An Introduction to Kodi Music Media (Version 1) - QQ Special Edition Media Players

[HomerJAU]

This is the first part of a 3 part introduction to Kodi's Music Database and expected tagging and media folder/file naming etc.

This is especially aimed at buyers of the 'QQ Special Edition Media Player'(Intel NUC) offered to members recently here on QQ.

I intend to create another series of posts to help new users do update few simple settings on their new Media Players (NUCs) like set their Media Folder location(s) (be it on external USB drives or elsewhere,) connect to wifi or ethernet, set the time zone, set their AVR capabilities, can it play Atmos etc).

This first thread is about understanding how to structure your media files, the minimum music tags required to use your files in Kodi and the additional tags for the Best Kodi UI (User Interface) Experience.

I have locked this thread, you cannot reply to this thread. Post on the other 'QQ Special Edition Media Player' threads if you have questions. Buyers can PM me. I will only answer by updating this thread for ALL users to access.

This thread will be the Self Help system for all QQ Special Edition Media Player buyers. By locking replies I can ensure the information here stays relevant and not subject to off topic conversations and casual observations.

Please take your time, re-read and ask questions if unsure. (I will probably do some edits over next week so please revisit, I'd like to add more screen sots to)

THX
Garry

PART 1: Tagging, Tags (and more Tags)

Intro:
Kodi has always stored media file information and metadata in a database (by default that's on the Kodi device, but it can be set to a NAS or server to be shared by multiple Kodi devices).

When viewing your Music media collection (albums, concert videos etc) in Kodi's UI, you are looking at a database view, not at folders and files. This makes for instant access to everything. The views are preconfigured but customisable and you get instant UI updates to switch from any view (Artists, albums, songs) etc and filter views by codec type: Atmos, Quad, etc Or by Recently added, Genre, Release Year, a release date range, combos of any of those "Rock albums in the Seventies' . OK. Got it, sounds good.

In addition, especially if you have a large music collection with multiple disc drives or NAS (server) shared folders. Kodi's database stores each file location. No more: "I want to play XXX album I have, the quad mix, oh, which disc is that on? I'll do a search and find it". Its just a simple instant search in Kodi and the album is playing or you select a track you want to hear. Simple.

Music Tagging/Metadata:
For music, metadata includes typical 'Tags' you see within FLAC and MP3 files, but it can extend to other uncommon tags stored with each file, or even stored in external XML (small text) files too.

(Tags are attributes or properties that are stored in each music file, and remain unchanged until they are edited by a Tag Editing program. They can be read by Media players too, of course)

The first rule to get the your music into Kodi's database is:
All your music files should be tagged with the following tags (the minimum tags to stop using folder/file navigation, it’s awful doing that):

• Track Number (to sort first album file from last)
• Title (the song title so you will see that in the UI, you need that to choose a track)
• Artist (the Tracks main Artist, you can add multiples like: Elton John with Kiki Dee)
• AlbumArtist (this is the tag many non-Kod users don’t normally use)

AlbumArtist Why does Kodi need this tag?
An AlbumArtist can be different to a track's Artist (a Various Artists compilation: AlbumArtist = 'Various Artists' each track has a different track Artist. For the recent Elton John Atmos release on BDA: Elton is the AlbumArtist, it was released by him, but it includes a track where both Kikki Dee and Elton perform (they are both a track Artist). In the Kodi Artist Slideshow that plays during a song for that track users will see fan art images for both artists, not just Elton. (it also means you can find songs performed by Kikki Dee even though she is not on an album released by Kikki Dee. That's it in a nutshell.

Albums in Kodi:
At the simplest level, Kodi stores 'Albums' in its database by the tags: AlbumArtist + Album (the Album name/title). It does not look at a file's folder. Folders do not specify an album’s files in Kodi. It’s tagging.

But this also means that files in different folders with the same AlbumArtist and Album tags will be seen as the same single album. What the?

This feature allows a box set with 4 discs to be viewed in the UI as single release (album) but still users view and play by as individual Discs (view the tracks on each disc). This can be very useful for collectors that wish to preserve their boxsets after ripping to files. Yea, I play the original stereo mix.

A user can go to the album, then view and select a Disc and play it (just like you would do if you had all your discs on shelves). Alright! I want that, how does that work?

Kodi has an optional Tag named DiscSubTitle. If this tag has a non empty values Kodi is uses that text value as a Disc Name (Disc Title) and creates a 'Disc' for each unique value, So my tagging for Dark Side of the Moon Atmos rip I can create a Disc called 'Atmos mix' and another DSOTM album and set DiscSubTitle to '5.1 mix' or 'Alan Parsons Quad mix'. Its totally free form but its the DiscSubtitle matching values that group the tracks together to create discs in the Kodi UI. Using the DiscSubtitle tag is optional, and only is useful for multiple disc release.

