Composer info all messed up - composer and artist info should not be confused!

[RJVB]

I've been checking out mediainfo, and run into a strange issue where it reports completely messed-up Composer info for some of my ogg files. Or rather, it seems that there exists in inappropriate confusion between composer and artist information. More often than not the artist(s) of a piece is/are completely unrelated to the composer(s).

For instance:

> mediainfo  Dynastie_Bach-Concertos/1.01-Keyboard\ Concerto\ No.\ 1\ in\ D\ minor,\ BWV1052\ -\ I.\ Allegro.ogg  | fgrep Composer  
Composer                                 : Johann Sebastian Bach / Jean Rondeau / Sophie Gent / Louis Creac'h / Fanny Paccoud / Antoine Touche / Thomas de Pierrefeu / Evolène Kiener 
Album/Composer                           : Jean Rondeau / Sophie Gent / Louis Creac'h / Fanny Paccoud / Antoine Touche / Thomas de Pierrefeu / Evolène Kiener 

For reference:

> ffprobe8 -hide_banner -i Dynastie_Bach-Concertos/1.01-Keyboard\ Concerto\ No.\ 1\ in\ D\ minor,\ BWV1052\ -\ I.\ Allegro.ogg 
[ogg @ 0x1e8ec5c0] 2038 bytes of comment header remain
Input #0, ogg, from 'Dynastie_Bach-Concertos/1.01-Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV1052 - I. Allegro.ogg':
  Duration: 00:07:09.95, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 547 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: vorbis, 96000 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Metadata:
      ARTIST          : Jean Rondeau;Sophie Gent;Louis Creac'h;Fanny Paccoud;Antoine Touche;Thomas de Pierrefeu;Evolène Kiener 
      TITLE           : Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV1052 - I. Allegro
      ALBUM           : Dynastie: Bach Concertos
      DATE            : 2017-02-24
      GENRE           : German High Baroque
      COMPOSER        : Johann Sebastian Bach
      PERFORMER       : Jean Rondeau (harpsichord);Sophie Gent;Louis Creac'h (violin);Fanny Paccoud (viola);Antoine Touche (cello);Thomas de Pierrefeu (contrabass);Evolène Kiener (bassoon)
      album_artist    : Jean Rondeau;Sophie Gent;Louis Creac'h;Fanny Paccoud;Antoine Touche;Thomas de Pierrefeu;Evolène Kiener 
      LABEL           : Erato

or

> ogginfo Dynastie_Bach-Concertos/1.01-Keyboard\ Concerto\ No.\ 1\ in\ D\ minor,\ BWV1052\ -\ I.\ Allegro.ogg
Processing file "Dynastie_Bach-Concertos/1.01-Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV105
2 - I. Allegro.ogg"...

New logical stream (#1, serial: 0f02891f): type vorbis
Vorbis headers parsed for stream 1, information follows...
Version: 0
Vendor: BS; LancerMod(SSE3) (based on aoTuV 6.03 (2020))
Channels: 2
Rate: 96000

Nominal bitrate not set
Upper bitrate not set
Lower bitrate not set
User comments section follows...
        ARTIST=Jean Rondeau
        ARTIST=Sophie Gent
        ARTIST=Louis Creac'h
        ARTIST=Fanny Paccoud
        ARTIST=Antoine Touche
        ARTIST=Thomas de Pierrefeu
        ARTIST=Evolène Kiener 
        TITLE=Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV1052 - I. Allegro
        ALBUM=Dynastie: Bach Concertos
        DATE=2017-02-24
        GENRE=German High Baroque
        COMPOSER=Johann Sebastian Bach
        PERFORMER=Jean Rondeau (harpsichord)
        PERFORMER=Sophie Gent
        PERFORMER=Louis Creac'h (violin)
        PERFORMER=Fanny Paccoud (viola)
        PERFORMER=Antoine Touche (cello)
        PERFORMER=Thomas de Pierrefeu (contrabass)
        PERFORMER=Evolène Kiener (bassoon)
        ALBUMARTIST=Jean Rondeau
        ALBUMARTIST=Sophie Gent
        ALBUMARTIST=Louis Creac'h
        ALBUMARTIST=Fanny Paccoud
        ALBUMARTIST=Antoine Touche
        ALBUMARTIST=Thomas de Pierrefeu
        ALBUMARTIST=Evolène Kiener 

The multivalued tags were set by Foobar2000.

[JeromeMartinez]

it seems that there exists in inappropriate confusion between composer and artist information.

Lot of people do weird things with tags, and we try to curate that, here it seems that it is not good.
I'll try to avoid the "curation" when it is this case.

[RJVB]

JeromeMartinez left a comment (MediaArea/MediaInfoLib#2681) > it seems that there exists in inappropriate confusion between composer and artist information. Lot of people do weird things with tags

It's confusing that there are so many different tags for the people making the music (artist, performer, albumartist), and I can imagine that it can be useful to "curate" those. But "composer" is really something different that should be listed seperately.

[JeromeMartinez]

But "composer" is really something different that should be listed seperately.

We do have a Composer field, that is not the issue.

[RJVB]

On Friday September 11 2026 06:50:02 Jérôme Martinez wrote: JeromeMartinez left a comment (MediaArea/MediaInfoLib#2681) [We do have a Composer field](https://github.com/MediaArea/MediaInfoLib/blob/master/Source/Resource/Text/Stream/General.csv#L224), that is not the issue.

Indeed, the issue is that the info isn't listed *separately" from the artist information, which gets added to it.

[cjee21]

This part looks problematic...

MediaInfoLib/Source/MediaInfo/Tag/File_VorbisCom.cpp

Lines 80 to 105 in 6ce8766

	void File_VorbisCom::Streams_Fill()
	{
	if (!Performers.empty())
	{
	Artists.Separator_Set(0, __T(" / "));
	Fill(StreamKind_Common, 0, "Performer", Performers.Read());
	}
	if (!Artists.empty() && Artists!=Performers)
	{
	Artists.Separator_Set(0, __T(" / "));
	Fill(StreamKind_Common, 0, Performers.empty()?"Performer":"Composer", Artists.Read());
	}
	if (!Accompaniments.empty() && Accompaniments!=Artists && Accompaniments!=Performers)
	{
	Artists.Separator_Set(0, __T(" / "));
	Fill(StreamKind_Common, 0, "Accompaniment", Accompaniments.Read());
	}
	if (!AlbumArtists.empty())
	{
	AlbumArtists.Separator_Set(0, __T(" / "));
	Fill(StreamKind_Common, 0, (Performers==Artists || Performers.empty())?"Album/Performer":"Album/Composer", AlbumArtists.Read());
	}
	}

Also why is Artists.Separator_Set(0, __T(" / ")); done for each one even when reading from something other than Artists?

[RJVB]

cjee21 left a comment (MediaArea/MediaInfoLib#2681) This part looks problematic...

Looks like it, indeed. I converted the .ogg file to .mp4 using Foobar2000's conversion engine that preserves metadata; mediainfo gets it right for this format. Still, it can't hurt to check if other formats use the same logic. I'm a bit surprised that this kind of data aggregation isn't performed centrally, upstream from the format-specific code.