[PROBLEM] Characters with accents in DTS files

[JST1963]

I have about 2500 DTS tracks in my library (Wav-files).
Some of them have characters with accents, like é, è, ë, à, Ö....
Unfortunately moOde displays them all as "?"
In MP3's or FLAC's they're displayed correctly.

Johan

[swizzle]

If these are older files it’s probably a text encoding issue, have you tried Config > Library > Linrary Options > UTF8 encoding?

[JST1963]

If these are older files it’s probably a text encoding issue, have you tried Config > Library > Linrary Options > UTF8 encoding?

It was set to "No", but even changing it to "yes", clearing cache, rebooting, deleting library tag cache... still have those question marks instead of the special chars...
but like I said, only for wav's, not for MP3's or Flac's

[swizzle]

If these are older files it’s probably a text encoding issue, have you tried Config > Library > Linrary Options > UTF8 encoding?

It was set to "No", but even changing it to "yes", clearing cache, rebooting, deleting library tag cache... still have those question marks instead of the special chars...
but like I said, only for wav's, not for MP3's or Flac's

Your best bet is to zip some of the problem files up and send a link to Tim so he can take a look at it.

[JST1963]

Hope you can get it from here: Two examples

[Tim Curtis]

The dump from MPD database suggests bad data in the tags, possibly from the tagging utility. 

Notice that file: is ok but Artist: is not. 

Code:

pi@rp5:/media $ telnet localhost 6600
Trying ::1...
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
OK MPD 0.20.22
lsinfo "USB/VFAT128/Test_mixed/SpecialCharsInWawFiles/Blue ôyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper.wav"
file: USB/VFAT128/Test_mixed/SpecialCharsInWawFiles/Blue ôyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper.wav
Last-Modified: 2019-05-11T23:24:32Z
Time: 225
duration: 224.700
Artist: Blue ?yster Cult
Album: Compilatie DTS
Title: Don't Fear The Reaper
OK

[JST1963]

Do you have a better MP3 tagging program than MP3Tag. With the latter I always have the same result...

[Tim Curtis]

On my Mac I use iTunes to rip CD's to ALAC and then convert them to FLAC using XLD. I have a couple of albums whose file names and tags contain special characters and the tags display fine. I recall that WAV format is problematic wrt tags but I don't have much experience with that format.

[TheOldPresbyope]

From @Tim Curtis

I recall that WAV format is problematic wrt tags but I don't have much experience with that format.

And therein lies the rub. Different file formats, audio encodings, and metadata schemes are processed by MPD using different plugins written by different folks. It's my suspicion that the files are fine but you've run into a particular code path which isn't UTF-8 compliant.

Regards,
Kent

[TheOldPresbyope]

@JST1963

I just downloaded your sample files.

Here's portions of what mediainfo says for each:

Code:

kreed@T520 ~/Music/SpecialCharactersinWav $ mediainfo Bl*
General
Complete name                            : Blue Щyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper.wav
Format                                   : Wave
File size                                : 37.9 MiB
Duration                                 : 3mn 44s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 1 414 Kbps
Album                                    : Compilatie DTS
Track name                               : Don't Fear The Reaper
Performer                                : Blue Öyster Cult
Original source form/Name                : Compilatie DTS
Cover                                    : Yes
Cover type                               : Cover (front)
Cover MIME                               : image/jpeg
Comment                                  : DTS
...


kreed@T520 ~/Music/SpecialCharactersinWav $ mediainfo Ra*
General
Complete name                            : Raгl OrЙllana - Gypsy Rhythm.wav
Format                                   : Wave
File size                                : 62.8 MiB
Duration                                 : 6mn 13s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 1 413 Kbps
Album                                    : Compilatie DTS
Track name                               : Gypsy Rhythm
Performer                                : Raúl Orellana
Original source form/Name                : Compilatie DTS
Cover                                    : Yes
Cover type                               : Cover (front)
Cover MIME                               : image/jpeg
Comment                                  : DTS
...

In both cases, non-ASCII characters appear in the Performer (e.g., Artist) field. What's curious is that in both cases the encoding of the performer's name in the file name and in the performer field differs. 

I dumped the mediainfo output through od -c to get the encoding values. What's in the performer field is proper UTF-8 for the characters involved. What's in the file name is weird. (By the way, the third character in the file name is not ASCII "r" but an upper page UTF-8 character) 

I don't know what to conclude from this quick peek. 

UPDATE: I got so wrapped up in the filename curiosity that I forgot why I was doing this.

It would seem your Artist fields contain properly encoded UTF-8 characters and MPD isn't dealing with them correctly. This seems to confirm my original conjecture.

Regards,
Kent