I'm seeing an interesting problem with iTunes on my Intel Mac Mini (OS X 10.4.7, iTunes 6.0.x). When I rip a CD, it doesn't seem to write the track information out to ID3 tags within the ripped MP3 files. It keeps the information in its own database files, so they appear fine within iTunes. But I want to be sure the files are tagged properly in case the iTunes database gets corrupted and/or I need to move the files to another computer (they reside on an external drive).
iTunes on my other Mac Mini (PPC) and on my Windows box used to write out the ID3 tags out just fine. No setting changes in the Preferences appear to affect this behavior.
I have a workaround -- I tell iTunes to 'convert' the ID3 tags for all files I import to ID3 version 2.2 and this forces it to write out the information. But why isn't it writing out the information automatically?
I am seriously concerned that iTunes doesn't seem to be updating the ID3 tags in the file (or worse, removing them). I ran some files through an intel duo core macbook converting to .mp3 from AAC (.m4a). The artist and album and track and year, etc. were stripped. I think you would agree this is worse than not being adding on ripping. Further, under Windows, I had a song that was filed under the wrong album. I changed the data in iTunes, went to the file on disk, moved it to a new album folder and dropped it back into iTunes. Whoa, the info I had just entered was gone, along with even the basic Artist field. I had to drop it into a blank playlist just to see what was going on, and sure enough, the data was gone. For further proof, I hovered the mouse over the file in XP, which usually gives me a box with .mp3 info. All that it says now is Type: Mpeg Layer 3 Audio, which means that the ID3 data has been stripped (I can usually see the album, year, track and duration). Yikes! I finally opened it in WinAmp to use their tag editor. I'm sure this has to do with speed increases and disk space conservation, just like the new shared artwork files, but a heads up would be nice.
I have the same exact problem and workaround as the original poster. Versions of iTunes on other computers--doesn't matter what version--don't seem to have this problem, so I'm thinking it has something to do with my MacBook Pro.