Tag editor

DigiKam,an image tag editor

MusicBrainz Picard,a tag editor

Atag editoris an app that can add, edit, or remove embeddedmetadataon multimedia file formats. Content creators, such as musicians, photographers, podcasters, and video producers, may need to properly label and manage their creations, adding such details as title, creator, date of creation, and copyright notice.

Content creation apps can add metadata to the files they create. Tag editors, however, are apps dedicated to processing metadata, such asDigiKamandMusicBrainz Picard.Their features go beyond manual editing of individual files, offeringbatch processingand semi-automatic content identification.

Audio files editing techniques

Manual

Media players such asiTunes,Foobar2000orWinamp,as well as dedicated tag editing programs allow users to manually edit tag and song file information, including composer and release year. Dedicated tag editors may featurebatch processingand creating tags from file names and vice versa.

Online music databases

One type of tag editor compares the existing metadata in an audio file's tags with the information from online music databases, such asGracenote,Discogs,freedb,ZortamMusic Internet Database (ZMLIMD) orMusicBrainz.Once a match is found, complementary metadata information may be downloaded. This process is semi-automatic because more than one match may be found.

Acoustic fingerprinting

Main article:Acoustic fingerprint

An acoustic fingerprint is a unique code generated from an audiowaveform.Depending upon the particular algorithm, acoustic fingerprints can be used to automatically categorize or identify an audio sample. Practical uses of acoustic fingerprinting include broadcast monitoring, identification of music and ads being played,peer-to-peernetwork monitoring,sound effect library management, and video identification.

Hash function

In hash function, for audio identification, such as finding out whether anMP3file matches one of a list of known items, one could use a conventional hash function such asMD5,but this would be very sensitive to highly likely perturbations such as time-shifting,CDread errors, differentcompression algorithmsor implementations or changes in volume. Using something like MD5 is useful as a first pass to find exactly-identical files, but another, more advanced algorithm is required to find all items that would nonetheless be interpreted as identical by a human listener.

List of tag editors

See also:Category:Tag editors

The following is a list of tag editors.Media playersgenerally have tag editing capabilities and are not included.

Audio files

• Free and open-source software:
  • EasyTag– SupportsMP3,MP2,FLAC,Ogg,MP4,Musepack (MPC),Monkey's Audio (APE),andWavPackformats. Available forLinuxandMicrosoft Windows.
  • Ex Falso– Supports MP3, FLAC, Ogg, MP4, MPC,WMA,APE,MIDI,and WavPack. Available forFreeBSD,Linux,Mac OS,and Windows.
  • Kid3– Supports MP3, MP2, FLAC, Ogg, MP4, MPC, WMA, AAC,Opus,Speex, TrueAudio, WavPack, WAV,AIFF,andtracker module(MOD, S3M, IT, XM) formats. Available for FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
  • MusicBrainz Picard– Supports MP3, FLAC, Ogg, MP4, MPC, WMA, APE,OptimFROG,and WavPack. Available for FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
  • puddletag– Supports MP3, FLAC, Ogg, APE, MP4, MPC, WMA, OptimFROG, TAK, and WavPack. Available for FreeBSD and Linux.
• Proprietary software:
  • File Explorer– has limited tag editing capabilities on supported file formats such as MP3 and WMA.
  • Jaikoz– Commercial package, available for Windows, Linux and OS X that uses theMusicBrainzdatabase for auto-tagging. Supports embedded album art and auto-lyrics.
  • Mp3tag– Supports MP3, FLAC, Ogg, MP4, MPC, WMA, APE, OptimFROG, TAK, and WavPack.Freewarefor Windows.
  • TagScanner– Supports MP3, Ogg, FLAC, WMA, MP4, Opus, Musepack, APE, AAC, OptimFROG, Speex, WavPack, TrueAudio and WAV, AIFF.Freewarefor Windows.

Image files

• Free and open-source:
  • ExifTool– Available for Windows, Linux and OS X
  • DigiKam– Available for Linux, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows
  • F-Spot– Available forUnix-likeOSes
  • gThumb– Available for Unix-like OSes
  • Shotwell– Available for Unix-like
• Proprietary software:
  • iPhoto– Available for OS X
  • IrfanView– Available for Windows, Linux and OS X
  • XnView– Available for Windows, Linux and OS X

Video files

• EasyTagFOSSmetadata editor
• File Explorerhas limited tag editing capabilities onMP4andWMVfiles.