[DaveBlake]

Thanks for the advice. It never occurred to me to use genre tag. So, if I tag something as "Rock / Stereo" does that create two separate genres... one "Rock" and one "Stereo" or is it a single genre labeled "Rock / Stereo?"

RELEASETYPE tag sounds like a great option. Unfortunately, I'm still on v16. Ive been planning to give v17 a try. Hoping I might find some time to do it today. Can I use most any tagging app to add RELEASETYPE tag?

Thanks!

I abuse the genre tag in all kinds of ways

In FLAC (Vorbis) and ID3 v2.4 tag formats GENRE is multivalue, while in v2.3 only single value. Either way Kodi will parse a string using the standard item separator (slash-space-slash by default) into separate genres. So "Rock / Stereo" will create two separate genres, one "Rock" and one "Stereo".

RELEASETYPE is an appropraite use if you give v17 a go.

Yes most tagging software will let you add new tags, I use Mp3tag a lot. But take care with naming any tags you add: Kodi is looking for the RELEASETYPE tag to be named as Picard does in the various music file formats. That is:
TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Type (Id3 v2.4),
RELEASETYPE (Vorbis/Xiphe/FLAC),
MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMTYPE (APE),
MusicBrainz/Album Type (ASF),
----:com.apple.iTunes:MusicBrainz Album Type (mp4/iTunes)

Crazy lack of consistency, but made sense for Kodi to adapt to what Picard was outputting.

And finally, there is always folder path, save messing with tags at all

[HomerJau]

HomerJau, this app sounds awesome!!I have a lot of concert videos.

Question about album tagging... when you add information to the album name tag such as "(Stereo 96kHz Vinyl)" wouldn't this impact Kodi's ability to correctly identify the album when scanning it into the library.

I've been adding a bit more to my app. I've almost completed scraping the concert poster and fanart and will also add an option to split an MKV into chapters (songs).

So that will simplify adding concerts to Kodi:
1. Convert your concert disc to MKV
2. Copy to a folder named: Artist - Concert Title
3. Run my app. Scrape the new folder to get poster/fanart (uses the folder name not MKV file name)
4. Select the MKV and split into Chapters (1 click)
5. Copy the song/chapter titles list (all) and paste into the app. All files are renamed per text (all at once)*
6. 1-click Create NFOs (does all the files/songs)
7. 1-click Create Playlist (for the concert - all songs)

* I get that track list by copying off a website (highlight all and 'copy' then paste into a text file then edit track numbers if required - change 1 to 01 etc so the tracks order correctly)

In Kodi scan for new video content. Concert and all its song titles now appear in Kodi's Music Video views.

8. Copy the playlist to your Kodi userdata\playlist\mixed folder (optional, allows you to easily choose any song from any concert with the Kodi Remote Apps etc too)

I will probably combine some steps above before final release.

This post on another thread here shows what you get in Kodi Music Videos after above
Kodi Music Videos

Please PM me with an email address and I'll send you a link to download an alpha version late this week if you are interested in testing/providing feedback.

Your Question:
Since I tag my music, Kodi just uses the tags as I have them. Not sure what else it does?. I haven't seen any issues as yet (over 2 yrs). All Kodi views show my albums as tagged. I manually get my own album cover art as I'm picky about correct cover and/or best resolution/scan.

[elee532]

DaveBlake, I finally got around to installing the v17 beta this weekend. I added RELEASETYPE tag to a few test albums. Question... where would I actually see this tag displayed when browsing my music library?

Also, another tagging related question... do you have any recommendations for handling the year tag in cases where an album is re-release, re-mastered, etc? I want to be able to see in my library BOTH the original release year of the album, but also the year of the re-release.

Thanks!!

[DaveBlake]

DaveBlake, I finally got around to installing the v17 beta this weekend. I added RELEASETYPE tag to a few test albums. Question... where would I actually see this tag displayed when browsing my music library?

It depends on the skin you use. In Confluence it is shown on the Album Information dialog, but unfortunately Estuary currently omits it along with some other values. I don't know about other skins, and for now I simply recommend using Confluence especially as it now has editable items on the home screen. You can download a version for v17 from the repo. Album type could be shown on the albums node too, the info label gets populated, but I don't think any skins do (yet).

You can also use it as a rule in smart playlists or custom nodes.