For those that have media stored in multiple album folders (six versions of Dark Side of the Moon) on separate releases, you'll need re-tag the Album tag to differentiate: DSOTM (Quad LP), DSOTM (Atmos), DSOTM (1993 remaster) etc.

So there you are, go check your tags and add AlbumArtist if they are missing and change the Album tag to be different for each version of same album.

You can do that now before you new Kodi NUC is delivered.

Musicbrainz Tags (Optional):
Alternatively, you can use the exact same Album tag for all your DSOTM releases by adding Musicbrainz ID tags to differentiate the releases. Hang on, this seems too hard!

Musicbrainz is an open free online database with a huge number of releases from thousands of artists too. Every release has a unique Musicbrainz AlbumID, Kodi can use this ID to nail the exact disc release and will group song files into albums based on the AlbumID alone, the files can be anywhere on your system, it ignores each file's Album Tag, that's just the name of the album. MB AlbumID now rules how those files are grouped into albums , folders are only needed for humans to see them as albums and tag or replace them, move them around, back up etc etc. Kodi doesn't care, Kodi wants tags, it eats tags and digests them and turns them into UI magic.

Musicbrainz IDs have other major benefits:
Kodi can auto find artist (and album release) metadata and images from various websites on the internet, to view in the Kodi UI. Cool! I want that!
However, there are Artists with the same name or very similar names or Artist or AlbumArtist tags have spelling mistakes so Kodi cant find them online etc. Oh no! How does it know which one I want then?
The MusicBrainz ArtistID or AlbumArtistID does this. OK then, back in business!

Now ArtistID or AlbumArtistID are not required for all artists, but it helps with artists with same or similar names, spelling errors if Kodi can't find an artist. Its also a faster online Kodi metadata search. So if you see something missing for Metadata, images, chances are very high Kodi doesn't know the artist (cant find the exact matching Artist name in its searches) so add Musicbrainz IDs tags to resolve. How do I do that, seems like too much work?

How to add MusicBrainz ID tags:
Most tagging programs support tagging from the Musicbrainz online music database, and they are free!.

Just search and the tagging app tags all your album tracks with no user input if the albums already have tags, or if its a new rip, and not tagged, enter the AlbumArtist and Album title and its done, no more data entry than that, the entire album is tagged, track titles, genre,,release yesr etc and all files renamed etc and MusicBrainz ID are saved into the file's tags too, never to be done again.

Here is a typical Tagging apps Grid view of an albums tags: Note the AlbumArtist tag and DiscSubTitle tag fields, text boxes and MusicBrainzIDs to (auto entered by searching on the web). THis is MMH, all the tags vcan be added to the grid, the default shows the usual music tags used, but hidden columns (tags) do not affect editing in any way. You will notice 'album' tags are all the same value, track tags vary for each track:

Summary:
Don't panic, only do the minimum tags required above (AlbumArtist if missing and then edit Album tags if they are the same for different releases by the same AlbumArtist to get your music into the Kodi database.

You can always update some albums, with additional tags you wish to see, or add MusicBrainzs tags in small batches, over a few days or weeks. Ok. I'll do my Atmos album today, and my favourite 5.1s next weekend.

Tagging apps like Tagscanner (free) will load many albums into the same view at the same time and you can simply scroll down and find missing tags and fix. Yea, I've used that app, in the grid view missing tags stick out like dog's balls. Its a simple task.

Tagscanner is what I used for all my early tagging. I now use MMH, MMH also loads multiple albums into its 'Tag and Rename' tool's grid to view and tag. Both these apps get MusicBrainz IDs from online too.

MMH 9 with multiple Albums loaded (users can load all albums in sub-folders reclusively (fast): It is easy to see missing tags in this view from many albums, just scroll down and its obvious :

(Authors note: I should add a new Batch Tool to MMH 9 and auto reportsyour files that don't have an AlbumArtist tag, or when different folders contain the same AlbumArtist and Album tags). You would know what need to change within a few minutes or less)

NEXT UP:
Part 2: Kodi Music Folder Structures and Folder/File Naming (Artist metadata files & cover images too)

Click on this link to see what Musicbrainz finds when searching for Artist 'David Bowie':

https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=David+Bowie&type=artist&limit=25&method=indexed

When that comes up with a list of possible matching artists, click the first entry (The English singer), and see all his releases, this is the data Kodi can access from your tags. Click on an album to see all its Releases, click on a Release to see track details have a look around if you are curious.

