Thai Font In Id3 Tags And Windows Explorer In Xp

[steffi]

So I've installed the language support for Thai via regional options in XP but when I look at some thai mp3's they thai script still displays as garbage.

Now I know that these are encoded using the Windows Thai charset because i've used id3conv to convert them to unicode so they show up correctly in iTunes.

Why can't Windows Explorer display them correctly if I've setup thai fonts correctly in XP. You only have to click the checkbox for Thai right to install the language/font support? I would then expect XP to be able to display these correctly.

[Veazer]

So I've installed the language support for Thai via regional options in XP but when I look at some thai mp3's they thai script still displays as garbage.

Now I know that these are encoded using the Windows Thai charset because i've used id3conv to convert them to unicode so they show up correctly in iTunes.

Why can't Windows Explorer display them correctly if I've setup thai fonts correctly in XP. You only have to click the checkbox for Thai right to install the language/font support? I would then expect XP to be able to display these correctly.

Are you seeing squares instead of characters or garbled text? If squares, it's likely that the font used to show titles in your media player doesn't have thai characters. Many apps use whatever font has been selected as the desktop icon font. Try changing to Tahoma, Microsoft Sans Serif (not MS Sans Serif) or another font with thai script. Arial & Verdana do not have thai characters.

You can check if a font has unicode thai characters by loading 'charmap.exe' and changing the character set to "Windows: Thai" under "Advanced View". If you don't see thai characters on this setting, the font doesn't have unicode support for them. If you see thai characters before specifying thai characters but not after then you have an older TIS-620 font.

[steffi]

FYI I'm seeing garbled text. Not Squares. That's what I'd see on my ipod for these tracks but these tracks aren't for my ipod. I'll try changing the desktop font later. I'm guessing that's what Explorer in XP uses.

So I've installed the language support for Thai via regional options in XP but when I look at some thai mp3's they thai script still displays as garbage.

Now I know that these are encoded using the Windows Thai charset because i've used id3conv to convert them to unicode so they show up correctly in iTunes.

Why can't Windows Explorer display them correctly if I've setup thai fonts correctly in XP. You only have to click the checkbox for Thai right to install the language/font support? I would then expect XP to be able to display these correctly.

Are you seeing squares instead of characters or garbled text? If squares, it's likely that the font used to show titles in your media player doesn't have thai characters. Many apps use whatever font has been selected as the desktop icon font. Try changing to Tahoma, Microsoft Sans Serif (not MS Sans Serif) or another font with thai script. Arial & Verdana do not have thai characters.

You can check if a font has unicode thai characters by loading 'charmap.exe' and changing the character set to "Windows: Thai" under "Advanced View". If you don't see thai characters on this setting, the font doesn't have unicode support for them. If you see thai characters before specifying thai characters but not after then you have an older TIS-620 font.

[keemble]

did you add thai language on the text services and input languages dialog?

[steffi]

Yes I did but I don't think that made any difference. I'm not sure but do I have to switch language context when I know I want to display Thai characters?

did you add thai language on the text services and input languages dialog?

[Veazer]

FYI I'm seeing garbled text. Not Squares. That's what I'd see on my ipod for these tracks but these tracks aren't for my ipod. I'll try changing the desktop font later. I'm guessing that's what Explorer in XP uses.

Don't bother changing the font, if you're seeing garbled letters than the font is probably not the issue. BTW, exactly where are you seeing garbled letters - in the filename or the actual ID3 tag or both? Remember that ID3conv converts tags to unicode, not filenames.

Try this test..

• Download and run 'XTIS620.exe' from HERE.
  
• Copy some of the garbled text and paste it into that app.
  
• Press '--> Unicode'
  
• Highlight and copy the result* and paste it into MS Word, etc. If you see proper thai text then the original garbled text is still TIS-620 format.
  

*For reasons I will never understand, the author of this app seems to have chosen Arial as the working font for this app and thus it can't display thai characters...

Another way to test would be to change the font used to display the tags or filenames to a TIS620 font such as THIS. Likewise, if they display properly with that font then the text is still TIS620 and not unicode.

It could also be the 'wrong' ID3 tag version. Not all ID3v2 tag versions are supported in some apps.

[steffi]

Hi, nothing to do with id3conv. It already did a good job of converting this rubbish to unicode so that it would display correctly in Mac iTunes.

Seeing the garbaged text in the columns for Artist etc in File Explorer in XP. Not seeing anything garbled in the filename. That's all 7bit chars.

I'm sure sometimes Thai install of Windows will work as they will have everything setup for Thai but the normal western version with asian fonts doesn't work. These would have originated on a machine that was setup for a Thai. ie. the id3tags would have been populated on a machine setup for Thai.

FYI I'm seeing garbled text. Not Squares. That's what I'd see on my ipod for these tracks but these tracks aren't for my ipod. I'll try changing the desktop font later. I'm guessing that's what Explorer in XP uses.

Don't bother changing the font, if you're seeing garbled letters than the font is probably not the issue. BTW, exactly where are you seeing garbled letters - in the filename or the actual ID3 tag or both? Remember that ID3conv converts tags to unicode, not filenames.

Try this test..

• Download and run 'XTIS620.exe' from HERE.
  
• Copy some of the garbled text and paste it into that app.
  
• Press '--> Unicode'
  
• Highlight and copy the result* and paste it into MS Word, etc. If you see proper thai text then the original garbled text is still TIS-620 format.
  

*For reasons I will never understand, the author of this app seems to have chosen Arial as the working font for this app and thus it can't display thai characters...

Another way to test would be to change the font used to display the tags or filenames to a TIS620 font such as THIS. Likewise, if they display properly with that font then the text is still TIS620 and not unicode.

It could also be the 'wrong' ID3 tag version. Not all ID3v2 tag versions are supported in some apps.

[Veazer]

Hi, nothing to do with id3conv. It already did a good job of converting this rubbish to unicode so that it would display correctly in Mac iTunes.

Seeing the garbaged text in the columns for Artist etc in File Explorer in XP. Not seeing anything garbled in the filename. That's all 7bit chars.

I'm sure sometimes Thai install of Windows will work as they will have everything setup for Thai but the normal western version with asian fonts doesn't work. These would have originated on a machine that was setup for a Thai. ie. the id3tags would have been populated on a machine setup for Thai.

It may well be a version of ID3 tags that windows doens't play well with. Try using MP3tag to save a different version of ID3v2 tags to your file (2.2, 2.3, 2.4) and see if there are any that windows likes.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

Sorry to dig up this topic, but I got something to add. Garbled Thai characters in MP3 tags happen on other systems as well, not just Windows XP. It's quite common when you obtain mp3's from some (web based) sources that you get a proper file name, but when playing in your MP3 player the artist for example shows up as "¤ÃÔʵԹèÒ ÍÒ¡ÕÅèÒÃ" (I.e. regular Latin high-ascii characters because the mp3 tags don't use the right unicode character encoding).

This is a Python script that fixes this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tag2utf/ The script does need a mild tweak to use Thai instead of the default Cyrillic. This page explains that very well: http://lj4newbies.blogspot.com/2007/07/con...to-unicode.html (For Linux / Ubuntu, but there's enough information in there to make it a useful starting to find (Google for) a Windows equivalent.

After fixing your files they then show up in proper Thai unicode, so "¤ÃÔʵԹèÒ ÍÒ¡ÕÅèÒÃ" then becomes "คริสติน่า อากีล่าร์"