Also, another tagging related question... do you have any recommendations for handling the year tag in cases where an album is re-release, re-mastered, etc? I want to be able to see in my library BOTH the original release year of the album, but also the year of the re-release.

Kodi does not handle this at all. It gathers the various date tags but currently just lumps it into a single year value. My advice would be to tag accurately, using date tags as defined in the standards e.g. "release date" - DATE/TDRC, "original date" - ORIGINALDATE/TDOR and have faith that Kodi will eventually handle these dates individually.

I have not looked at it in detail, but the design issue will be how to move forward without producing undesired results for those that have tagged for the limited way that Kodi works now.

[tkgafs]

Finally I like to bump this thread: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=239828
I’ve never understood why the track currently playing isn’t synced with the cover art shown. It makes no sense that the cover art shows the item where the cursor is pointing. All major streaming services works like this, so why not the incredible Kodi?

While in a view for selecting music then yes the details for the selected item is shown, but perhaps there could be a side menu option to toggle between "details for selected item" and "details for playing item".

I would also highlight this as an issue, I have never been able to understand the thinking behind it. It just seems common sense that the artwork displayed should by default match the music actually playing, Its the main reason I hardly ever use playlists as they look stupid, especially when party mode works correctly

[DaveBlake]

I would also highlight this as an issue, I have never been able to understand the thinking behind it. It just seems common sense that the artwork displayed should by default match the music actually playing, Its the main reason I hardly ever use playlists as they look stupid, especially when party mode works correctly

Frankly there is no thinking behind it, the behaviour is an accident. But the various ways the playlist is processed, and how related images are displayed is not easy to unravel just looking at the code. Hence it lurks unfixed, because it requires a lot of untangling of code that has grown over time with many contributors. The whole area is ripe for rework, vounteers welcome.

I find it funny that when Kodi does something silly people think it is deliberate, or that obvious behaviour must be easy to implement on an already evolved system.

[tkgafs]

I find it funny that when Kodi does something silly people think it is deliberate, or that obvious behaviour must be easy to implement on an already evolved system.

Dave,

Absolutely not getting at you but several occasions when this has been raised in the past, the comments have very much led to "its by design" thought rather than it is a bug.

But as requested a while ago I raised a feature request which will likely languish for years to come, but anytime somebody mentions it, I try and big it up for want of a better phrase

[tkgafs]

I have been trying out the music library in kodi 17 beta 5 this afternoon and have a few questions

to begin with I cleared out my existing library and rescanned everything, in retrospect I'm not entirely sue this was a great idea but its done now.

after scanning what year is used to sort the display of album thumbnails view, is it the first year it finds in one of the tracks ?

An album may have tracks from multiple years (for example a best of collection). I have never been able to decide how to set the years for these type of albums whether to use the year of the compilations issue or the year of the actual tracks themselves, both are correct and both are wrong depending on the scenario.

Taking The Zombies as an example all their material was recorded in the 1960s but there are loads of compilation albums which came out in the 2000s.

when displaying the albums thumbnail view ideally I would want to use the compilation issue year, but when wanting to play lets say songs from the 1960s the individual tracks need to have the year set correctly, is there a way to fix these two conflicting needs with a specific tag ?

If an album cant be located online after scanning it would appear that when you show the information for that album it does not show any of the tracks on the album, only the local artwork, artist, year and sometimes style and label which I suspect must be in my tags, is this the behaviour you expect ?

[elee532]

You can download a version for v17 from the repo.

Thanks! Pardon this amateur question, but how do I find/downloadthe "repo?" Thanks!

[black_eagle]

Its already installed. You just need to navigate to settings -> Interface settings -> Skin . Click where it says "Skin Estuary" and then click "Get More". Scroll to Confluence and click on that.

[DaveBlake]

I have been trying out the music library in kodi 17 beta 5 this afternoon and have a few questions

to begin with I cleared out my existing library and rescanned everything, in retrospect I'm not entirely sue this was a great idea but its done now.

In the current beta that is probably the easiest way to take advantage of the new tag processing Kodi does. For release I hope we will offer a forced rescan option that will gather the data, but not lose the playcount and lastplayed data which is what will have happened with your clearout.

after scanning what year is used to sort the display of album thumbnails view, is it the first year it finds in one of the tracks ?

An album may have tracks from multiple years (for example a best of collection). I have never been able to decide how to set the years for these type of albums whether to use the year of the compilations issue or the year of the actual tracks themselves, both are correct and both are wrong depending on the scenario.

Taking The Zombies as an example all their material was recorded in the 1960s but there are loads of compilation albums which came out in the 2000s.

when displaying the albums thumbnail view ideally I would want to use the compilation issue year, but when wanting to play lets say songs from the 1960s the individual tracks need to have the year set correctly, is there a way to fix these two conflicting needs with a specific tag ?

The year question came up a few posts above http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2447479. It is a weak point in Kodi, which I am yet to address. At the moment Kodi takes the album year from the last date tag it encounters on the first song.

If an album cant be located online after scanning it would appear that when you show the information for that album it does not show any of the tracks on the album, only the local artwork, artist, year and sometimes style and label which I suspect must be in my tags, is this the behaviour you expect ?

Yes. This is as before with the addition of record label being populated from the LABEL/TPUD tag

I find the scraped track list really silly, a list of the tracks you have would be far more useful regardless of scraping. But it did that before and I haven't changed anything there.

[scott967]

DaveBlake, I finally got around to installing the v17 beta this weekend. I added RELEASETYPE tag to a few test albums. Question... where would I actually see this tag displayed when browsing my music library?

It depends on the skin you use. In Confluence it is shown on the Album Information dialog, but unfortunately Estuary currently omits it along with some other values. I don't know about other skins, and for now I simply recommend using Confluence especially as it now has editable items on the home screen. You can download a version for v17 from the repo. Album type could be shown on the albums node too, the info label gets populated, but I don't think any skins do (yet).

You can also use it as a rule in smart playlists or custom nodes.

I don't believe this is correct. Confluence (as of Beta 5) only shows ListItem.Property(Album_Type) if available from nfo or scraping. Probably because ListItem.Property(Album_ReleaseType) is undocumented in wiki nor the "Changes to the skinning engine for Kodi Krypton" thread 250862 (thread)

scott s.
.

[DaveBlake]

DaveBlake, I finally got around to installing the v17 beta this weekend. I added RELEASETYPE tag to a few test albums. Question... where would I actually see this tag displayed when browsing my music library?

It depends on the skin you use. In Confluence it is shown on the Album Information dialog, but unfortunately Estuary currently omits it along with some other values. I don't know about other skins, and for now I simply recommend using Confluence especially as it now has editable items on the home screen. You can download a version for v17 from the repo. Album type could be shown on the albums node too, the info label gets populated, but I don't think any skins do (yet).

You can also use it as a rule in smart playlists or custom nodes.

I don't believe this is correct. Confluence (as of Beta 5) only shows ListItem.Property(Album_Type) if available from nfo or scraping. Probably because ListItem.Property(Album_ReleaseType) is undocumented in wiki nor the "Changes to the skinning engine for Kodi Krypton" thread 250862 (thread)

It is correct, I promise. The RELEASETYPE tag (TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Type, MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMTYPE or ----:com.apple.iTunes:MusicBrainz Album Type, in various formats), that could contain any string, gets stored in the type field of the album table and is thus available to skins via the ListItem.Property(Album_Type). The change in v17 is to initially populate album type from the RELEASETYPE tag, whereas previously it was only populated by scraping and the tag was ignored.

For optimum confusion the album table does have a ReleaseType field, but this is an internal flag and must be either "album" or "single", and nothing else. It is used by Kodi to differentiate between true albums and the fake album that is created to cover all singles by an artist. In theory it could be set by an NFO, but the result would be a mess if inapproriate values were used. I note there is also a bug so that "type" is saved twice and "releasetype" not at all when album is exported to xml.

If the naming is felt to be confusing then it is Kodi that will need to change. Since it is unlikely that users have "releasetype" in any NFO files, maybe calling the internal flag something else would be a good idea?

[scott967]

OK, I get it. But there is new infolabel for ListItem.Property(Album_ReleaseType) that will return "album" or "single". I started using that as a fallback if strType is NULL.

scott s.
.

[elee532]

Not sure what I am doing wrong, but I do not see the RELEASETYPE tag displayed.

First, using MP3Tag I selected tracks, chose Extended Tag, added a field called "RELEASETYPE" and set the value to SACD. Then, I ran "Update Library" in Kodi. I set the skin to Confluence. When I look at the album info screen, it shows the fields Artist, Rating, Moods, Styles, Label, and Year. Nothing about RELEASETYPE.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks!