RELEASETIME - problem getting JRiver to recognise it

My audio files are in flac format.
I have been using MP3TAG to tag them quite successfully.
The data in the RELEASETIME field is in the ISO format of YYYY-MM-DDT00:00:00Z (where the time element has 0 for its values eg. 1983-06-01T00:00:00Z

Using JRiver, I have created a library through its import function. All fields are populated impeccably but for the release date. JRiver's field is Release(Date) presumably TDOR.

Is there any way for get MP3TAG to created a user defined field called Release(Date)? I know that I can custom rename existing fields for display but the underlying field name still remains RELEASETIME.

Please fill such a date in your JRiver manually and save this track.
Then load the same track in Mp3tag, select it and press Alt + T to see the Extended Tags window.
How exactly is this field called in Mp3tag (showing your release time)?

According to the Mappings table, you could maybe use ORIGYEAR as fieldname to get a TDOR field written back in your files.

If you want to be sure, please check the working fieldname as mentioned above.

I'm not sure if you speak about the "user-defined field mappings"?
You can find detailed informations here:

Many thanks LyricsLover.
After manually entering the date in JRiver, I loaded the track in Mp3tag and the field name shows DATE (RELEASE).

Then you should be able to use the exactly same user defined field to enter your release time: DATE (RELEASE)

You need to enter it manually in the Tag Panel or the File List.

Sorry, forgot to mention that value shows as 23012.0000011574084056
(The date that I manually entered in JRiver was 01/01/1963)

seems to be the number of days since January 1900.
January 1900 + 23012 days = 1th January 1963

One way to get 23012 from 1.1.1963 would be to calculate 1th Januar 1963 minus 1th January 1900 = 23012 days.

I'm not sure if we have a ready-made function for this calculation in Mp3tag.

The calculation of the days seems not that easy:

  1. Calculate the Years
    From January 1, 1900, to January 1, 1963, there are 63 years.
    Each normal year has 365 days, so: 63 × 365 = 22995 days

  2. Account for Leap Years
    Between 1900 and 1963, there were 16 leap years (every year divisible by 4, except 1900, which was not a leap year).
    Each leap year adds one extra day, so: 16 × 1 = 16 days

  3. Total Number of Days
    22995 days (regular years) + 16 days (leap years) = 23011 days
    Adding 1 day for January 1, 1963, results in 23012 days.

Formula:
image

Calculation example with 1963:

((1963 - 1900) × 365) + ((1963 - 1900)/4) + 1 = 23012
or
(63 x 365) + (63/4) + 1 = 23012
or
22995 + 16 + 1 = 23012

It gets even more complicated if you want to calculate the difference between 1.5.1963 and 1.1.1900 because you need to calculate the days in the year 1963 and check if it is a leap year. In 1963 these would lead to + 120 days. But for the 1.5.1964 it would be + 121 days because February would have 29 days...

Maybe someone sees an easier way to create a formula than this approach?

How does the player react to formatted dates?
It would be worthwhile to fill the know identified field with a formatted date and see what that looks like in the player.

Are you hoping that JRiver will take 01/01/1963 (or whatever date format the OP is using) and calculate the difference in days on its own?

Yes.
Apparently, that happened when the OP entered the date. So the player probably does some kind of calculation.

I am unaware of what exactly is meant by formatted dates in mp3tag

I think that very long number is a "raw" date.
A formatted date would be

So if that worked once in the player - why not with data that the player finds in the field?
So enter

in MP3tag in the correct field

and see how the player can cope.

Did so. But the Date (Release) field in JRiver is not updated.
It does show in JRiver's tag dump which means that the auto import of edits has taken place.

OK. I figured it out.
Using 01/01/1963 as an example, if I change it to 23012 as a date number then JRiver reads it correctly.
Thanks for all your help.

Is there a regex where I could change the ISO date to a number as described above?

Only 7 test dates for those who want to find the right solution :wink:

Date Leap Year? Correct Days since 1/1/1900
January 1, 2000 :white_check_mark: Yes 36'524
January 1, 1999 :cross_mark: No 36'159
February 29, 2004 :white_check_mark: Yes 38'044
March 1, 2001 :cross_mark: No 36'949
June 1, 1983 :cross_mark: No 30'466
December 1, 1983 :cross_mark: No 30'649
January 1, 1963 :cross_mark: No 23'010

calculated with PowerShell New-TimeSpan and manually doublechecked with timeanddate.com

It seems that JRiver adds the first and last day to the calculation and says that the difference between 1 January 1900 and 1 January 1963 is 23,012 days.

Thank you LyricsLover.
You've gone out of your way to assist!
Very grateful.
I don't know whether an action item can be created to convert the ISO date I currently have in RELEASETIME to the number of days...
Wonder of you have an opinion on this

The easy part would be to split your ISO date into ISO_YEAR, ISO_MONTH and ISO_DAY.

But the main problem remains:
We have no easy way (as a $datediff function) to calculate the difference between dates. Correctly identifying leap years is more complicated than it seems.
Therefore, adding 29 days for February in leap years is very difficult with the currently available arithmetic functions in Mp3tag.

Adding +1 or +2 days to the result for JRiver would be easy again.

Thanks to a hint of @ohrenkino I got access to a JRiver v33.0.71 (64-bit).

If I enter a date and time in JRiver as
24.01.1983 01:23:45
into the field "Date (release)" like this:
image
and then load this mp3 track into Mp3tag, I see this RELEASETIME
in the Extended Tags window:
image

If I change this value in Mp3tag to
1984-12-25T02:34:56
and reload this external change in JRiver with a right mouse-click on the track and click on Library Tools -> Update Library (from tags) then I see the following value in the JRiver field
Date (release):
image

I don't really know where the problem lies for you as JRiver can cope perfectly with ordinary dates.
I entered a couple of dates in my temporary installation and all dates came out as formatted dates and not as cryptic number.

Could you @Noteworthy please test it again step-by-step and tell us what exactly does not work?

Update 12:25
Thanks to a hint of @poster I retested the situation with FLAC.

For FLAC files, JRiver seems to behave differently.
Writing the current date and time into the JRiver "Date (release)" field leads to a
DATE (RELEASE)
field in the metadata

The metadata looks like this

Thank you very much.
As I mentioned at the outset my tracks have been ripped to the flac format.
The only way Date (Release) gets updated is:
I create a user defined field in mp3tag as Date (Release) and then I populate it with the relevant date number. For eg 24/01/1983 has the equivalent date number 30340.
At this point it seems to be the only option.

Since I have my entire collection in an excel database, It is a simple (though laborious) matter to format the date cells to their number equivalents, copy to text file and convert text file to tag Release (Date). It is thus instantly recognised in JRiver's Release (Date) tag.

To ensure accuracy, I would do the conversion text to tag album by album.

This looks to me like a valid bug report for the player. JRiver showed for other file and tag formats that they know how to deal with dates - why the different treatment for flacs?