For Chinese Linux users, we may meet many mp3 files with GBK/BIG5 encoded ID3 tags, which are very time consuming to change them to UTF8 one by one.
Before using the following solution, please confirm that you won’t use media players on Windows that cannot handle UTF8 encoded ID3 tags correctly, and you won’t use MP3 players that don’t support it.
Firstly, install python-mutagen package. For Debian/Ubuntu, use:
$ sudo aptitude install python-mutagen
For Fedora and others, probably:
# yum install python-mutagen
Secondly go to the directory containing files need to be converted.
For files with GBK tags:
find . -iname "*.mp3" -execdir mid3iconv -e GBK {} \;
For files with BIG5 tags:
find . -iname "*.mp3" -execdir mid3iconv -e BIG5 {} \;
There is a good thing that the program could check if the encoding we selected is suitable, so when we convert GBK encoded files, the BIG5 ones won’t be changed. But please don’t use GB18030 option because it will cause problem when the file aren’t really GB18030 encoded.
If you need to edit tag text yourself, try easytag to help you. :P