-->> Shark's website <<--

Shark's Help Forum

Search
  Create an account  
Problems with properties display for certain file types

#1
Hi Xanashi,

I've just discovered this amazing Icaros software (after having used Media Preview Configuration for many years). There are a small handful of solutions to fix the Explorer missing thumbnails issue, but there are far fewer solutions for displaying file metadata properties in Explorer, so I was really excited to see this feature was included in Icaros.

However, I have noticed a few issues with regards to file format support. Some well-known major file formats are missing , while others are included, but they don't display any info in Explorer when Icaros Properties is activated for those file types. I understand it's not worth supporting rare and obscure file formats, but the ones listed below are very common and well used.

Missing file types:

.oga (Ogg Audio)
.mov (Quicktime Movie)
.aif /.aiff (Audio Interchange File Format)
.aifc (Audio Interchange File compressed)

Icaros already has the video specific versions of ogg (ogv - ogg video and ogm - ogg media) but yet it does not have the audio counterpart (oga - ogg audio) which is used much more often than the video variants.

It would also be good if you could include the audio and video specific versions of webm too (i.e. webma and webmv) seeing as webm is already included in Icaros.

The same applies to the audio and video specific versions of MP4 (m4a, mp4a and m4v, mp4v) which are also missing from Icaros, and therefore don't display properties even though they are based on the same MP4 file format.

I noticed that .wma and .wmv is not included in Icaros either, but maybe this is by design, seeing as wma/wmv are built-in Windows formats. Nevertheless, it might still be useful to include them so that they can be used to fix broken wma / wmv thumbnail and property associations that have become messed up by various media player installs. It also simplifies things by keeping all major file types managed in once place.


File type included but not working:

webm (shows no properties)
ogv (shows no properties)
flv (shows bitrate of 0kbps, and no other properties)
wav (shows bitrate correctly, but all other metadata is missing - e.g. title, comment etc.)


I tested using both Icaros v3.1.0 and v3.2.0 beta 1, and got the same result.

Running the Properties via Explorer debug test on the beta version shows an x beside the file formats listed above (despite the fact that webm, ogv, flv and wav are all included formats in Icaros).

Other than the issues that I have described above, Icaros is working great for me. For example, formats like WavPack (.wv) and flac display their properties perfectly in Explorer when enabled in Icaros.

I do hope that it will be possible for you to fix the issues that I have outlined above.

Thanks again for your hard work on this great product.
Reply

#2
Hi Lem,

Let's see if I can answer all your questions here:


Quote:Missing file types:

.oga (Ogg Audio)
.mov (Quicktime Movie)
.aif /.aiff (Audio Interchange File Format)
.aifc (Audio Interchange File compressed)

All the property formats that are supported in Icaros are implemented by me to optimize performance, but this also has the disadvantage, that a lot of formats 

does not have property support in Icaros, even though they do have thumbnailing support. 

I haven't looked into aif/aiff or aifc at all. I'll at them to the todo list and see how hard they would be to add.


Quote:Icaros already has the video specific versions of ogg (ogv - ogg video and ogm - ogg media) but yet it does not have the audio counterpart ([/color]oga - ogg audio) which is used much more often than the video variants.

I'll add oga to the next version of Icaros, that shouldn't be a problem.


Quote:It would also be good if you could include the audio and video specific versions of webm too (i.e. webma and webmv) seeing as webm is already included in Icaros.

I can add these too. Never seen these formats in the wild, so I actually didn't know about them!


Quote:The same applies to the audio and video specific versions of MP4 (m4amp4a and m4vmp4v) which are also missing from Icaros, and therefore don't display properties even though they are based on the same MP4 file format.

MP4/MOV properties are not yet supported in Icaros, but I'm working on it!
What you're seeing in Explorer right now is just properties from the default Windows Property Handler.


