Field names

This page describes a proposed update to the minimal list of 15 standard field names in the Vorbis I specification. Please keep discussion confined to the Discussion page (or, better, the <vorbis-dev> mailing list).

After the proposal has been discussed, and accepted or rejected, this page should be deleted.

Analysis

To determine what field names are being used in the wild, the following resources were analysed:

• Reactor Core proposal
• Carnival of Technology proposal
• Proposals on the XiphWiki VorbisComment page
• OggImporter to Spotlight
• EasyTAG tagging program (routine "ogg_tag.c" in the source code)
• Mp3tag tagging program (post in the Mp3tag Forum)

The analysis has been presented as an Excel spreadsheet (note that it contains two sheets).

Proposal

The following modest list of additions to the minimal list in the specification is proposed:

1. COMPOSER
2. TRACKTOTAL – compliments the existing TRACKNUMBER
3. DISCNUMBER – used if part of a multi-disc album
4. DISCTOTAL – total number of discs in a multi-disc album
5. SOURCEMEDIA – recommended because two different field names have been proposed
6. ENCODED-BY – see VorbisComment page
7. ENCODER – see VorbisComment page
8. METADATA_BLOCK_PICTURE – see VorbisComment page

The field name SOURCEMEDIA could be dropped if Xiph does not wish to prescribe field names. (The alternative which has been proposed to store this information is SOURCE MEDIUM.)

There are also two proposals for a field name to store barcodes, PRODUCTNUMBER and EAN/UPN. If Xiph does wish to prescribe field names then PRODUCTNUMBER could be included. It is not included only because storing barcodes is thought to be esoteric.

The triple RIGHTS, RIGHTS-DATE, RIGHTS-URI has not been included because this is structured metadata. VorbisComments are inherently unstructured and this should be respected.

The field name REMIXER is not proposed as its use is covered by the existing VERSION.