# \[RFE\] chosing ansi/UTF-8/UTF-16 independently from ID3v2.3/2.4
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/rfe-chosing-ansi-utf-8-utf-16-independently-from-id3v2-3-2-4/12281
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [July 16, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/rfe-chosing-ansi-utf-8-utf-16-independently-from-id3v2-3-2-4/12281 "2011-07-16T21:37:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chrizoo](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/chrizoo)
#### Post date: [July 16, 2011, 9:37pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/rfe-chosing-ansi-utf-8-utf-16-independently-from-id3v2-3-2-4/12281/1 "2011-07-16T21:37:57Z")
suggestion: Please don't force the user to use **UTF-8 for ID3v2.4** and **UTF-16/ISO-8859-1 for ID3v2.3**
The character encoding and the ID3 version should be selectable independently from each other.
What's wrong with **ID3v2.3 + UTF-8**
or with **ID3v2.4 + ISO-8859-1**
??
_Example of implementation
(screenshot from program "Musicbrainz Picard"):_
_possible implementation in MP3Tag:_
---
### Author:  [@Nature](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Nature)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/rfe-chosing-ansi-utf-8-utf-16-independently-from-id3v2-3-2-4/12281/2 "2014-06-07T16:27:26Z")
This is a very good point!
Indeed I'm just going through the same problem myself, because I just found out that my MP3 Player (Philips GoGear MP4 player SA2VBE08K) does not support v2.4 with UTF-8. ☹
This is the link to the FAQ about ID3 support, where it explicitly says that (in case someone is interested):
[http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/cpindex...ew\_partial.html](http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/cpindex.pl?ctn=SA2VBE08K/02&dct=QAC&faqview=1&mid=Link_FAQs&refnr=0081002&scy=PT&slg=AEN&view=aa12_view_partial.html)
I've been checking the ID3 v2.4 standard here:
[http://id3.org/id3v2.4.0-frames](http://id3.org/id3v2.4.0-frames)
and I've seen no mention about UTF whatsoever. Weird...
So, apparently, it's not a matter of standards compliance.
Florian must have some good reason not to allow for the free choosing of UTF-8 or UTF-16, but I just don't know which it is... Might be some implementation problem...
But if there is no good reason not to allow it, then please do! 🙂
This is the only reason why I won't be able to upgrade to v2.4.
I can't change the hardware of my MP3 player. :(altough it was one the best on the market, up to some 3 years ago.)
Florian, if you can help, I would apreciate too. 🙂
But anyway, many thanks for this wonderful piece of software.