X-ID3 header in modern web servers

Gray — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:38:04 +0000

I’ll keep this post short and straight to the point, it just seems like this idea should have followed suit right after streaming media became a common feature in HTTP Servers (e.g. lighthttpd).

With the standard format for online music being MP3 files, and the versatile format of streaming MP3’s (can be played while downloading), I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to add some minimal support for these files in the web server.

It seems like a good idea to me to build an apache module in for MP3 metadata. It could be configured / disabled & enabled via the apache.conf file, preferably something that works with ID3 and HTTP headers. Which is why I propose the x-id3 header standard.

It should be simple enough, basically parsed Mp3 metadata in the Id3 format, passed in the HTTP headers in the following format:

x-id3-(id3 field name): Content

Just like every other HTTP header, I don’t know. Seems pretty basic and overlooked to me. I’d like to hear your thoughts though, so leave a comment with your opinion / ideas.

[Disclaimer: wrote this after pulling an all-nighter, so if it's written poorly, my bad]

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X-ID3 header in modern web servers