 

[HomerJAU]

PART 2: Media Folders and Files (folder structures & naming)

A look at media storage folders and files for Kodi, and in particular the requirement's get the Kodi UI (customised with the 'QQ Special Edition UI being delivered to NUC buyers soon.

Source Folders:
Kodi needs to know where your media is stored (which disk drive(s) and what folders to look at. Kodi calls these folders: 'Sources' or Source Folders.

A Kodi Source is usually a Root folder (the first folder in a folder tree)

Kodi Sources (as defined in Kodi) can be one of 4 Source Types: Music, Movies, TV Series or Music Videos.

The source type enables Kodi to load its media databases correctly (if a file is under a Music source, treat it as a Music file, try and read Music Tags and music metadata and import that data into the Music database)

Part 2 will consider Music sources only. A user may define multiple Music sources, on different disc drives or on the same disc drive

Album Folders:
Kodi supports music folder tree structures arranged like these examples below.

In either 'style', all album tracks are stored as file(s) in a album folder. (BDAs can also be stored as a single file with 'song' chapters in an album folder)

Style A: [Source Folder]\Artist Name\Album Name (a separate folder for each Artist and a separate sub-folder for each artists Albums)

The Source Folder is "Music (A)' with Artist sub-folders, each Artist folder has Album sub-folders, In this structure an Artist has a single folder which contains artist related metadata (biography, discography, images etc), the albums are sub-folders.

Style B: (Source Folder)\Artist Name - Album Name (a separate folder for all albums, folder name prefixed with Artist name, followed by the Album name

The Source Folder is "Music (B)' with Album sub-folder folders prefixed with the Artist name

In both these folder structures the album folder name has no affect on Kodi, it wants tags, reads tags, eats tags etc and learns which files belong to which albums in its database from the tags. The album folder names are only useful to humans Ok, so that's the SACD version's folder and files I can see.

The complication with Style B is Kodi no longer has a single folder to store its Artist Information (metadata including biography, discography and the main artist image and many fan art images used by Kodi UI and Artist Slideshow. Yea, that's not the folder structure to use then!

This is the ideal folder structure and is the best for Kodi (if you want the full Features of my customised Kodi UI for surround music, Read on.

In Part 3 of this Kodi intro series we discover the Kodi Artist Information Folder which enables the separation/isolation of Music Media (you play) and Artist Information (you view/read). OK, lets go!

Files in a Kodi Album Folder:
Apart from media files (flac, MKA etc), Kodi Album folders can also contain these files:

Album cover image
Any image resolution is supported but my recommendation is 600x600 minimum. I use 1000x1000, In the customed Kodi on QQ NUCs the limit set to 2160 (4K height)
Must be named 'folder.jpg', 'cover.jpg (.png is also supported) If this file is missing Kodi uses the embedded art tagged into each file when 'tagging' is done.

HINT: If you make your own 'compilation albums' (for example, I bought the Talking Heads DVD-A box set years ago, all their albums in 5.1 and I found a 'Best of' CD album and thought I'd take those same tracks on the CD from my 5.1 rips and re-create that CD track list as a new 5.1 'hits' album for Kodi), By NOT adding a cover image to this new hits folder, Kodi displays the original cover art tagged for each song from different albums when played. So as each track plays Kodi displays the album cover it is from. OK, I like that idea.

Many tagging apps fetch cover art from the internet. For the 'bee's knees' in quality high res images, with (usually) multiple scans of every album cover) try:
https://www.albumartexchange.com/

Its not always online. You should register (free) and donate as hosting all those images (some over 1500x1500) must be expensive, it's a labour of love really, so if you use it please donate otherwise it will die.

Fanart.Tv also has many images of all types, another small donation helps these guys to.

Disc Image:
Any image resolution is supported but my recommendation is 600x600 minimum is the minimum, but you want 1000x1000 for a 4K TV (IMO). Most websites with disc images are 1000x1000. These NUCs can do a 4K UI on a 4K TV.
Must be named: 'discart.png' or 'discart.jpg' It does not have to have a transparent background to appear as a 'round disc', the UI masks a square image to appear like a round image.
The album disc art only appears in specific Kodi UI views, if it exists in the album folder. If this files does not exist, Kodi just ignores and you see the cover art alone. So no problem you don't have disc art. It can be added later at any time. or never.

Some tagging apps fetch disc art too. MMH does. Kodi tries to find disc art images for you too (see tagging Part 1), Kodi just finds any album disc for the album title, it probably wont be the BDA). MusicBrainz IDs helps here to as it links to the exact release. Discogs has user scans, low res but useful. And of course, you can scan your own discs with any cheap scanner too, takes a while of course. Something to do when locked up for winter maybe, there is no rush at all. Disc Images are optional.

