem with the newest Unicode-enabled Mp3Tag builds (2.32q) when using tags in system default encodings (cp1251 in my case). Here is a screenshot which illustrates the problem.
The support for system codepage encodings has been dropped (because of Unicode).
But I guess unfortunately, the freedb has lots of entries in local encodings (tho officially not supported! UTF-8 should be used.)
Maybe Florian wants to add an option to choose the encoding for freedb..
I'm pretty sure there should be an option (or action?) which allow user to read the tags in a system default encoding to be able to save them back in Unicode (smth like 'Convert tags from local default encoding to Unicode').
Currently it is impossible to convert any of the available tags in local encodings to Unicode just because Mp3Tag can't read them properly...
Many other Unicode-enabled software (Foobar2000 as an example) works well with Unicode and with system default encoding at the same time.
It's a very hidden feature, name for New conf. is confusing, I didn't know what to type there... I suggest to merge it with next window like this:
New configuration
Name: [.....]
Actions: [.....] [buttons...]
Problem is that I can't convert more songs at once since "correct" characters are converted too - and I loose special characters in these songs (bad songs are good and good are bad).
Is it possible to add an option to convert just "bad/wrong" names/items? It is very complicated to distinguish "good" and "bad" songs, so I must do it all manually.
I've just released a new Development Build which might solve your problems.
The new version has an option Decode ISO-8859-1 tags using system codepage at Options > Tags > Mpeg which forces Mp3tag to use the system codepage when reading ID3v2 tags.
Please note that your tags are automatically converted to Unicode format (which meets the ID3v2 standard), when you save them again.
Thank you very much, it works good now (read and write). I think this option (Decode ISO-8859-1 tags using system codepage) should be enabled by default, since if it's disabled, tags are still converted to unicode, but incorrectly.
The problem is just Winamp, but I can wait for unicode version or find another one, since I don't like it much.
More important - before I'll convert all my songs/tags to unicode - what about mp3 and DVD players, will unicode tags look good/correct there?
OK, but I don't have DVD player, just in PC. How many, in % should support unicode? All (or most) new DVD and mp3 players should support it or just few? Thanks.
The freedb dialog was rewritten in the latest dev. builds, and the Convert codepage feature is missed from the freedb dialog. If there is a chance to see it back?
I understand this, but still think we need a encoding conversion in freedb dialog: just to be able to choose the right freedb response. Without encoding conversion we may stay with smth like this: