[claudiuslollarius]

I am currently making a movie tagging application: it will allow users to search movies on TMDB, select a result and use the information to tag a local movie file (I plan to support for mkv and mp4/m4v containers).

I have the basics of the UI done and tagging code integrated, now I need to figure out which tags Kodi reads and how it uses them.
The only documentation I could find is here: is there anything more? Do the tables Video File Tags and Music File Tags refer to mp4 or mkv container?

Also, why is embedded tag support so rudimentary? Reading metadata from embedded tags is a hell of a lot easier and more reliable (assuming you are using taglib for that) than scraping some remote service.
Is this expected to improve? Ideally I'd like to find a way to tag mp4 container videos so that both Apple devices and Kodi can parse the same info.

[DaveBlake]

My interest is in the music library and music file tagging, I don't even use the video library, but I will try to point you at some useful information regarding video tagging. The wiki link you gave looks pretty useless, the music tagging mentioned there is totally inaccurate (the comment to remove is correct), does not bode well for what it says about video.

The tags used for mp4 files in the music library are given here https://kodi.wiki/view/Music_tagging#Tags_Kodi_reads read using TagLib

I think video file tag reading (for the video library) of mp4 and mkv files is done by ffmpeg. See https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/Leia/x...FFmpeg.cpp

The PR that added video tagging support for v18 is https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/13106, .avi support added by https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/13646

Also, why is embedded tag support so rudimentary? Reading metadata from embedded tags is a hell of a lot easier and more reliable (assuming you are using taglib for that) than scraping some remote service.
Is this expected to improve? Ideally I'd like to find a way to tag mp4 container videos so that both Apple devices and Kodi can parse the same info.

Support for video tag is minimal because because no one has had the time, interest or skills to extend Kodi any further in that direction. Historically users have not tagged their video files, and so there has been little need for Kodi to be extended to make use of them. To my knowledge no one is currently working on this, and there are no expectations but that doesn't mean anything. Volunteers are welcome.

Yes I agree using embedded metadata is much better (accurate and efficient), it is one of the many ways that the music library is way ahead of the video one. :p

[claudiuslollarius]

Hey thank you so much for taking the time to reply!

I'll try to dig through the PRs you linked to figure out which tags are actually being read.
As for users not tagging their videos, hopefully I'll be able to help with that

[RockerC]

My interest is in the music library and music file tagging, I don't even use the video library

Perhaps you would change your mind and interest in this if you only think about tagging video files for music videos?

See the Kodi wiki article => https://kodi.wiki/view/Music_videos

"Kodi has the ability to include Music Videos in the Video and Music libraries. All scanned music videos will show up in both. Music Videos can also be part of Party Mode and Smart Playlists. Playlists containing both music and music videos should be stored in the mixed playlist subfolder under the userdata folder."

A tip is that music videos are very nice to have to play at parties and have guests all pitch in to create the party playlist.

[spiff]

the problem is the lack of specifications for embedded tags. mkv specifies 3 tags, mp4 only the basic stuff provided by itunes. instead of inventing shit i only implemented what is available, with the expectation that the community will create a spec and send patches, while allowing for kodi specific tags in the mean time. it kinda fell on its arse as none of my attempts at reaching out to the metadata organizer apps was received positively.