I have 2 releases of the same album in the following directories:
"C:\Users\hg\Cool Album\Normal\"
"C:\Users\hg\Cool Album\2 CD Edition\"
Both releases have same name in the album tags, so I decided to make a seperate .nfo file
Both directories have their respective .nfo files as follows
ilosetacam (paste)
When I add the path C:\Users\hg\Cool Album\ to the music sources, Kodi won't read the .nfo files and display the album with
name "Cool Album" (as specified in the tags) and displays the songs twice as expected. However, when I add the directories
"C:\Users\hg\Cool Album\Normal\" & "C:\Users\hg\Cool Album\2 CD Edition\" via two different sources one after the other,
the .nfo files are followed, and albums are named as "Cool Album (Normal)" & "Cool Album (2 CD Edition)". I can't really add all albums
one after the other as my library is too big. Is there any fix for this?
Thanks in advance. Please excuse my English.
The music library contents is primarily derived from metadata tags read from the music files (not file or folder names, or even NFO files which provide additional info but do not define albums or artists). This is very different from video, which depends on names and NFO content to identify movies or shows, and embedded metatdata support is still rare. The difference in approaches can cause users which are familiar with video to be confused with how best to prepare and present their music to Kodi.
Kodi can handle multiple versions of the same album, but only if the music files are tagged with Musicbrainz ids, otherwise it is based on album title and artist. Are these albums tagged in that way? If not then you can do so using Picard, but if they already do have mbids then come back possibly with example music files.
Thanks for the quick reply.
(2020-05-28, 09:50)DaveBlake Wrote: [ -> ]Kodi can handle multiple versions of the same album, but only if the music files are tagged with Musicbrainz ids, otherwise it is based on album title and artist. Are these albums tagged in that way?
Nope. I just noticed that v17 scraps albums using .nfo rather than the file tags. Is there any way I could implement this in v18? If not, I think re-tagging my whole library will be the only option left. The reason I am avoiding it is that I have specified the album resolution (16bit, 24bit etc) in the title tags of .nfo, which helped me to discriminate same album in different resolutions.
(2020-05-28, 14:19)Neo! Wrote: [ -> ]I am avoiding it is that I have specified the album resolution (16bit, 24bit etc) in the title tags of .nfo, which helped me to discriminate same album in different resolutions.
V18 can filter on different 'sources' for your music, so you could put all your 16bit stuff in one source and all your 24bit stuff in another. With smartplaylists and nodes, it's straightfoward to just show albums in one source (or more). If you fancy trying v19, you can extend that to include filtering by the No. of channels, the bit-rate and/or sample-rate as well. The trick to getting a good music library is by starting out with good tags. I really would recommend taking the time to tag your files as well as possible, it will pay dividends later.
https://kodi.wiki/view/Music_tagging is well worth a read as it explains the use of different sources to divide up your music as well as the tagging.
Multiple relases of the same labum and no mbid tags - that is your problem.
(2020-05-28, 14:19)Neo! Wrote: [ -> ]I just noticed that v17 scraps albums using .nfo rather than the file tags.
No it does not do anything different to v18 in that respect. Both versions only create library entries for artists, albums and songs based on embedded data, with album.nfo and artist.nfo being a way to add additional information such as biography or theme etc. The identification of albums in all versions of Kodi comes purely from tag data.
(2020-05-28, 14:19)Neo! Wrote: [ -> ]I think re-tagging my whole library will be the only option left. The reason I am avoiding it is that I have specified the album resolution (16bit, 24bit etc) in the title tags of .nfo, which helped me to discriminate same album in different resolutions.
That is unfortunate, identifying albums by nfo file is just not how Kodi music library works. Good quality tagging will give you the richest library experience, so a worthwhile investment of time. Tagging with bitrates is something that will come into use in v19 which reads that tag and can use it for filtering.
Creating separate music sources for the different bitrates is also a good approach, but multiple releases of the same album will still need mbids to differntiate them.