Efficiently Reading ID3v2 Tags Over HTTP?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday May 18, 2004 @02:11AM from the can-we-not-swallow-the-whole-file dept.

Paul Crowley asks: "Given an HTTP URL for an MP3 file, what's the best way to read its ID3 tags on a GNU/Linux system? It shouldn't be necessary to fetch the whole file: HTTP byteranges should make it possible to fetch only the tiny fraction that's needed, for a big saving in network bandwidth. However, existing ID3v2 libraries are designed to read local files. Extending these libraries for this purpose, or implementing a new one, would be a big job. What's the clean solution - is FUSE the best way, or is there a simpler way that doesn't require root privs? Can I do it using the existing id3lib binary?"

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Not really answering your question.. by Joseph+Vigneau · 2004-05-18 02:16 · Score: -1, Redundant

...but it may make sense to have your application use a file format that has the metadata near the beginning of the bitstream, such as Vorbis or FLAC. Either that, or a mechanism for the next version of ID3 that will allow the metadata up front, or at least an index that tells a parser where the metadata starts, while not breaking existing MP3 decoding software.