Quote:I noticed that .wma and .wmv is not included in Icaros either, but maybe this is by design, seeing as wma/wmv are built-in Windows formats. Nevertheless, it might still be useful to include them so that they can be used to fix broken wma / wmv thumbnail and property associations that have become messed up by various media player installs. It also simplifies things by keeping all major file types managed in once place.

WMA and WMV thumbnailing should already be possible, you just have to drop these files on the thumbnailing page and thus add them to Icaros.
I haven't looked into properties for these formats yet, so I can look into that as well, later down the road.


Quote:File type included but not working:

webm (shows no properties)
ogv (shows no properties)
flv (shows bitrate of 0kbps, and no other properties)
wav (shows bitrate correctly, but all other metadata is missing - e.g. title, comment etc.)

If you have files that should work with Icaros but doesn't, please send them (or a sample of them) to me, so I can investigate and fix any potential issues in Icaros.


Quote:I tested using both Icaros v3.1.0 and v3.2.0 beta 1, and got the same result. 

Running the Properties via Explorer debug test on the beta version shows an x beside the file formats listed above (despite the fact that webm, ogv, flv and wav are all included formats in Icaros).

If they return an X, that means the extraction of properties failed, either because of an error, or because the file format simple isn't supported. (Could be an invalidly encoded file or perhaps a file with a wrong extension).


Quote:Other than the issues that I have described above, Icaros is working great for me. For example, formats like WavPack (.wv) and flac display their properties perfectly in Explorer when enabled in Icaros.

I do hope that it will be possible for you to fix the issues that I have outlined above.

Thanks again for your hard work on this great product.

Very glad to hear it! Appreciate the kind words! <3
Reply

#3
Hi Xanashi,

Just over a year ago I posted about some missing format compatibility in Icaros.

You kindly replied saying that you would add .oga (ogg audio) support "in the next version", but today I downloaded and tested the latest version (v3.2.1) and ogg audio properties are unfortunately still not working (see the attached screenshot below).

   

Seeing as how the ogg extension is often used for video, treating both oga and ogg as the same thing is not desirable. Ideally oga should have its own separate setting in Icaros > Properties > Audio so that the user can adjust settings for their music and video files separately and not be forced to have to apply the same settings to both. As I mentioned previously, this should be trivial to add because all of the work has already been done in Icaros for ogg (which works fine) so the exact same functionality just needs to be duplicated for the oga file extension, no other changes are needed.

You did also say that you'd look into adding aif/aiff metadata support, but I understand that this may take longer because there's no similar format already included in Icaros (so there's no existing compatibility to use as a starting point). However, the aiff format is used in many software applications and is also supplied by a lot of music sellers (especially places selling tracks for DJs). It's widely used because it's a more universal non OS-specific version of .wav that allows embedding of album art and has full metadata capability. So I do think it would be a very useful format to include in Icaros.

I don't seem to recall seeing an option for .mka (matroska audio) the last time that I checked Icaros, but I was absolutely delighted to see this included in v3.2.1. Unfortunately this does not work either (see the same screenshot above). Again, this should be an easy fix because Icaros already supports matroska, and .mka files are exactly the same as .mkv, just with a different extension so that they can be treated separately from video files (to associate them with different players etc.).

I understand that adding many formats can a lot of work, and if the formats are obscure or niche then it may not be worth the effort, but two of the three formats that I mentioned above are already implemented in Icaros, they just don't happen to work with the audio file extension of the format (.oga, .mka). Which just leaves one new format (aiff / aif) that would be really useful to have added to Icaros.

The other format issues that I mentioned in my first post from last year are more minor (for lesser used formats) so they are not as important.

Thank you for reading this. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to feedback from users.

LEM

P.S. I have attached some very small sample files to this post (.oga, .mka, .aiff) in case you find them useful for testing their metadata display.


Attached Files
.zip   Audio format samples.zip (Size: 984.12 KB / Downloads: 219)
Reply





Users browsing this thread:
1 Guest(s)