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ID3 FormatThe ID3 format describes a way of saving information about the contents of a MP3 audio file. This document describes the format currently used by popular MP3 players and encoders.If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact me. Just send an email to vdwulp@worldonline.nl.
Last update: February 1 1999 |
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| General |
The additional content information in the ID3 format is added at the
end of a MP3 file. This way, there's little chance it distubs normal
decoding operation. The length of the ID3 tag is always
128 bytes and contains the following:
Magic : 3 chars ; 'TAG' Song title : 30 chars Artist : 30 chars Album : 30 chars Year : 4 chars Comment : 30 chars Genre : 1 byte Note that the easiest way to find an ID3 tag is looking for the word TAG 128 bytes from the end of a MP3 file. If a field isn't totally filled with alphanumeric characters, it should be stuffed with bytes with the binary value 0. Some encoders use the space character instead as this makes no real difference. |
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| Genre |
As said above, the genre is encoded as only one byte. The value of
this byte corresponds to a genre according to the following table (HEX -
Genre):
00 Blues 01 Classic Rock 02 Country 03 Dance 04 Disco 05 Funk 06 Grunge 07 Hip-Hop 08 Jazz 09 Metal 0A New Age 0B Oldies 0C Other 0D Pop 0E R&B 0F Rap 10 Reggea 11 Rock 12 Techno 13 Industrial 14 Alternative 15 Ska 16 Death Metal 17 Pranks 18 Soundtrack 19 Euro-Techno 1A Ambient 1B Trip-Hop 1C Vocal 1D Jazz+Funk 1E Fusion 1F Trance 20 Classical 21 Instrumental 22 Acid 23 House 24 Game 25 Sound Clip 26 Gospel 27 Noise 28 Alt. Rock 29 Bass 2A Soul 2B Punk 2C Space 2D Meditative 2E Instrumental Pop 2F Instrumental Rock 30 Ethnic 31 Gothic 32 Darkwave 33 Techno-Industrial 34 Electronic 35 Pop-Folk 36 Eurodance 37 Dream 38 Southern Rock 39 Comedy 3A Cult 3B Gangsta Rap 3C Top 40 3D Christian Rap 3E Pop/Funk 3F Jungle 40 Native American 41 Cabaret 42 New Wave 43 Psychedelic 44 Rave 45 Showtunes 46 Trailer 47 Lo-Fi 48 Tribal 49 Acid Punk 4A Acid Jazz 4B Polka 4C Retro 4D Musical 4E Rock & Roll 4F Hard Rock 50 Folk 51 Folk/Rock 52 National Folk 53 Swing 54 Fast-Fusion 55 Bebob 56 Latin 57 Revival 58 Celtic 59 Bluegrass 5A Avantgarde 5B Gothic Rock 5C Progressive Rock 5D Psychedelic Rock 5E Symphonic Rock 5F Slow Rock 60 Big Band 61 Chorus 62 Easy Listening 63 Acoustic 64 Humour 65 Speech 66 Chanson 67 Opera 68 Chamber Music 69 Sonata 6A Symphony 6B Booty Bass 6C Primus 6D Porn Grove 6E Satire 6F Slow Jam 70 Club 71 Tango 72 Samba 73 Folklore 74 Ballad 75 Power Ballad 76 Rhythmic Soul 77 Freestyle 78 Duet 79 Punk Rock 7A Drum Solo 7B A Cappella 7C Euro-House 7D Dance Hall 7E Goa 7F Drum & Bass 80 Club-House 81 Hardcore 82 Terror 83 Indie 84 BritPop 85 NegerPunk 86 PolskPunk 87 Beat 88 Christian GanstaRap 89 Heavy Metal 8A Black Metal 8B Crossover 8C Contemporary Christian 8D Christian Rock 8E Merengue 8F Salsa 90 Trash Metal 91 Anime 92 JPop 93 Synthpop |
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| Album track |
| There are files which extend the ID3 format described above in a
clever way. As the space for comments is so small that one can hardly use
it for a real comment, these files shorten the space for comments to
28 characters. This leaves two bytes to specify the track number
on the album.
The first of these two bytes always has the binary value 0, to let 'older' decoders know that the end of the comment has been reached. The second extra byte holds the binary value of the album track. With this extension, we have the following format: Magic : 3 chars ; 'TAG' Song title : 30 chars Artist : 30 chars Album : 30 chars Year : 4 chars Comment : 28 chars Notifier : 1 byte ; 0 Album track : 1 byte Genre : 1 byte
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| Disclaimer |
| The author of this document is not responsible for the use made of information obtained from this document. If any software company objects to any of their format information being made available here then the author will abide by their wishes and remove it from the site. I would urge all software companies to make their file format information public so that the formats can become more popular. |
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| Copyright |
| Copyright to this document remains with the author. © Bastiaan van der Wulp 1998, 1999. |
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