I want to be able to set the "Title" and "Comments" (listed in properties->details) of some mp3 files in Windows using python. Is this possible, perhaps with a library like PyWin32? Also, would these details be visible in other operating systems or are they Windows-specific? Thanks.
Simple Answer:
First you have to understand what is mp3 file and how data is organized within an mp3 file.
Detailed Answer:
Raw audio consumes a lot of size. For example, an audio signal of 10 sec sampled 48 kHz and having a bit depth of 16 bits per sample will be of size 10*48000*16 bits, which is close to 1 MB. So, for a 5 minute song, it will almost take 30 MB. But, if you observe, most 5 min mp3 songs are of size around 5 MB (of course it depends on sampling frequency, bit depth and amount of compression used). How is it possible? It is possible because we compress the data using signal processing techniques which in itself is a big topic altogether which we will not discuss here. So, to create an mp3 file we need something called encoder which converts the raw audio data to compressed data and every time you play an mp3 song, decoder is used which converts the data from compressed format to raw audio, which is what you can only listen. So, compression is done for saving storage and also transmission bandwidth (basically saving amount of data to be transmitted over internet).
Now, coming to how data is organized inside an mp3 file. mp3 file will obviously contain the compressed data. In addition many mp3 files contain some meta data (like Title and Comments you mentioned in your question). There are several formats for storing this meta data. So, a decoder which is decoding mp3 file should also support decoding of meta-data, then only you can see the information, other wise you can't see. The meta data is operating system independent, and can be seen on any operating system provided you have a proper decoder.
Finally, yes you can edit the meta data on windows (for that matter on any OS) using python. If you want to do this, using only python without any library, you need to understand how data is organized inside an mp3 file, find the meta-data inside it, edit it and store it back. But, there are libraries and packages in python which support editing meta-data of mp3 file. You can use them directly. Also, the meta data is independent of OS, and once you edit your properties, you should be able to see the properties in any OS provided the decoder you use has the support.
Some links which will help you:
