Let me say right off that Kodi is very new to me as is the use of a music player in general, so please try to simplify any responses you may have to offer and assume you are talking with a total newbie. I recently purchased a QNAP TS-451+ NAS/server. I am running Kodi on it and am building my music library. The version of Kodi available to me for the QNAP is Jarvis 16.0.0. The server OS is Linux.
I have several dozen SACD ISO files which I have converted to .DFF files. I would have preferred to convert to .DSF files in order to take advantage of the tagging ability, but for some unknown reason, .DSF files produce a loud thump of sound when changing tracks on my system. This is more than a nuisance as it is loud enough to damage speaker systems at high volume. I think this may be due to the way my Pre/Pro (Emotiva UMC-200) handles the music stream for DSF files. DFF files do not cause this issue. If you think the .DFS thumping problem might be an issue with the way I have Kodi set up, please tell me your thoughts.
At any rate what I am trying to do is get these .DFF files to show up in the Kodi library. Since they cant be tagged I was hoping to create .NFO files to provide the information as described
here.
Thus far I have been unsuccessful. I'm probably misinterpreting something in the text file or could there be something else is at work here. Perhaps I just cant use this method for .DFF files? Can someone who is knowledgeable about this provide some guidance? Perhaps post an example of an actual .NFO file for a music album I can use as a template?
The easiest way is probably to look up the required albums on Musicbrainz and copy the URL for the album. Then paste that into the nfo file and scan the directory with the file and associated album.nfo into the music library.
EG, this is the link for "Riding With The King" hybrid SACD
https://musicbrainz.org/release/3a0993a8...733e09dea5
I think that should work but I can't test it right now (:
Ok. I tried this.
I placed this link:
https://musicbrainz.org/release/a48289eb...e7532e37e6
into a plain text file (created in notepad) called: Supertramp - Crime Of The Century (DFF-SACD 2.0)
I named the file:Supertramp - Crime Of The Century (DFF-SACD 2.0).nfo
I placed this .nfo file into the same folder as the music files. The folder name is: Supertramp - Crime Of The Century (DFF-SACD 2.0)
The 8 music files in the folder are named using this format: 01 - Supertramp - School.dff
This folder is listed as a music source in Kodi.
In Kodi, I then scan the above folder into the library. I get a very fast progress update confirmation in the upper right corner. I then go to the library and open it and view albums. The Supertramp album is not there. There are only albums there are ones that already contain tags.
I can play the .DFF music files with no problem. But they only show up as a file folder.
Ideas anyone?
Just a bump... still looking for help.
Name the file "album.nfo"
Ok. That's one issue out of the way. Actually I started this whole process using files named "album.nfo" but since it wasn't working, I somehow talked myself into believing I was naming the file incorrectly.
But it still doesn't work. I did some testing.
If I take a folder filled with untagged flac files and include a link to the proper MusicBrainz page in the .nfo file, Kodi scrapes all the information and loads it into the library without a problem.
The above result also holds true if I do the same thing using a folder filled with .DSF files. In fact Kodi did an exquisite job scraping great art for my test album David Bowie- Let's Dance.
But if I do the exact same thing with a folder filled with .DFF files of that same Bowie album, they will not scan into the library. To take it a step further, I replaced the DSF's in the album folder with DFF versions of the same Bowie album, keeping the .nfo file that I had already confirmed was working. On startup, the library updated and removed that album.
One step further. I loaded the folder with .DFF's and then changed each file extension to .DSF. I expected Kodi to load the album into the library, but I would run into an issue trying to play it. Nope. It will not load a .DFF format even if you call it a .DSF. Surprisingly, the music files played fine. Kodi also retained the artist info, and strangely, under Bowie's music offerings, is the track listing of the .DSF's listed as "singles".
Is there some issue that prohibits Kodi from loading .DFF's into the library? Does something need to be enabled that I haven't found in the menus? Do .DFF's need to be added to a list of supported file types?
One last thing. Everything I've described above I tried on my Windows based laptop using Jarvis for Windows. I will to a test on the QNAP music server which is Linux based to see if it is a cross platform issue. Stay tuned.
EDIT: The same result on the QNAP server.
(2016-03-19, 00:35)SailorPaul Wrote: [ -> ]One step further. I loaded the folder with .DFF's and then changed each file extension to .DFS. I expected Kodi to load the album into the library, but I would run into an issue trying to play it. Nope. It will not load a .DFF format even if you call it a .DSF. Surprisingly, the music files played fine. Kodi also retained the artist info, and strangely, under Bowie's music offerings, is the track listing of the .DSF's listed as "singles".
Is there some issue that prohibits Kodi from loading .DFF's into the library? Does something need to be enabled that I haven't found in the menus? Do .DFF's need to be added to a list of supported file types?
You can add file extensions to Kodi by using an
http://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.xml
Specifically, you need to add a similar section to this
http://kodi.wiki/view/Advancedsettings.x...extensions . Hopefully that'll work for you.
Thanks for all the help black_eagle, but that didn't work either.
I created a text file named: advancedsettings.xml.
In the file was the following:
<musicextensions>
<add>.dff</add>
</musicextensions>
I loaded a copy into both kodi userdata folders, removed and reloaded the library. Everything loads back in except the folders with .DFF files.
Man this is getting tedious.
Am I the only one out there who wants to play .DFF's??
Any other suggestions? How can I get the attention of the development team regarding this?
Bump.
Looking to keep this alive. Still looking for an answer.
Renaming .dff to .dsf does not work. I tried. See above.
I went to the link ironic_monkey supplied. Its all code and really means nothing to me.
I assume this means there is nothing I can do to get .dff's to load into the Jarvis library.
maybe try .dsf as i wrote and not .dfs ?
(2016-03-23, 13:34)ironic_monkey Wrote: [ -> ]maybe try .dsf as i wrote and not .dfs ?
It was just a typo. I fixed it. I did change them to .dsf. It did not work. Somehow Kodi must know what the file is by the file structure itself.
dsf and dff are exactly the same type of file. I just tried and scanned my whoppingly large sample set (2 files) just fine. Your software isnt doing anything stupid like tagging with id3 tags? Only aiff tags will be read.
(2016-03-23, 20:39)ironic_monkey Wrote: [ -> ]dsf and dff are exactly the same type of file. I just tried and scanned my whoppingly large sample set (2 files) just fine. Your software isnt doing anything stupid like tagging with id3 tags? Only aiff tags will be read.
The difference between .dsf and .dff is that .dff does not support tagging of any kind. So there are no tags possible with .dff's. Keep in mind, I can play these files fine. And although they show up in the file list, I cant get them to scan to the library. I'll give it one more try. I assumed you renamed them to .dsf ?