[HomerJau]

There are now a few albums released (and more coming) with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X (object based) multichannel audio tracks. The only way to listen to these is via HDMI Passthrough to an AVR with Atmos/DTS:X decoding.

Currently I’m using MKV to contain the Atmos/DTS:X audio track and I’m adding them like a music video using nfo files to describe Artist, Title, Year etc. These become part of my Kodi Music Video library so I can find and play within the Kodi UI or with music video playlists.

With many new object audio releases expected (pre announced) it’s time to find a way to include these in my Kodi music (audio) library, after all these are audio files (with no video). Adding them as music videos is a workaround.

Is there any way to get these into my music library by scanning either MKV (or MKA or MP4) tags? Can I use nfo files? Anything else?

@DaveBlake: If MKV, mka or mp4 tagging is not supported for the music library I’d be interested seeing what’s involved in implementing it.

[jjd-uk]

Support for DTS-HD as music was only recently introduced and is available in v18.3, however at the current time TrueHD is not supported, although it would be trivial to also add this. In case you don't know, DTS:X uses DTS-HD frames and Atmos uses TrueHD frames.

As for MKA I don't believe we currently support tags for these files, I seem to recall that taglib does not support tags in MKA, but it's possible it was added using ffmpeg instead. I'll see if I can find anything relevant.

[DaveBlake]

@DaveBlake: If MKV, mka or mp4 tagging is not supported for the music library I’d be interested seeing what’s involved in implementing it.

MKV files are not supported bt Taglib, but Kodi will read tags using ffmpeg (in a limited way as not all tags or multi-value are read correctly)

[jjd-uk]

Ok looks like mka tags are supported via ffmpeg added in https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/6991 supported tags are https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master...p#L89-L136

[Rico66]

I do have a number of mka files, which are ripped audio tracks from DVDs. Some tags certainly work, however the one that I don't get to work is the album title. This only shows up as "Sngles" in Kodi. Looking at the same in e.g. Foobar or MP3Tag shows the correct title.
Any ideas why this does not show correctly in Kodi?

[DaveBlake]

I do have a number of mka files, which are ripped audio tracks from DVDs. Some tags certainly work, however the one that I don't get to work is the album title. This only shows up as "Sngles" in Kodi. Looking at the same in e.g. Foobar or MP3Tag shows the correct title.
Any ideas why this does not show correctly in Kodi?

While ffmpeg supports the return of ID3v2 metadata it has its own naming system for some of the keys. Is the album name in the metadata as TALB (the standard ID3v2 key name) or as "album" (which is what ffmpeg seems to be expecting)? Note that tagging software often shows its own internal name for a tag rather than the key name used in the metadata, so it could be difficult to check.

But I am guessing in the dark. If you want to provide me with an example file then I will check what is happening and if the issue is in Kodi or in ffmpeg.

[henkypenky]

In Kodi 17 I used a CUE sheet file (.cue) to describe Album Title, Artist, and track titles for mka files (one file per album containing either LPCM, DTS, DTSMA, or TrueHD audio streams). The album was added nicely to the library, the audio was passed through to my AVR, and album was playing gapless so all good. 
Now with Kodi 18 things seems to be broken, see my post https://discourse.osmc.tv/t/gapless-play...i-18/81068)
The good news is that Kodi 18 does support tags included in the mka file now, the bad is that the files do no more play gapless which is a huge bummer for me as I have a number of concept albums with smooth transitions between tracks.
If anybody has an idea how to fix this please share with me. Thanks!

Update: It shows that the tags included in the mka actually causes gapless play to be broken, see details here: https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues/16341

[HomerJau]

In Kodi 17 I used a CUE sheet file (.cue) to describe Album Title, Artist, and track titles for mka files (one file per album containing either LPCM, DTS, DTSMA, or TrueHD audio streams). The album was added nicely to the library, the audio was passed through to my AVR, and album was playing gapless so all good. 

Thanks. This CUE sheet solution will work for me. I’ll give it a try.

The good news is that Kodi 18 does support tags included in the mka file now, the bad is that the files do no more play gapless which is a huge bummer for me as I have a number of concept albums with smooth transitions between tracks.

This sounds promising although DaveBlake says there’s an issue with the ALBUM tag. Let’s hope he gets the sample file he’s requested to see if it can be resolved.

Question:
Anyone know what tagging programs support mka files now?

I’ll see what I can find on using ffmpeg for mka/MKV tagging. (I’ve never had too much luck using their docs, it’s usually on a forum post somewhere...)

[Karellen]

Anyone know what tagging programs support mka files now?

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

[HomerJau]

Anyone know what tagging programs support mka files now?

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

Thank you!

[HomerJau]

I have the INXS - Kick 30 Atmos Blu-Ray album which I used to create mka files containing the Dolby TrueHD + Atmos track. I tagged these using mp3tag program. Scanned using Kodi 18.2. They appeared in the Kodi audio library (tagged as ‘Kick 30’ but the album name in Kodi was ‘Singles’).

When I played this in Kodi it played as a 7.1 file not as an TrueHD Atmos file. Looks like the Kodi audio player doesn’t Passthrough the Dolby TrueHD + Atmos bitstream like it does when I play the same codec as an MKV file using the Kodi video player. So some work is needed for the player to bitstream Audio. Is this what was changed in 18.3 for DTS-HD music? (To enable DTS to be bitstreamed by the audio player?)

[henkypenky]

Anyone know what tagging programs support mka files now?

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ 

But it seems to me that you cannot edit the tags on a per track level with mp3tag, can you? I am talking about single mka files per album. This is why I switched to foobar for this purpose. However, would prefer mp3tag as it is my standard tagging tool for FLAC.

[henkypenky]

I have the INXS - Kick 30 Atmos Blu-Ray album which I used to create mka files containing the Dolby TrueHD + Atmos track. I tagged these using mp3tag program. Scanned using Kodi 18.2. They appeared in the Kodi audio library (tagged as ‘Kick 30’ but the album name in Kodi was ‘Singles’).

When I played this in Kodi it played as a 7.1 file not as an TrueHD Atmos file. Looks like the Kodi audio player doesn’t Passthrough the Dolby TrueHD + Atmos bitstream like it does when I play the same codec as an MKV file using the Kodi video player. So some work is needed for the player to bitstream Audio. Is this what was changed in 18.3 for DTS-HD music? (To enable DTS to be bitstreamed by the audio player?)

Well, pass through / bitstream of mka files with DTS-HD/DTSMA was already working for me with Kodi 17. Not sure which change in Kodi 18.3 you are referring to with regard to DTS-HD

[henkypenky]

Anyone know what tagging programs support mka files now?

https://www.mp3tag.de/en/  

But it seems to me that you cannot edit the tags on a per track level with mp3tag, can you? I am talking about single mka files per album. This is why I switched to foobar for this purpose. However, would prefer mp3tag as it is my standard tagging tool for FLAC. 

I just found the solution by myself: Extras -> Options -> Tags -> Advanced: Check the box to show chapters as distinct files.

[jjd-uk]

I already said passthrough of TrueHD and hence Atmos wouldn't work, all you'll get is 7.1 LPCM as things stand. The music player underwent a significant code change for v18 as a result initially passthrough of both DTS-HD and TrueHD was lost. Passthrough of DTS-HD was added back in v18.3 however due to lack of any test tracks nothing was done to reinstate TrueHD, in theory to add TrueHD back should be a trivial 2 line code change.