A field of meta-data in MP3 and MP3pro audio files. The tags describe the contents, including song title, artist, album, year, comment, CD track and genre. ID3 tags are used for searching as well as displaying the title being played. In many cases, ID3 tags are not filled in or are erroneous, and an "ID3 tagger" utility, also called an "audio tagger" or "MP3 tagger," can be used to update them.
Other than MP3
Although often erroneously called ID3 tags, other audio files (AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) have their own meta-data tag format, but hold the same kinds of data. See music search and MusicBrainz.
Why Was This Missing?
Music CDs evolved from phonograph records that contained only sound waves "carved" into the vinyl platters. Although reserving a few thousand bytes out of 650 million would have been easy, nobody envisioned playing a CD on the computer. Early CD players had only a few digits of display, which is why track number and length were the only meta-data in a CD; however, more description fields were later added (see CD Text).
ID3 Format
Version 2 of the format (ID3v2) supports variable-length fields that hold titles of any length as well as the album cover image. The tags are at the beginning of the file so that song information can be displayed at the start for streaming audio.
The original version of the format located the data in the last 128 bytes of the file and was limited to 30-byte text fields, a 4-byte year and 1-byte genre (80 categories). Version 1.1 (ID3v1.1) added CD track number. For more information, visit www.id3.org. See music CD identification, music search, metadata and streaming audio.
Other than MP3
Although often erroneously called ID3 tags, other audio files (AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, etc.) have their own meta-data tag format, but hold the same kinds of data. See music search and MusicBrainz.
Why Was This Missing?
Music CDs evolved from phonograph records that contained only sound waves "carved" into the vinyl platters. Although reserving a few thousand bytes out of 650 million would have been easy, nobody envisioned playing a CD on the computer. Early CD players had only a few digits of display, which is why track number and length were the only meta-data in a CD; however, more description fields were later added (see CD Text).
ID3 Format
Version 2 of the format (ID3v2) supports variable-length fields that hold titles of any length as well as the album cover image. The tags are at the beginning of the file so that song information can be displayed at the start for streaming audio.
The original version of the format located the data in the last 128 bytes of the file and was limited to 30-byte text fields, a 4-byte year and 1-byte genre (80 categories). Version 1.1 (ID3v1.1) added CD track number. For more information, visit www.id3.org. See music CD identification, music search, metadata and streaming audio.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
- AD Sound Recorder 4.6.1 (Windows)
- AD Sound Recorder is a sound recording program. It can record all audio from your sound card into MP3, WMA or WAV format. Real-time sound visualizations enables you to adjust your audio source and make high quality recordings. AD Sound Recorder features include hot switching of the working audio source,...
- Software downloads 2009-11-23
- EJukebox 5.01 (Windows)
- EJukebox merges your audio and video files with optional youtube results in a fast database with a customizable interface. You can search, list, queue and play your music and videos. It automatically finds album art for your songs and can import your CD collection. It lets you set criteria for...
- Software downloads 2009-11-23
- Nexus Radio 4.2 (Windows)
- Nexus Radio is a free all-in-one application for all of your music needs. Search and download over 15 million songs directly to your PC, or listen to and record over 11,000+ radio stations free of charge. You can play downloaded songs directly within Nexus Radio, or transfer songs to your...
- Software downloads 2009-11-20
- MeaMod Playme 0.9.6.3 (Windows)
- MeaMod Playme is a open source media player for windows with the ability to most media formats. ID3 tag support with album art. Windows Live Messenger I'm listening to. Lyrics fetch support. VideoChoice music video lookup. Application add-ons. Application Options. Enhanced Audio Control. Notification Area Remote with minimize to notification...
- Software downloads 2009-11-20
- FoxTag Editor 1.5 (Windows)
- When you have large music collections you might also have a problem managing them. This amazing piece of code is just the right thing for you, unless you do like having a genuine chaos in your files and folders and not finding your way among them. FoxTag Editor is a...
- Software downloads 2009-11-19
- Zortam MP3 Media Studio 10.0 (Windows)
- Zortam MP3 Media Studio is all-in-one MP3 application that contains MP3 organizer for searching and cataloging MP3 files into MP3 library, editing ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 tags (ID3 Tag Editor) converting audio CD to MP3 and WAV format CD Ripper using CDDB Internet Compact Disc Database, with support for ID3v1 and...
- Software downloads 2009-11-17
- Xilisoft Audio Converter 2.1.78.1113 (Windows)
- Xilisoft Audio Converter is a powerful MP3/MP4/WAV Converter. It can convert between many popular audio formats, such as MP3, WAV, WMA, MP4, M4A, MP2, VQF, APE, OGG, AAC, and FLAC. In addition, you can use it to convert video format including AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF to all popular audio files....
