Some vital questions about matroska tags.

[har-vas]

Hello all. Last period, I am using matroska tags to add some extra information in my mkv files. I have made a VideoTags.xml prototype where there are elements like TITLE, GENRE, SYNOPSIS, SUMMARY, DIRECTOR, ACTOR, DATE_ENCODED etc (I use the official elements from the list at www.matroska.org). Then I am just changing their values according to a particular movie and finally I mux this .xml file with mkvmerge (I link the tag file with video track). To access the tag's information, I use Matroska Shell Extension 2.8, but this program is abandoned and also the view of information (especially the bigger values eg the summary of a movie) is comfortless (all text in a single line).
So I want to ask this: Is there any media player which can read this type of information and display it on screen? I have tried with TCMP, VLC and MPC, but I can't access the tag's information. I was hoping that TCMP with CDL plugin v1.81, could read them, but nothing (Media Properties window doesn't show anything). So I tend to tell that the tag's usefulness is not big, despite the amount of information you can add. So I come back to the same question: Is there any program (even no media player) which can display the tag's information in a beautiful way? Thanks.

PS: I don't see any discussions or liveliness in matroska tag's field and I worry about it. It seems that few people really use tags.

[foxyshadis]

MPC will display some of it if you enable the information view (ctrl-3), but it's a rather specific list - mostly title, artist, maybe a few other things. =\ I add information all the time to AMVs, but there are very few tools for aggregating and working with video file tags.

[HeadBangeR77]

Is MediaInfo not capable of displaying at least some of the info in basic mode, and all information in debugging mode (which turns out to be really useful sometimes)?
I don't use any tags, so I don't know for sure, yet it displays all the tags added by encoding programs and muxing tools.

[har-vas]

Hi again and thank you for your answers.
@foxyshadis: MPC can't display information from tags. In the information bar, it just displays the movie title (eg --title switch in mkvmerge), but not the value of TITLE tag. This is something I have already done. Why the tags and the relative (read/write) tools are so popular in music files and so unpopular in video files?
@HeadBangeR77: MediaInfo also can't display tag's information (except the muxing application and libraries which were used, but these are not tags). In debug mode (advanced) it displays much more information, such as chapter names and timecodes, attachment's description, track names etc but again NOT real tags.

Does anyone working on that field? Is there any program or future version which will provide tag's information?

[Haali]

MPC will show at least TITLE/ARTIST/DESCRIPTION/COPYRIGHT tags when used with my splitter.

[unskinnyboy]

MPC will show at least TITLE/ARTIST/DESCRIPTION/COPYRIGHT tags when used with my splitter.Even with your splitter, I haven't been able to display these tags. Actually, it sounds more like an MPC issue to me because nothing happens for me when I enable the Information window. What is the Information window supposed to look like?

[foxyshadis]

http://foxyshadis.slightlydark.com/random/mpctags.png

I get the same tags whether haali's or the mpc internal splitters are used. I have no idea whether they're proper tags or not, they just work, but I'm pretty sure those match TITLE and ARTIST. It'll only show what's there; if there's no tags no lines will be shown.

Okay, maybe they aren't showing up because you're adding track tags instead of global tags? I can't get track tags to show up at all. The global tags also don't show up in MPC's splitter, only the global title and the other properties that are separate from tags. But with Haali's, I get tags in the info box.

Here's what I used, removing any other pre-loaded info in mmg:

<Tags>
<Tag>
<Simple>
<Name>TITLE</Name>
<String>AMV Kamelot</String>
</Simple>
<Simple>
<Name>DESCRIPTION</Name>
<String>:metal:</String>
</Simple>
</Tag>
</Tags>

So it seems to work for global tags with Haali's, at least, which is nice.

[unskinnyboy]

I think I found the SPOF. The XML tag file, unless it's kept very simple (like the one you posted), isn't recognized by Haali's splitter. For example, if you directly edit mkvmerge's example-tags-2.xml and add in TITLE/ARTIST/DESCRIPTION/COPYRIGHT tags, they aren't displayed (which is what I was doing at first - and this, I had tried both ways, global and track). Now, I deleted all the ?xml, !DOCTYPE, <Target> tags and kept it simple & stupid and it worked.
<Tags>
<Tag>
<Simple>
<Name>TITLE</Name><String>Tori Amos</String>
</Simple>
</Tag>
</Tags>

Nested tags also don't work.

