# Displaying Cyrillic characters in WMA, Winamp and other players



## Lamabotster (Jan 13, 2008)

When ripping CD's I use a ripper that downloads tags from gracenote. The only problem is that when ripping CD's which are tagged in Russian (Cyrillic) the characters get scrambled. 

i.e. 
"&#1042;&#1089;&#1105;, &#1095;&#1090;&#1086; &#1073;&#1099;&#1083;&#1086;" becomes
"Âñ¸, ÷òî áûëî"

If I use one of various online websites that offer a service that unscrambles such gibberish and paste the text there it shows the correct characters meaning that possibly they are in a different encoding.

Same happens if I download mp3's (legally of course) that are pre-tagged in russian. Same happens when tags are read in winamp and other players. They can't be mistagged because that happens when tags are obtained from different sources. 

If I manually retype tags they work perfectly. I messed with the "Regional and Language Options and enabled all cyrillic I could but no help. I don't want to retype the tags every single time I want to put it on my mp3 player. Is there any way I can make those applications autodetect the correct encoding and display the correct characters? Or is there an application that can descramble such tags? Thank you for your time

OS: Windows XP MCE 2002 SP2 
Windows Media Player v10


----------



## rainforest123 (Dec 29, 2004)

Perhaps WinAmp & WMP can't decypher Cryllic.

Yes, I read "I messed with the "Regional and Language Options and enabled all cyrillic I could but no help. "

At yahoo, I searched "windows media player" cyrllic. 
This is the 1st hit. http://www.moskalyuk.com/blog/windows-media-player-10-error-on-cyrillic-file-names/112

RF123


----------



## Lamabotster (Jan 13, 2008)

Thank you for your reply. Yes I saw that thread but there are several inconsistencies. First of all that thread says that WinAMP is able to show tags properly when in my case it doesn't.









Second, if I retype tags myself both players display characters correctly meaning that both of them are able to decipher Cyrillic (not the same files in this example)


----------



## rainforest123 (Dec 29, 2004)

Re-typing the tags, to correct the problem, may occur because Windows understands Cyrillic. It may have nothing to do with your problem. 

If you copy the music to something & play the music in another PC, without correcting the labels, are the characters displayed correctly or incorrectly? 

If you correct the labels, copy the music to something & play the music in another PC, without correcting the labels, are the characters displayed correctly or incorrectly? 

"They can't be mistagged because that happens when tags are obtained from different sources. "
Unless, of course, all of the sources are wrong. How likely is it that the source for your music is providing you with legitimate files? 

"I messed with the "Regional and Language Options and enabled all cyrillic I could but no help." Please be more specific. 

RF123


----------



## Lamabotster (Jan 13, 2008)

rainforest123 said:


> Re-typing the tags, to correct the problem, may occur because Windows understands Cyrillic. It may have nothing to do with your problem.
> 
> If you copy the music to something & play the music in another PC, without correcting the labels, are the characters displayed correctly or incorrectly?


No, I didn't try that but I see no reason why I'd do that. All other computers I have access too run similar setups (Windows XP, English, WMA10 etc) and they have similar problems. I don't have access to a russian native windows PC.


> If you correct the labels, copy the music to something & play the music in another PC, without correcting the labels, are the characters displayed correctly or incorrectly?


That's actually the reason why this bothers me. I've used several MP3 players lately the Creative Zen Sleek Photo and my Nokia XpressMusic 5300 both of which use WMA to "synchronize" music. If tags are messed up on WMA the same exact problem is transported to the player meaning that I have to fix the tags on every single CD before I can put it on an mp3 player.


> "They can't be mistagged because that happens when tags are obtained from different sources. "
> Unless, of course, all of the sources are wrong. How likely is it that the source for your music is providing you with legitimate files?


Same error happens when I use a CD ripping software that downloads tags from Gracenote CDDB or download mp3s from different _websites_ (NOT TORRENTS OR LIMEWIRE). The websites are based in Russia and I seem to be the only one with this problem (other users are running a russian native windows)


> "I messed with the "Regional and Language Options and enabled all cyrillic I could but no help." Please be more specific.


Regional and Language options:
Tab: Languages->Details (Tab: Settings) Under installed services I added Russian
Tab: Languages->Details (Tab: Advanced) Extend support of advanced text services to all programs checked.
Tab: Languages->Advanced "Select a language to match the language version of the non-Unicode programs you want to use: Russian"
Tab: Languages->Advanced "Code page conversion tables" Checked all unchecked cyrillic encodings

RF123


----------



## rainforest123 (Dec 29, 2004)

"The websites are based in Russia and I seem to be the only one with this problem (other users are running a russian native windows)"

So, perhaps this could be a Windows fonts / language issue & not a WMP issue. 

RF123


----------



## Lamabotster (Jan 13, 2008)

I never said it was an exclusive WMP issue, hence I included the WinAMP. It's just the WMP is where it hurts me most.


----------



## rainforest123 (Dec 29, 2004)

I am sorry to say that I have nothing more to suggest. 

RF123


----------



## epolichuk (Mar 4, 2008)

I am experiencing exactly the same issue. I do not have a solution, but I was told that it is an issue of ASCII vs. Unicode. Now I may be totally off base, but if I'm not and someone has a solution I would be very grateful to know it.


----------



## semenich (Jun 23, 2008)

Same problem here - no solution


----------

