[LordXun]

Hi,

A few days ago I had to redo my audio collection in order to be able to use Kodi for playing it (http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=301024). I used mostly single-file flac per album, and copied the tags I have. It mostly works, but I've stumbled upon some challenges here:

1. I have a lot of "duplicated" albums in different versions - i.e. japanese edition, digipack edition, reissued, remastered, boxsets and so on. So far, I always followed simple rules, that the album name is "clean" without any descriptions, and I just marked in the comments of bonus tracks for each release, that they are bonuses to basic edition. I distinguished between releases based on the directory structure (I have such information added to directory name). Also I always use the date tag as the date of the first, base edition, to be able to sort by discography (I don't always have the original releases :/) So for example:
directory name: "after forever [2001] decipher [lp, reissue 2003, flac]"
tag year: 2001
tag album name "Decipher"
And... With kodi I have no way to distinguis between releases without changing the name of the albums in tags - I don't want to do this, as the tags should reflect what is written on the booklet.
I need advice, what can I do here using Kodi abilities and different tags available. Anyone with similiar problem?

2. Almost the same problem with artists. There are multiple artist with the same name. I distinguished them by adding the ISO code of the country to the directory name (but not in tags!). Any idea how no to mismatch discographies of different artists under the same name here with kodi?

Thank you for any possible suggestions!

[elee532]

I share your exact needs RE: #1 above. Search this forum for recent posts by DaveBlake. He is working on some enhancements for v18 that should help with some of this.

[DaveBlake]

My initial suggestion would be to add Musicbrainz Id tags, using Picard or Mp3tag with an appropriate script. The main gain with mbids is that it distinguishes both artists with the same name, and album releases. However maybe your music taste is not mainstream and may not all be in the Musicbrainz database. But I don't know if any of it will work for single-file per album.

Failing tagging I guess it could be possible to give Kodi mbids via NFO files (I have a feeling that they don't get loaded though).

Mbids is the only way I know to distinguish artists with the same name. Kodi will load duplicate albums (same title and album artists) from separate music sources, but as you say no way to tell which is which when navigating. Thinking about it mbids will not help with that - you still get repeated album names in the albums node.

Differentiating those albums from v17 on you could appropriately use the album release type tag - TXXX:MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM TYPE (ID3) or RELEASETYPE (Vorbis) - to hold some of it. Many skins show album type on the album info dialog, but it could also be included on the albums node (if a skinner will help you with that), and you can use it in filtering (a little used feature hidden on the sidebalde), smart playlist rules and custom nodes. The flac files can be found in playlists using path rules, actually you can probably use same to select other things you have encoded in folder name.

Personally I have abused the genre tag to help categorise (and access via UI and remote apps) my music in a way I like. You could consider tagging genre = "Japenese / LP / remastered" etc., although I am not recommending it, it all depends on how diverse your release labeling. But that has weaknesses such as making for a long unmanageable list of genres, and when I have other ways to achieve what I want I will no doubt be retagging.

In the longer term the addition of support for custom tagging could help you out, but I don't have any plans to try to get library data from folder names or path automatically. What users may have done with their folder structure and naming is too hard to fathom! Nearest will be the facility to select songs using path rules (or source) and flag them within Kodi manually, or (better because portable) use some tagging software to add custom tags within the files themselves.

[elee532]

Many skins show album type on the album info dialog,

Can you give some examples of skins that support this?

but it could also be included on the albums node (if a skinner will help you with that),

Are you aware of any skins that support this currently?

[DaveBlake]

Many skins show album type on the album info dialog,

Can you give some examples of skins that support this?

but it could also be included on the albums node (if a skinner will help you with that),

Are you aware of any skins that support this currently?

Confluenece, Mimic and Aeon Nox all show album type (if a value has been loaded) on the album info dialog. I'm sure many others do to, except for Estuary which is a shame, but I am very conservative with skin use so I really can tell your more.

