How do I write iTunes metadata to ID3 in the files?

Gary King said:

Seems like the data that I put for songs in iTunes aren't actually in the mp3s that I have - they are only in iTunes.

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You sure? That's not my experience on Mac or PC. A couple of caveats.

1) If you're using AAC/M4A instead of MP3, the tags are stored in a different format
2) iTunes seems to use the ID3 format, which could be ID3V1 that came with the MP3 unless you use the Advanced functions to update to ID3V2 format

Have you checcked both the beginning and end of the files for the tags? ID3V1 are stored at the top of the file, while ID3V2 are at the end. If you've got ID3V1, use iTunes to convert to ID3V2 before using MusicBrainz.

Last have you looked at iEatBrainz? http://indyjt.com/software/

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Gary King said:

Is there anything I should check?

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Only thing I could guess is that this file may have more than one set of tags, and one set is empty.

I haven't used Winamp in ages, but can you tag it in Winamp and then see what iTunes makes of it.

On XP my favorite MP3 tagging tool is Tag & Rename. It has a pretty sure fire "remove all tags" feature that I have used on occasion where tags got FUBAR. You could try the trial version and see if you can clean up this one file, tag it again and move on...

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Gary King said:

Anyways, it seems as though the way iTunes adds ID3 tags is not always conforming to standards, like Winamp typically does.

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I seem to recall some problems with the way iTunes handles ID3V1. I've had no issues since I started converting to ID3V2 before importing to iTunes.

ID3V1 is an abomination which never really was implemented well and should be eliminated anyhow.

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