Keeping Rating WMP and Rating Fields

I would like MusicBrainz Picard to clear all old tags except for a few select fields.

All my MP3s have a Rating WMP tag (number from 1 to 5) and my FLACs use the Rating field (number from 0 to 100). I manually enter the chosen fields in the ‘Preserve these tags from being cleared or overwritten with MusicBrainz data:’ and it works for most tags but it ignores my ratings tags and wipes them.

I am using Picard 1.4.2 on Windows 7 x64. Here are my exclusions:

genre, lyrics, rating wmp, rating, Rating WMP, unsyncedlyrics, comment:, RATING

Is this a bug or is my syntax incorrect?

Dou you see the Rating WMP when you load the files into Picard?

No, they don’t appear in the list of fields. It is a standard field and is supported by many players. Even Windows reads the field and displays it as stars in the Rating.

No a tag called “Rating WMP” is not standard. When I read that I thought you meant a tag with that name, but actually you meant “rating as it is written to MP3s by Windows Media Player”.

WMP used the standard POPM tag for this. POPM allows to store multiple ratings by setting a field called e-mail for disambiguation. WMP stores all ratings by writing “Windows Media Player 9 Series” to that field.

Open Picard options and in the ratings settings there is that e-mail field. Set it to “Windows Media Player 9 Series” ( without the quotation marks) and Picard should load the ratings from the MP3s.

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I disagree. Considering WMP 12 (stock media player with Windows 7) writes this field and many programs read and use the field, it is pretty common. When I add an album to the library in WMP 12, I have the option of clicking on the Ratings stars. The corresponding ratings are written to the MP3s in a RATING WMP field (that is how MP3Tag identifies the field). I can also adjust the numbers of the RATING WMP field in MP3Tag and WMP 12 , MediaMonkey, MusicBee, Kodi, etc… will all read and acknowledge the changes. Considering how many programs work with the field, it seems pretty standard to me.

This is getting off topic. I only want to know what syntax I must use to exclude this field from getting cleared, if it’s a bug in the software or if it is a feature that needs to be added.

Please read my answer above beyond the first sentence :wink:

Not that it needs it, but I’ve just verified that MP3Tag does indeed handle Popularimeter tags with an “email” of Windows Media Player 9 Series differently ones with a typical email ID. @jeneral69, if you want to test this yourself, open a file’s extended tags and add a POPULARIMETER field with a value of, say, Windows Media Player 9 Series|204|0. Save, close, and reopen, and it will have become a RATING WMP. Can’t see any difference in the file’s hex, either.

Whether or not that’s a good decision on their part (I personally hate it), I can also verify that Picard doesn’t display the new value. I understand why – the active rating is transferred to the right-click menu – but it might be a good idea to show all POPM fields with an email that’s not the one set in the options in the bottom pane. I know Picard is more of an interface for applying MB data to local files, but it’s also a mostly-complete tag editor. The fact that some rare fields don’t show up at all can seem like a bit of a weird gap. Especially given that there could be real consequences to hiding it (namely, not being able to preserve the field), I’d be inclined to call this a bug and not just a missing feature.

@outsidecontext I did read your suggestion and I tried it in Picard. Sorry for not stating that in my original reply. Unfortunately, your suggestion did not resolve my issue as the field still gets cleared.

@WovenTales I tried your suggestion and MP3Tag stuck a value of 204 in the Rating WMP field. Unfortunately, Picard still doesn’t see the field and wipes it. I know I can script a ratings conversion in MP3Tag but I’m keen to keep my current tags that work well in all my apps. I also tried adding POPM and POPULARIMETER to my preserve list with no success.

I initially thought it was syntax issue on my part but it may be a bug or feature request. ATM I have to uncheck the ‘clear existing tags’ to maintain my existing ratings

There is a plugin in Picard called “Keep tags”. Perhaps this could be used to preserve the tag for you?

Yeah, that demonstration was just to show that, despite how MP3Tag displays them, they use the same underlying field in the file. It doesn’t fix Picard in any way.

My guess is that rating fields are ignored because someone moved the primary display to the context menu (See the stars when you right click? Those map directly to the same underlying field we’re looking for.) but didn’t think about the case where the user/program they’re associated with is not the same one Picard uses to store them. It’s an understandable oversight – “Now that I’ve built a better display for the ratings, I can hide the raw data Picard stores. And since, for every other program I use, I either don’t rate songs or the ratings are stored separately from the files, Picard’s data is the only one I ever see.” – but as you’re saying, it is definitely something that’s missing.