As for putting it on the albums node I doubt if any do even though it is possible, but again I really don't know.

[LordXun]

Thank you very much for suggestions.
There are indeed two aspects of my problems - one, how to tag properly the collection i have, and the second, how to make those tagging work in kodi.

As for the duplicated artists, I guess I should investigate more music brainz, and whether it covers my music taste, as you put it It is possible, I've checked some rarities I have and they seemed to be found there. But from what wyou have written I don't see any chances for Kodi to use those data and differentiate depending on the musicbrainz id while listing the artist...To work with musicbrainz i need to find some tools first, cause as you said picard does not support single-file albums. I'll try the foobar plugin soon.

As for duplicated albums I am wondering however what are you suggesting here exactly. I read that basicly musicbrainz differentiate between lp/ep/sp/live/compilation using one of the tags (can't remember now which one, probably RELEASETYPE). But that does not solve the reissue and remaster duplicates, cause musicbrainz is using release group (https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Release_Group) to link different releases of the similiar content. As I looked through the kodi wiki I didn't find kodi supporting it. So are you proposing that I should a bit abuse the Release type field to store informations about such items? Or I didn't get exactly what you meant?

Of course the best solution would be to use my own dedicated tags for this, but as you said that requires probably a lot of work... Thinking of this now, I might give it a try in my spare time to fiddle with the code if you could point me where to start

And thanks for the genre suggestions - unfortunatelly I relay on it while searching thhrough database

[DaveBlake]

So are you proposing that I should a bit abuse the Release type field to store informations about such items?

Yes.

It is not really an abuse, Ok Musicbrainz might put certain values in that tag but "album type" has been album data of an undefined type for a long time in Kodi. Before v17 it could only be loaded via album.NFO file (I don't think online sources ever provided it vai scraper), I just added the processing so that the album release type tag - TXXX:MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM TYPE (ID3) or RELEASETYPE (Vorbis) etc. - could be used to populate it initially. I also fixed the filter facility (on the sideblade) so having album type values started to be useable.

You could use NFO files to load album type instead of tags. Maybe that would be easier for you given the single file for album that you have?

Of course the best solution would be to use my own dedicated tags for this, but as you said that requires probably a lot of work... Thinking of this now, I might give it a try in my spare time to fiddle with the code if you could point me where to start

Additional people working on Kodi is always welcome, but it is quite a learning curve too. If you have the skills and interest then set up a dev environment, and get to a point you can build/debug Kodi (there is wiki about that), learning about git is also useful. Then come back and we can talk some more.

Support for custom tagging (in a varirty of forms) is on my todo list. The database side is simple, harder is making it useful via UI and JSON API

And thanks for the genre suggestions - unfortunatelly I relay on it while searching thhrough database

That's not a problem, remember songs can have more than one genre. So say you have a song (well in your case all the songs on an album) that is currently genre = "Rock", it could be genre = "Rock / LP / Japenese". The downside is that the genre node will show a lot more entries e.g. "LP", and "Japenese" as well as "Rock", but with care it could prvide a way to categorise your music a little more than you currently have.

I suggest you experiment and see how some of these things work out.

[LordXun]

So are you proposing that I should a bit abuse the Release type field to store informations about such items?

Yes.

I don't consider that a problem, just wanted to clarify. Honestly I have thought about it. I won't be compliant with the Musicbrainz engine, but I do have my tags anyway (i.e. small / upper cases in titles done as on the cover, etc.) and I don't want to retag that.

Before v17 it could only be loaded via album.NFO file (I don't think online sources ever provided it vai scraper),

I'm still thinking about the nfo files. For artists I am certain that I will generate them, but for the albums... even with the automation it will be a huge amount of work, even to look what was generated, validate if that's the right release, and so on. For now I think I'll pass on that But looking forward for v17

I just added the processing so that the album release type tag - TXXX:MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM TYPE (ID3) or RELEASETYPE (Vorbis) etc. - could be used to populate it initially. I also fixed the filter facility (on the sideblade) so having album type values started to be useable.