Hint: Check out Topaz Photo AI app for AI driven image upscaling and low res noisy image clean ups for those old artist images.

Album Metadata:
Kodi will read additional metadata about each album from a file named: album.nfo
These files are very small text files editable by notepad in Windows (or similar program).
They contain lots of info about the album, not stored in file tags.
Example here: Record label, Moods, Styles, Album description are all coming from the internet (autmatically by Kodi) or from a album.nfo file:
View attachment 113633

Just to confirm: None of these files in the Album folder are critical for playing your music, only ifif you want to view disc art or metadata, Kodi will imports the artist.nfo file metadata into its database. There are also free programs to get this data off the internet (semi automated creation of an album.nfo file)

Kodi can by-pass an album.nfo and just get the data for you directly off the internet and save it to its music database (more on that later). But the artist.nfo file is an easy way for you to edit or your own metadate (example "Garry saw XXX live in Melbourne in 2005" or any other trivia/facts etc you want to store and view in Kodi. Its in your control.

For Kodi to get the album data off the internet (automated) Kodi must find a match for the tag combination of: AlbumArtist +Album

NOTE: If you tag your album titles like this: "Dark Side of the Moon - Blu-ray 2024 remix" its very likely Kodi wont find at that album title online. No album was released with that title! You made up that title name so humans can decipher. Hey, but couldn't I use a Musicbrainz ID you mentioned?

Go to the top of the class. Tagging with a Musicbrainz AlbumID means Kodi ignores the Album tag and hits the online database and grabs the metadata first shot and saves the data to the music database. Done. Kodi still shows your tagged album title too. OK!, so I can still tag my albums with any album name I like and Kodi is fine with that!!

That concludes an overview of standard Kodi Folders and naming.

Folders for an Enhanced User Experience Features (using 'QQ Special Edition' skin) (Optional):
The QQ Special Ed skin is the standard 'Aeon Nox Silvo' skin from vanilla Kodi - thanks to a great dev on the Kodi forum. I have done some 'tweaks' for my own use over time and decided to share some on QQ a while back, this is the nest version of that customisation.

The customised features you will gain by naming using 'QQ Album folder rules' are:

Feature 1. Kodi displaying the correct number of channels and a codec logo when playing a track (includes showing 4 channel as 'Quad' and '5.0 - quad with silent centre) as 'Quad', 6 channels as '5.1', 8 channels as '7.1' etc).

This customisation in 'now playing' screen is: Smaller cover and disc art, smaller fonts, displaying a 'codec' logo (Bluray disc at bottom - QQ member provide just about all the codec logos now), displaying the channel count a 'Quad', '5.1' etc for 4 channels. 6 channels etc

This shows '5.1' and an 'Upmix' logo:

NOTE: Kodi now plays 4 channel files. There's no need to add silent channels, the 'work-around' to get AVRs to output quad correctly. But many of us already have added silent channels years ago, so this feature shows correct 'Quad' not 5 channels or 6 channels on the screen.


Feature 2. Adding prebuilt view filters to music by your own categories, these are pre-defined" 'Atmos', 'Quad', 'Upmixes', 'Surround' 'Stereo' or 'Concerts' (music with video)
From the main menu or other music menus you can go straight to a a 'Atmos' only view, or Quad only view etc (of course you can also see Everything too)

Below the main start-up menu, with has Music selected: With a remote simply click on a sub-menu to see just 'Atmos' etc Click "Music' you see everything:
View attachment 113636


Here's another Music menu in Kodi showing more options: Pretty extensive options, Kodi stores last played, most played, recently added albums etc. Top 100 is the 100 tracks you play most often:


The QQ Folder Rules to get these two optional features:
Feature 1, above (Display a Codec Logo) Just name each album folder with suffix including one of these to identify the codec (its actually customisable, but out-the-box its:
SACD
DVDA
DVD-A
DTS 9624
DTS9624
ADVD
DVDV
DVD-V
Quad BDA
Quad SQ
Quad Q8
Quad QR>
Quad Reel
Quad QS
Quad CD4
Quad Q4
Quadradisc>
Penteo
Upmix
Quad
BDA
BDV
Multitrack>
Atmos
DTSX
DTS-CD
DTSCD
DTS CD
DTSDVD
Dolby DVD
DTS DVD
DSF

You get a different logo foe each of those above

Examples of album folder names to trigger a Codec logo to display. This works with Folder Structure Style A and B. You only need a code in the album name.
Atom Heart Mother (Quad Q8)
Dark Side of the Moon (SACD)
Dark Side of the Moon (Atmos)
Wish You Were Here (Quad BDA)

Feature 2, above (Filter by Category) (Categories can be user defined)
To use this feature, users must make a new Music Source folder for each category:

Style C Folder structure:
Create a sub-folder for every Category like this:

Users must then move existing album folders under each category sub-folder. Oh no! This will take forever to copy those folders! Do you realise how long it takes to copy 4TB of music files! Just forget it..

