I think you have misdiagnosed the cause of your issue.
As shown in the
Fields Editor –
Edit > Edit Preferences > Tags (2) > Configure Fields... – MusicBee recognises
OriginalYear as a Date.
We can check this using a handful of test files, with
Original Year and
Year values set in different formats for different file types, shown here in Mp3tag:
Set up simple virtual tags in MusicBee that parse the different date formats for
Original Year and
Year:
$Date(<Original Year>,d MMM yyyy)
$Date(<Year>,d MMM yyyy)
The same tracks in MusicBee show the different date formats are all being parsed correctly:
Date parsing is also dependent on your computer's regional settings.
If you're not seeing that behaviour, perhaps something else is configured incorrectly. If you describe what you're expecting vs. what you're seeing, with some accompanying screenshots of pertinent tag values and settings, someone will help you identify why it isn't working.
(A moderator may move this thread from the
Wishlist to
Questions)
Bee excellent to each other...