You mean that this will be available for v17? or will I have to wait for v18?

Of course the best solution would be to use my own dedicated tags for this, but as you said that requires probably a lot of work... Thinking of this now, I might give it a try in my spare time to fiddle with the code if you could point me where to start

Additional people working on Kodi is always welcome, but it is quite a learning curve too. If you have the skills and interest then set up a dev environment, and get to a point you can build/debug Kodi (there is wiki about that), learning about git is also useful. Then come back and we can talk some more.

Ok, I'll look this wiki thorugh... I was thinking about doing some custom coding on my side rather than commiting to such project (I don't feel comfortable commiting to, when there is a chance I might not have the time for it :/). But I'll definetely try to look through
[/quote]

Support for custom tagging (in a varirty of forms) is on my todo list. The database side is simple, harder is making it useful via UI and JSON API

I've read the ongoing topic about this... I keep my fingers crossed

I suggest you experiment and see how some of these things work out.

Doing it already from two weeks now My wife isn't happy about the time I spend on that experimenting, but well..

Thank you Dave!

Ah... and a Happy New Year!

[DaveBlake]

I just added the processing so that the album release type tag - TXXX:MUSICBRAINZ ALBUM TYPE (ID3) or RELEASETYPE (Vorbis) etc. - could be used to populate it initially. I also fixed the filter facility (on the sideblade) so having album type values started to be useable.

You mean that this will be available for v17? or will I have to wait for v18?

Yes in v17 (although I have been known to get confused from time to time what is in what version )

Additional people working on Kodi is always welcome, but it is quite a learning curve too. If you have the skills and interest then set up a dev environment, and get to a point you can build/debug Kodi (there is wiki about that), learning about git is also useful. Then come back and we can talk some more.

Ok, I'll look this wiki thorugh... I was thinking about doing some custom coding on my side rather than commiting to such project (I don't feel comfortable commiting to, when there is a chance I might not have the time for it :/). But I'll definetely try to look through

If you want to make real changes (to say tag processing) then you need to mess with core and C++, and that means dev env etc. even if you keep what you do to yourself 9although that would be a shame). On the other hand there is plenty you can do with scripts in Python, but that is something I know nothing about. Have a look at the addons forum if that sounds like your thing.

Just get a toe in the water and see if you get drawn in

I suggest you experiment and see how some of these things work out.

Doing it already from two weeks now My wife isn't happy about the time I spend on that experimenting, but well..

Ah yes, that is how it starts :p

A Happy New Year to you too

[elee532]

Confluenece, Mimic and Aeon Nox all show album type (if a value has been loaded) on the album info dialog. I'm sure many others do to, except for Estuary which is a shame, but I am very conservative with skin use so I really can tell your more.

Thanks Dave!

FYI, after experimenting with these, and other skins, I have found that Aeon Madnox is the only skin with a view that will show Type without having to pull up the Album Info dialog. If I set the view to "Showcase2" and set the Infopanel to "On," then the Styles, Type, and Moods fields are displayed automatically as I browse through at artists albums.

This brings up another question though: Is the "Type" field in Kodi the same as the "Release Type" field in MusicBrainz Picard? I ask because I have set a value in that field using MusicBrainz Picard, but when I view that album in Kodi, it shows "Info Unavailable" for type.

Thanks!

[DaveBlake]

This brings up another question though: Is the "Type" field in Kodi the same as the "Release Type" field in MusicBrainz Picard? I ask because I have set a value in that field using MusicBrainz Picard, but when I view that album in Kodi, it shows "Info Unavailable" for type.

Yes. The tag that Picard labels as "Release Type" (others call it album type) is used to populate the abum type field in Kodi.

But it is also updated by scraping NFO files. it could be that you have an NFO file with a <type></type> entry that is clearing the value read from the music file. Is that the case? Otherwise I would like to know more.