[Tutor] OT: any good newsgroup or other forum for MP3 internals discussions?

[Terry Carroll]

On Mon, 22 May 2006, [ISO-8859-1] Hugo González Monteverde wrote:

> Are you using any kind of prefabricated Python module for this? Maybe 
> their implementation of MP3 tagging is enlightening to you.

I started to; I started using the mp3.py module found here: 
http://www.dotfunk.com/projects/mp3 , but there were a lot of files that 
it fails on (giving incorrect results or throwing an exception), and the 
files are playable and give readable ID3 tags in multiple MP3 apps (e.g., 
Magnus Brading's Mp3/Tag Studio and WinAmp).  So I decided to try to write 
my own.

My first cut was to try to modify that module, but it's a little bit 
idiosyncratic, and at least one part of it (apparently in a part that's 
not actually reached, or maybe whose result is not used) is incorrect.

I thought it would be kind of fun to write my own, too; I'm just running 
into issues where a header does not seem (I say "seem," because I'm 
very aware the problem might be my interpretation) to conform to the 
specs, but which are handled just fine by other utilities I check against 
it.

> Remember that ID3 in MP3 was a dirty hack at the beginning, so it is 
> likely that may files are nonconformant or that many different programs 
> simply follow their gut, as there was no specification.

ID3V2 seems to be very clearly specified, though; and ID3V1 is simple 
enough that i isn't a problem.  But some of my questions will be going to 
the MP3 frame data itself, even apart from the ID3 stuff.

But yesterday, while looking again for a newsgroup where my discussion 
would be on-topic, I saw numerous mentions of a Python package called 
eye3D, and tracked it down to http://eyed3.nicfit.net/ .  I'll see if that 
meets my needs.

Thanks, Hugo.