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Is there a way, or an Add On, that will allow me to assign ratings in Kodi to multiple tracks at once? I am hoping to translate ratings assigned in iTunes Apple Lossless files (ALAC), which unfortunately does not embed the ratings in such a way that they can be read by Kodi.
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zag
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Not that i'm aware of, but it would be a nice Add-on to write.
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I've always done this by sorting my iTunes by the star ratings and using an empty tag to store the numeric rating, i.e. highlight all the one-star tracks and use the comment or other blank field to temporarily store the value. Once values are stored for 1 to 5 stars I go to mp3tag, select all tracks and copy the comment tag to the rating tag. Then you can import to Kodi. A bit messy but may be quicker than writing an addon.
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2016-10-22, 16:24
(This post was last modified: 2016-10-22, 16:32 by jasn.)
Thank you Dave and WP for your spending some time on this. I had found that old thread myself awhile back and, based on the outcome, concluded that this issue is another example of Apple-being-Apple. That was why I started this thread, actually. I was hoping to import iTunes smart playlists sorted by rating into Kodi and rate all of those particular tracks correspondingly in one fell swoop. Doing this track-by-track exceeds even my obsessive dedication to make this program perfect for my Music library.
BTW, I too tried to tag a rating on MP4 files using dbPoweramp. Same result in Kodi...I can see it (in MP3tag too) but Kodi doesn't read it no matter how high a value I assign (dbP and MP3tag use different numerical values)
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Dave, the thing is Apple doesn't store ratings in files, it only keeps them in the iTunes database. That's why you have to go through hoops like I mentioned previously even if you're using mp3s to add the rating tags to the files separately. Like Jasn I'm exhausting my knowledge here a bit, but m4a files use atoms (??) as the header rather than ID3 tags. Kodi seems to be able to read those associated with title, artist, etc, but not any added for rating. However,we know by testing in things like mp3tag and dbPoweramp that there is a rating now stored in the file, we just can't access it.
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I'm feeling a bit exasperated, but I do really want to help.
1) ITunes ratings are in a separate place, not the files themselves.
2) You can use tagging software to add a custom tag to mp4 files that contains this value. It is a custom tag because it is not part of the known iTunes/mp4 tagging standard, and there is no commonly used tag either AFAIK.
3) However no matter what you call it Kodi does not process it. Kodi only looks for certain tags in mp4 files, those commonly used.
One route forward would be for us to agree on a mp4 tag name for the rating values, and providing you can get Mp4tag to write it and Taglib (the library of tools Kodi uses to raed tags) to read it then Kodi could process it. You tell me you are storing rating in mp4 with Mp3tag or dbPoweramp, but not where. How about letting me have some small example files so I can see what you have done. Does any other player handle iTunes ratings somehow?
Another route forward would be to be able to set the rating for all the songs in a playlist from within Kodi. That removes the tagging step, but still leaves the problem that the rating only exists within Kodi music library. Setting rating for all the songs in a playllist is an addon kind of activity, so maybe we wait for someone that writes addons to get interested.