- Software downloads 2009-11-16
- Fast DVD Converter 5.9 (Windows)
- Fast DVD Converter is a powerful and easy-to-use software that lets you convert and backup DVD to VCD, SVCD, AVI, DivX, and XviD formats. You are able to extract or convert DVD audio to WAV, and MP3 formats with defining ID3 tag which is playable on any portable MP3 player....
- Software downloads 2009-11-12
- Mp3 Tag Assistant 2.93 (Windows)
- Mp3 Tag Assistant is the organizer for your audio collection. It's tag editor with manual or automatic filling of the tags, playlist creator. Mp3 Tag Assistant can show, change or clear the ID3 tags and APE tags, Vorbis comments, WMA and iTunes metadata in audio files of MP3, M4A, WMA,...
- Software downloads 2009-11-09
- MP3 Converter 4.2.180 (Windows)
- Convert RM, RMVB, WMV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, and QT to MP3, WAV, AVI, WMA, and OGG. Edit MP3 ID3 v1/v2 tag info. Multiple OGG compressor Vorbis, FLAC, Speex, and Theora. Sample rate (48K, 44.1K, 32K, 22K, 16K, and 8K), stereo/mono and bit rate (8KB-320KB). Also you can convert a selected...
- Software downloads 2009-11-09
- MIDI to MP3 Converter 6.2 (Mac)
- There are many situations when you may need to convert MIDI to MP3 or WAV. MIDI files are very small, but they don't contain any audio data. Thus you cannot burn them to Audio CD directly, or play them with your MP3 player. That's where MIDI to MP3 Converter becomes...
- Software downloads 2009-11-08
- CD Storage Master 7.0.5 (Windows)
- CD Storage Master is a professional CD catalog/CD database software, Manage your CD/DVD collection for all windows platforms. CD Storage Master can load not only file name, size, create time, modify time but also metadata of file (such as MP3 ID3 Tag, image file width, height and color, Microsoft Office...
- Software downloads 2009-11-08
- ID3 Editor 1.13.9 (Mac)
- ID3 Editor is a small and simple MP3 tag editor, which offers the ability to edit the most wanted attributes of the ID3 tags in one window. Although iTunes offers a good interface for editing tags, it does have a few important attributes missing, e.g. 'copyright' and 'encoded by' which...
- Software downloads 2009-11-04
- Zortam Mp3 Center 1.10 (Windows)
- Zortam Mp3 Center is all-in-one Mp3 applications. It includes Auto Tagger that gets covers,lyrics and other tag information from Zortam database, MP3 Organizer, ID3 Tag Editor, Mp3 Player, CD Ripper, Wav/Mp3 Converter, Mp3 Normalizer. In addition you can batch rename files using ID3 info, synchronize ID3 tags. Zortam Mp3 Center...
- Software downloads 2009-10-30
- Arial CD Ripper 1.9.7 (Windows)
- Arial CD Ripper is a tool for CD grabbing and audio conversion. It can extract all your favorite CDs to MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC, and APE files. You can convert a track and a whole CD without losing audio quality. Arial CD Ripper also can convert most of the popular...
- Software downloads 2009-10-21
- KingConvert Audio Converter 5.0.0.6 (Windows)
- Kingconvert Audio Encoder gives you completed ways to convert audio files such as MP4, MP3, WMA, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, APE, MP2, VQF. The audio converter is also an MP4 to MP3 and M4A to MP3 converter to convert MP4 to MP3 and M4A to MP3 with high quality. The...
- Software downloads 2009-10-21
- Free Mp3/Wma/Ogg Converter 7.0.1 (Windows)
- FreeMp3/Wma/Ogg Converter Converter offers easy, completed ways to convert popular audio file formats to MP3, WMA. Beside converting WMA to MP3, MP3 to WMA, the software also supports converting WAV, OGG. It provides optimized default settings. No more thinking but just a click to start WMA to MP3 conversion with...
- Software downloads 2009-10-19
- 2010 BMW 650i Convertible
- Every year we look forward to an updated BMW 6-series, and every year BMW tweaks a few things, but neglects the exterior design. We reviewed a 2009 BMW 650i Convertible earlier this year, and found the 2010 model to be much the same car. The new BMW 650i Convertible uses...
- Product reviews 2009-10-09
- Audio Workstation 6.4.2.4 (Windows)
- Audio Workstation is a complete toolkit for all your audio files. It enables you to convert your audio files between all audio formats, grab CD audio to any format with free CDDB album info service, find album covers for CD and MP3 files, edit all audio formats, add effects, normalize,...
- Software downloads 2009-09-30
- iSofter YouTube to MP3 Professional 3.8.927 (Windows)
- iSofter YouTube to MP3 Professional - download MP3 from complete YouTube playlists, a selected YouTube user or a channel, support batch and schedule mode. No extra codecs or scripts needed. More information: http://youtubetomp3.isofter.com/ Key Features : * Download MP3 from collections of videos download youtube videos by category, complete playlists,...
- Software downloads 2009-09-28
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