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*.apl missing in library
#1
Hello guys,

I've recently bought Raspbery Pi and installed OSMC to use it mostly as a jukebox - playing songs from my collection on NAS storage. After I added an audio source to the library it scanned the directories which took a while, but in the end as it turned out that most of my collection was not imported Sad

I tried browsing manually to the files, and I belive that the problem lays in the library not recognizing most of my music in *.apl files. For the albums I use one *.flac file without any tags, that is augumented by multiple *.apl files (one per song) holding only start and end data for the song, and a binary block with Ape tag (Monkey's audio) in it. I guess the problem is not in the ape tags themselves, but in fact that the *.apl tags are not recognized at all (skipped by extension?)

I have such a way of holding the audio, so that I have the full uncut original track, but on the other hand a handy representation of each track to add to a playlist for example. Diffrent CD have different silence between tracks, bonuses at the end, and so on - I wanted to have the original experience.

The foobar2000 on my ol Windows was handling it like a champ. Is there any way to make it work in Kodi? Or would I need to transcode it to other form?
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#2
AKAIK Kodi does not currently support Monkey's Audio, unless someone wants to tell me otherwise Smile
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#3
Pretty sure we do, APE certainly used to be in the supported formats list.
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#4
Yes Kodi handles APE tags, but not untagged FLAC files and *.apl files that are kind of a mix of tagging and cuesheet. Well not as far as I can see, but happy to be wrong.
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#5
Yeah, this is the part that I've figured out - that this might not be supported Smile But the *.apl files as far as I know are the part of Monkey's tags standard. I admit, that using flac encoded files here might be a kind of misuse, but I was hoping that that the format music is encoded with does not matter much here since both FLAC and Monkey's Audio codecs are supported.

Sooo... Do you have any plans to make such things possible? Or is this a matter of allowing custom file extensions (since cuesheets are handled), or do I have to migrate to using some other form of tagging?

Do you have any other suggestions?
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#6
(2016-12-16, 11:07)DaveBlake Wrote: not untagged FLAC files and *.apl files that are kind of a mix of tagging and cuesheet

Missed that part of original post.

Confused as I thought APE was lossless compressed music files similar to FLAC and could contain tagging within the file and that the APL were similar to CUE but specific to APE files.
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#7
(2016-12-16, 12:56)LordXun Wrote: Yeah, this is the part that I've figured out - that this might not be supported Smile But the *.apl files as far as I know are the part of Monkey's tags standard. I admit, that using flac encoded files here might be a kind of misuse, but I was hoping that that the format music is encoded with does not matter much here since both FLAC and Monkey's Audio codecs are supported.
Playing the file is no problem, as you have discovered. The issue is a library one, Kodi does not know how to populate the library from *.apl files and even using cuesheets for track details it would expect some tags in the FLAC file.

Quote:Sooo... Do you have any plans to make such things possible? Or is this a matter of allowing custom file extensions (since cuesheets are handled), or do I have to migrate to using some other form of tagging?

Add *apl file processing, sorry no I don't have plans and I doubt anyone else does. From the little bit of research I have done it does seem to be an older and little used format, the fact it is not cross platform counts against it too. Then again if someone with dev skills had apl files I they could always add that functionality.

I haven't been able to find out what the format of an apl file is compared to a cuesheet, so I don't know if it is just a matter of file naming or requires more. If it contains APE tags in the header then that is quite different from a cuesheet. There could be something out there that would make cuesheets from apl files. You would still need some basic tagging in the music file too. I'm a bit confused if that is a FLAC file and could have Vorbis tags or a renamed APE file and thus APE tags?

Mostly, though not all codecs, Kodi uses Taglib to decode the various format of tags. Generally if that supports some format then Kodi library creation can too.

Quote:Do you have any other suggestions?
I'm hoping someone else may come along with some bright ideas. But if you can come back with more detail about your files then that could help. It could come down to adding some tagging (need to work out what kind) and something to create cuesheets from apl.
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#8
Ok, so I've put all the files of one album on my dropbox (available here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/onw0awrse569i...08XSa?dl=0). OFC without the audio file itself.
doing
As you can see I've also kept the original cuesheet that was an input file for decoding and log file that is ... mostly useless here Smile

I believe that the content of the apl file is literally a text file with an APE tag added at the end... So I was wondering whether allowing those files to simply be opened by the library might solve my problem Smile

As for reconstructing the cuesheets, I might be able to do part of the reconstruction from the backup as here, but I don't think I have all of them available...

I know these are kinda... strange. To be honest I was doing the same thing for last 10 years, and I haven't explore any other options for managing the audio library. The problem is that I don't want to split the audio file into tracks, andon the other hand i would still love to be able to "use" the single track-files. Kinda eath the cookie and have the cookie Wink

Anyways, thanks for any thought and suggestions on this! I really appreciate it.
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#9
Oh my just figured out, that Amarok also have problems with those apl files ... Sad
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#10
(2016-12-16, 20:16)LordXun Wrote: I know these are kinda... strange. To be honest I was doing the same thing for last 10 years, and I haven't explore any other options for managing the audio library.
I hate to say it, but I think you probably need to update your approach to something more mainstream and modern.

Quote:The problem is that I don't want to split the audio file into tracks, andon the other hand i would still love to be able to "use" the single track-files. Kinda eath the cookie and have the cookie Wink

Would FLAC file for the CD + cuesheet for track data not give you that? Kodi library could then give you single track access, but you still have the CD in a big lump if that is what you want. Just a matter of creating a cuesheet from the apl files, or from some other data source driven tool.
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#11
Hello again guys,

I've spent last few days searching and experimenting a bit with my collection. It turns out, that my way is not so uncommon as i thought, and there is not so much new abilities to store an audio cd. I tried a few solutions but with no luck, or no possible automation (which is a must considering the amount of albums to change in my library).

So far, the best solution (but still barely acceptable :/) would be to take the original cuesheet files, embed them into the FLAC file, and than copy the tags onto it. But unfortunately that drops some data (for example replaygain) as cuesheets are not exactly tagging tool.

Sooo anyhow... anyone sharing my problems (or at least sympathethic to themWink) willing to do some coding anytime soon?

Or perhaps any other possible solutions I haven't think of?
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