[Vorbis] 2nd attempt - Repairing vorbis files

[Gan Uesli Starling]

xiphmont at xiph.org wrote:
>> thanks for your answer, BUT I want my oggs to be playble by ANY player,
>> including WinAmp.
> 
> The most common reason Ogg files become 'corrupt' is some program
> sticking an ID3 tag into them.  This is and was always invalid, but
> several program authors insisted on doing it anyway...
> 
> Of course, we don't know yet that was the problem. 

FYI about that...

Know that I have never encountered a single problem from inserting ID3
tags into Ogg Vorbis files. I have done this confidently for about three
years.

I am not disputing that ID3 may be out-of-spec for Ogg Vorbis. But
I thought it might be helpful to share my well-founded confidence
in the harmlessness of one method of adding ID3 tags to Ogg Vorbis files. 
Although I may have stumbled upon it by accident, the way I do so has
proven 100% safe with a sampling of many thousands of iterations.

Know that I have been doing this for several years totalling uncounted
thousands of Ogg files. My method is converting audio books to Ogg Vorbis
via CD Paranoia and then writing ID3 tags via EasyTag 1.1 on NetBSD OS.
It should certainly work as well for any kind of Linux.

Nor do I have any problem whatsoever to play them via WinAmp on Win2K,
nor yet via XMMS on NetBSD nor yet on my Cowon IAudio5 MP3 portable
device.

I have done this for maybe a couple hundred audio books, most of them
being regular CDROMs but some few being MP3 CDROMs. Those books have run
anywhere from 50 to 100 files per CDROM for MP3 CDROMs, or one huge file
per CDROM for audio books of from 5 to 25 CDROMs per book. So, all total,
thousands upon thousands of Ogg Vorbis files, all of them with ID3 tags
via EasyTag 1.1 and not a single corrupt file among them.

The only trouble I ever get is from CD Paranoia not liking about one in
twenty CDROMs...just won't read them at all. Those I play out in real
time into a SoundBlaster card and Oggify them via Audacity. Then add the
ID3 tags via EasyTag 1.1.

The purpose of my doing so is to simply keep an advance que of audio
books to listen to on my Cowon IAudio5 player during my daily commute
to and from work 65 miles away. I keep them on my HD and sample them
(via XMMS if it is the NetBSD box or on WinAmp if it is the Win2K box)
to choose which among my forward que of rented audio books I care to
download for the next commute. XMMS and WinAmp display the ID3 tags or
else I'd have to rely on titles. So it never occurred to me that I
should not write ID3 tags. They also make it more convenient to see
which chapter I am on in the display of the Cowon IAudio5 device.

The files will be wiped from my HD after listening to the book on my
IAudio5 so as to make space on the HD for yet new books...an average
of 30MB per CDROM for ordinary audio books. Or maybe I will keep a few
if I expect I'll want to listen to that same book again.

That way also, if a given book turns out to be dull, I can just quit
that one and que up the next. Always maintaining a forward que of two
or three books on my HD means never having to make an emergency run to
the audio book rental store. I can, instead, just make a habit of only
popping in there on Saturdays. It has proven immensely convenient. I
could not possibly bear the daily drive otherwise.

Anyway, that is how it has worked out for me.

Hope this helps,

Gan