Non-standard ID3v2 frames: TPAK, TBPR, TENM

General Discussion
1

I've been doing some rigorous cleanup of my MP3 collection, and I've come across some files with non-standard ID3v2 frames:

  • TPAK
  • TBPR
  • TENM

I suspect these were introduced into my files by iTunes, as the TENM frame is set to the value "iTunes 12.10.6.2". (And then it also pollutes my COMM field with iTunNORM and iTunSMPB values.) Can anyone confirm if these do, in fact, come from iTunes?

If TENM is just some "iTunes wuz hre" marker, I'm guessing TBPR is BPM because it almost always matches what I have in TBPM from another program (except that TBPR is always an integer). But does anyone know what TPAK is supposed to be?

FWIW, I have no interest in using these tags, and I'll probably just remove them. But I'm building some code around ID3v2 tag cleanup and organization, and if I decide to open source it at some future date, I'm curious to know if anyone else would ever have a reason to keep them around.

TIA,

Keith

2

I haven't encountered TPAK, TBPR, and TENM yet. If TENM has the encoder, it's probably something like TENC. What are the values in TPAK?

But iTunNORM and iTunSMPB are related and used by iTunes/Apple Music for normalization and gapless playback.

3

In every instance I can find, TPAK is just set to the value 1. So it's likely a boolean for something.

Makes sense that TENM is the encoder. Apple seems to be taking existing tags (TENC, TBPM) and tweaking the last letter ever so slightly to make their own rather than reuse what's there. Absolutely bizarre.

4

Or the disc number, TPOS