<Simple>
<Name>ALBUM</Name><String>Under the Pink</String>
<Simple>
<Name>TITLE</Name><String>Cornflake Girl</String>
</Simple>
</Simple>

The TITLE in the above code doesn't get displayed. Sounds like a long way to go before we get full-fledged tag support.

[har-vas]

Hi there. Indeed when I used the following tag file, muxed in mmg as a global tag file, MPC was able to correctly display the information, since I am using Haali splitter. I remember well that I had already tried this before (I mean muxing a global tag file), but that time I was using the Gabest's splitter and I didn't see anything.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Tags>
<Tag>
<Simple>
<Name>TITLE</Name>
<String>Οι Ιστορίες του Αστυνόμου Μπέκα</String>
</Simple>
<Simple>
<Name>ARTIST</Name>
<String>Ιεροκλής Μιχαηλίδης</String>
</Simple>
<Simple>
<Name>COPYRIGHT</Name>
<String>ALPHA 2007</String>
</Simple>
<Simple>
<Name>DESCRIPTION</Name>
<String>Το παζλ συμπληρώνεται σιγά-σιγά και ο Γιάννης, ρισκάροντας ακόμα και τη ζωή του, φτάνει πια πολύ κοντά στη λύση.</String>
</Simple>
</Tag>
</Tags>
Now things are better and I hope that this support will be extended, either by Haali splitter or by MPC, to include support for even more tag names. I don't know which side is more responsible for that. Anyway, I think that Mosu can include this information about tags in his documentation, because I see that too many people don't know that can use matroska tags effectively.

PS: unskinnyboy, your Firefox extension looks very nice and useful to me, while I hate toolbars in general! Thanks!

[havix]

I've searched high and low and it seems like a big piece of the matroska puzzle is missing without a "proper" tag editor. Has anyone found a solution to this yet? Or some info on how to access the tag information from a programming perspective?

[aLu]

I'm searching for the same thing and the "best" option I've come across was the Matroska Shell Extension (http://www.matroska.org/downloads/shellextension/index.html). It displays extensive file and tag information and allows editing, but unfortunately it's outdated (2004) and doesn't work properly. You can only view one file at a time by right-clicking and choosing "Properties".

There a gazillions ;-) of simple tools around for ID3/MP4 tag editing ... but not for proper viewing in Explorer! Additional columns or the filmstrip view are not the real thing because you never have all the info at one time. There are separate shell extensions for each tag/file type (AVI, MKV, ID3), various splitters give tooltip or status bar info (short, unwanted or with side effects), you can view all tags in the editor (one for each filetype)... it's a headache if you're trying to find something in a large collection ... how about keyword search?

The best IMHO would be a custom Explorer panel similar to the file description in Mac OS (a "panel" on the left side like Folders, Favorites etc.) with a preview image, stream details like in MediaInfo (resolution/fps, type, language), basic tag info (title, description, keywords) and room for at least 3-5 lines of comments (depending on window height or a scoll bar) - one for ALL common video filetypes!

I would even pay for something like that... :D

[Nicholi]

Well the most proper "tag editor" for Matroska would obviously be mkvmerge, and mkvextract to at least get them out. It's not as though you are completely unable to tag Matroska files.

I think rather we need to gather more support for just being able to view them at all in other applications/shells, since tagging them is trivial even with mkvmerge where you have to write the XML file. Though going to #matroska and poking around you might find some better info for reading the tags more "programatically". Tagging them is easily done though I'd say. I still don't think anything nowadays supports viewing them besides the simple Title/Author info in some DShow players as foxyshadis showed.

Edit: I believe Haali's splitter should read the tags if you install with the shell extensions. Or maybe I'm confusing it again with ye olde MatroskaProp.

[flebber]

I have been searching for a way to edit matroska tags as well. There doesn't seem to be a tool as such. However I have found that VLC can edit mkv tags effectively.

Well I think it can I am not exactly sure if it is editing the tags or adding an xml file to the mkv header. vlc uses http://www.xspf.org/ xml.

Looking for any ideas