So, I’ve been messing around with WAV and FLAC lately and it came to my attention that the WAV codec supports metadata. I’ve noticed that other media players such as Foobar2000, and VLC Media Player can detect the metadata, specifically this case in particular, album artwork, but Windows Media Player does not detect the album artwork for WAV files.
I was just wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue with Windows Media Player and if Windows Media Player is to blame, or if it’s an issue that’s just on my end.
From what I can see, the MediaPlayer in Win10 displays album cover and other information for mp3´s. Can´t check for WAV right now, but I would imagine it works for those too.
Just tested with iTunes, and iTunes is also not able to detect/pickup/show the album artwork attached to WAV files. I really don’t understand why this is the case.
I still want to make sure that the issue is not just/only on my end though.
Last thing I remember is that it displays the most basic information (artist, title, album), but nothing beyond that because wav is kind of a dead format (for most consumer listening at least).
If you’re already playing around with FLAC, might I ask why you don’t just go for that?
That just seems like a very lightweight response. “because WAV is a dead format” therefore, the media player won’t display this information. WAV has been around since 1991. I doubt they would have integrated it in such a way “because it’s a dead format”.
I do/am, but there’s limitations. I’m not running Windows 10, and in Windows 7 the media players that support FLAC act strange. I’m trying to get WAV working at the moment for compatibility.
So I did quite a lot of digging and I got some results, but nothing that seems to turn the tables (for WAV files anyway).
I went looking through Windows Media Player 11 on a Windows Vista Virtual Machine install specifically for the Advanced Tag Editor (A feature that Microsoft made for editing metadata for audio files). I tested myself to see if this feature would work for editing the metadata for WAV files and unfortunately the options are completely grayed out. So from this, I assume that Windows Media Player has been designed this way for quite a while, maybe from the ground up (I don’t know).
I know for sure that the Advanced Tag Editor works for other files as well, such as MP3. It just for some reason won’t work for WAV. Notice in the following pictures that the options are not grayed out, as opposed/in comparison to the pictures above.
I also noticed that in later versions of Windows Media Player, options to add lyrics, synchronized lyrics, pictures, etc… for manual entry have all been removed as options. So, previous versions of Windows Media Player may not effect WAV files, but they do seem to take effect to other files such as MP3, as you can not edit them in depth as natively anymore using later versions. Quite a shame.
So in summary, from this, I guess the best bet would be to just use reliable 3rd party applications and programs as alternative methods to edit audio file tags.
I consider this thread/problem resolved at this point, though if anyone has proof showing otherwise that: Windows Media Player can in fact edit/detect metadata for WAV files (specifically in this case - album artwork), feel free to post. From my digging, I’m concluding that it doesn’t appear to be an option.
I’ll try to save the day. AIFF is Apple’s WAV clone. It accomodates information like the Rich Metadata you mention for allowing external applications to see images, links, etc etc.
You can add Rich Metadata to a WAV, but then you need your program that plays it to support said metadata types and look for it in the WAV file. Because of what’s considered standard and necessary you’d probably need an addon to be seeing it.
AIFF works, and is of a good enough quality to definitely enjoy music. I don’t know if it’s audiophile grade but it sounds good to me in my not completely bad headset.
Well, if it’s designed that way that’s not exactly my fault.
Very few people have been using WAV for audio storage for a long time. Most casuals will use MP3s since they’re basically supported everywhere. The enthusiasts have been using alternative lossless formats for a long time.
In addition to that the metadata in WAV was never standardised as far as I know. Yes you can attach any kind of metadata to WAV files, but if and what is read depends on the player. And there we are again, WMP is not designed to look for them because very few people even use them to make it worthwile.
You can try WMP Plus and/or WMP Tag Plus and see if that helps you. It doesn’t list WAV specifically, but I had good success getting non-native formats to run with WMP. Until I stopped using WMP at least.
See the links above I haven’t used Win 7 in ages, but it worked for Win 8 and Win 10 at least. You only need the DirectShow filters for the playback, the plugin is just for the tag support.
The post suggests alternatives, yes. It also answers a question posted that specifically relates to itunes and why wav metadata isn’t parsed in any useful manner.
Generally wav metadata consists of a broadcast wav header for things like track names (multichannel wav is a thing, but useless in consumer hardware which expects an encoded bitstream for surround), markers, and timecode; not really useful for consumer stuff. If you want to add some you can use wave agent
But again this particular standard is probably mostly useless if you are just looking to tag music. I don’t doubt there are other implementations, and you can get an image on there in some software.
As far as AIFF, it’s exactly the same as wav. No bwav header, so a conversion will drop the metadata but both are linear PCM at any specified sample rate/bit depth.
Honestly FLAC is a good format when it’s well-supported (lossless quality but significantly smaller size). The problem I always had with it was not having codecs, especially on smaller devices like an ipod. I imagine it’s quite a lot more ubiquitous these days.
Fyi if you’re ever curious about what’s being taken out by compression, get a lossless file, encode a copy to whichever lossy format and back to wav, then drop them in a daw (audacity should work) together and flip the phase on one of them.
You can use ALAC instead if you’re concerned about iPods or iTunes in general. It’s also lossless, but the compression is less then FLAC. I’ve used it for a while when I used my GFs iPod.
But honestly, not sure if it’s even worth putting lossless on a mobile device… But to each their own.
I haven’t used Win 7 in ages, but it worked for Win 8 and Win 10 at least. You only need the DirectShow filters for the playback, the plugin is just for the tag support.