Hold it: Folders and files on a disc can be moved (NOT copied) to another folder on the same disc instantly. Discs store files as bits (a huge number of them) and they are accessed via an internal filesystem 'index' stored on each disc (like a tiny database). Moving just require the file or folder indexes to point to a new parent (folder) it doesn't copy any data (bits), just a few bytes change for each folder that's moved, very close to an INSTANT! Blink and you'll almost miss it. Even selecting 100 folders with 'cut' to the new category sub-folder with 'paste; Its near instant. Go on try this one at home!!

Here's another view of Folder Style (C):

That's it. The last two features are completely optional, no one must do either one (unless you want those Features - up to each user)

NEXT UP:
Part 3: The Artist Information Folder

 

[HomerJAU]

PART 3: The Artist Information Folder

Intro:
To support user Categories and to enable Kodi to extend its folders over multiple disc drives and Sources, Kodi added support for an Artist Information folder.

The Artist Information folder contains a single sub-folder per Artist (named same as the Artist name). Each Artist folders stores and metadata for the artist and all artist images.

The Artist Information folder can be located on any drive you are using. For the QQ Special Edition NUC, this folder has been created on its internal NVME SSD drive (super fast). All the metadata and images I have will be already there and Kodi music is configured to use that folder already. You will need to know how to access it, maybe to copy some of your own Artist images into the Kodi world. That will shown in another upcoming topis (its easy),

The QQ Special Edition NUC comes with an Artist Information folder populated with many typical surround artists and thousands of artist images I've collected.

Kodi also populates these folders when it 'Scans' Music Sources and finds a new album. Scanning is a function that finds changed or new media files copied to sone of your Music Source sub-folder (e.g you just copied a new almbu to a Kodi Atmos source folder.

Scanning reads the tags and does meta data and Artist image search and downloads that (with a specific setting enabled) - We'll cover that later (its easy)

If you use Folder Structure A from Part 2 of the intro series, you can set the Artist Info folder to be the main Music Root folder, BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVE ONLY ONE MUSIC ROOT FOLDER. IMPORTANT. READ THIS AGAIN.


This is a typical Artist Information folder, showing Artist sub-folders, named after each artist:

AC/DC is shown as ACDC because '/' is an illegal folder and folder name in most operating system, so its removed (The Artist is still shown as AC/DC in the Kodi UI.

Artist folder contents:
An Artist Folder within an Artist Information folder contains these files:

The files:
folder.jpg
The main artist image used in many views, it has a square aspect ratio, usual image resolution is 1000x1000. It must be named folder.jpg

fanart,jpg
The main fan art images used for the full screen background when viewing an Artist's albums or an album's tracks in Kodi. It must be named fanart,jpg and best resolution depends on you TV but 1920x1080 (HD) works best 3820 x 2160 better if you have a $K TV. Most the ones on the NUC are HD but there are $Ks too.

clearlogo.png
This is the artist logo you see in the now playing screen.

Kodi will attempt to get all these images if they don't already exist or use what's already there in the Artist Information folder if it exists for the Artist now playing

artist.nfo
This is the XML test file that holds the artist metadata, you can edit this and Kodi will import the data into its db.
Kodi will attempt to create this if not already exists or download the data form the internet (if it recognises the Artist name (usual rules apply, spelling mistakes, entering incorrect AlbumArtist tag etc will cause this auto process to fail.
Tagging with the Musicbrainz ArtistID will almost ensure success. (some low profile artist just don't have any online metadata, or images to download from the usual sources. You may need to search on Google and grab some photos, copy them into the AIF etc. Not difficult.

The other folders contain more info/images used by the Artist Slideshow add-on (displayed during playback)


To all QQ Special Edition Media Player Buyers:
This first series should be digested BEFORE you even turn on you new Kodi Media Player (NUC).

You have plenty time to carry out some folder normalisation, renaming and tagging, to get you media into the Kodi database so its ready for your new media player.

If any of you doubt you are capable of preparing your music media, especially the basic (non-optional requirements within these 3 posts, or you don't have the time to do so and have changed you mind about using Kodi, Please PM me for a full refund and your NUC can go to next on the waiting list. No questions asked.