Kodi users: Concert and Music Videos - Please Read

[rjpinca]

This works for me.
Thank you Garry!

 

[HomerJAU]

The next MMH version has some new tools and functionality to help better support getting Kodi concerts into the Kodi music library and User Interface:

Version 4.2.1 (May 26 2021)
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New Features:
Batch Creation Tools: Added recursive auto Creation of CUE files for Kodi Music Video folders
Batch Creation Tools: Added recursive auto Check for CUE creation Kodi Music Video folders
Split & Rename Concerts tool: Added option to export to MP4 (tagging supported)
Chapter Editor: Added support for MP4
Extract Audio from MKV tool: Now supports converting multiple M4A files to MKA and FLAC

Changes:
Edit Chapters in MKV tool renamed to 'Chapter Editor' (now supports MP4 chapters)
Improvements to tagging workflow in Split & Rename concerts
Extract Audio from MKV tool: Last Output type is set on opening the tool
Chapter Editor: Attempts to load Artist and Album (or Concert) name from existing NFO or folder name
Chapter Editor: Add track artist supports where track artist not same as album artist - new
Track Name Editor, Rename & Tag tool etc: Added Unicode support when pasting from a website
MMH: Added unicode support for CUE and NFO files
Updated mkvtoolnix components
Updated PDF docs

Fixes:
Batch Creation Tools: Creation of NFO files did not run in recent builds - fixed
Chapter Editor: MKV Chapter times were a few milliseconds out - fixed
Chapter Editor: Chapter names with Unicode characters were shown incorrectly - fixed
Extract Audio from MKV tool: Failed to convert multiple input MKVs if contained only 1 audio stream - fixed
Track Name Editor: Display of multi artist release tracks fixed


The batch CUE creation tool is super fast and working now. Recursive scanning of all sub folders in your Kodi music video library will create a CUE for every folder.

That’s going to allow users just add their old music video source as a new music source, scan and all the videos will appear in the music library and music UI.

The new batch CUE creation tool is super fast and working now. Recursive scanning of all sub folders in your Kodi music video library will create a CUE for every folder.

This won't damage your music database. If you don't like what you get, delete the new concert music source (from Kodi Settings, Media, Music) and clean. All the music videos are removed and you a back to before you tried this.


Batch Creating CUE Files:
The new MMH Batch CUE tool (in 'Batch Creation Tools') now supports creation of:

• A single CUE file for multiple MKV or MP4 files in a single folder
• A single CUE file for a single MKV or MP4 file with multiple chapters in a single folder

NOTE: A single CUE file for a single MKV or MP4 file with multiple chapters in a single folder uses the Chapter Names embedded in the MKV or MP4 file. Ideally the chapters names would be the song titles. MMH has a ‘Chapter Editor’ tool that supports renaming chapters from a Musicbrainz lookup or by a Copy and Paste from a track list. Of course, you can also manually edit the CUE file MMH creates and change the Track names in each cue file prior to scanning into Kodi or playback in another player (e.g JRiver).

CUE Files for Concerts in Kodi:
CUE files allow your Concert folders to be added to Kodi’s music library (not Kodi’s Music Video library). All the files in a concert folder can be viewed in the Kodi user interface as songs, concerts appear as ‘albums’. If your music video is a single MKV or MP4 file with chapters, you see each chapter as a ‘song’ and can play any chapter in the file by selecting the song in Kodi.

If you add your Concert folder as a Music Source in Kodi’s Media Settings, when Kodi reads each CUE during a music scan it creates an ‘album’ and ‘songs’ for the concert’s artist by reading tags from the cue file. User do not need to create NFO files (a requirement for Kodi’s Music Video library). A single CUE file in each folder contains enough information for the Kodi music scan to create data in the music database. Furthermore, the Kodi scan can use one of its music scrapers to find additional data online during the scan process, assuming your Artist and Album (concert name) match one of the online databases.

When you select Cue Creation in the Batch Creation tool, you get an option to ‘Check for Missing Chapter (song) names’. This option performs a recursive search from the selected Source Directory but does not save any CUE files. It checks for issues that should be fixed where artist, album and chapters names cannot be found (if a single file with multiple chapters) by MMH, allowing users to fix the issues prior to a full CUE creation run.

Click: ‘Check for Missing…’ option

Click: ‘Start Processing’ to run a Check

All the folders under the Source Directory are loaded into the Information list and if there is an issue the Error flag is shown against the folder as shown in the next screenshot:

Check Issues Reported (above):
Not All Chapters are named after songs: Occurs when a single file with multiple chapters has chapter names that do not contain Song Titles that would be used in the CUE file if it were created.

Fix: Rename the Chapters using MMH’s ‘Chapter Editor’ or ignore the error and edit the CUE file that will get created.

If you double-click on this error type in the Information List (above), MMH opens its ‘Chapter Editor’ tool for the file.

NOTE: If you ignore this error MMH will create a CUE without valid Song Titles. (Not good for Kodi).

Minimum Data not found: Occurs when MMH could not find both the Artist and Album (concert) names to use as those tags in the CUE file if it were created (the CUE would not be imported into Kodi).

Fix: This error can be fixed by renaming the concert folder to the expected format or creating an NFO file (MMH’s ‘Scrape a Concert Folder’ tool will create NFO files).

NOTE: MMH performs the following to attempt to get the Artist and Album names:
• Reads the concert folder name, expected naming format: ARTIST - ALBUM (YEAR)
• Looks for an NFO file (compatible with Kod’s Music Video library)

If you double-click on this error type in the Information List (above), MMH opens its Windows Explorer at the folder.

When the errors are resolved:

disable the ‘Check..’ option

Click: Start Processing

All the CUE files will be created (one per concert folder)

You are now ready to scan into the Kodi Music library.


What comes next:
Before final release I'll add a batch join (append) of split MKVs back to one MKV with chapters - Now released in 4.2.1
I'd still like to get MMH's batch CUE tool to copy music video concert.nfo data to album.nfo for the music library

I'd like to do a full 'How To' write up on to setting up Kodi and how to do all this for existing users and post in a new thread here and of the Kodi forum.

THX
Garry

 

[HomerJAU]

Here's some screen shots of Kodi's Estuary skin with a mixture of audio and concert videos for an artist. These are 'out of the box' views, no skin customization:

An audio album highlighted:

A concert video highlighted (note the cover is a video aspect ratio):

The Songs view for a concert video (this is a single MKV file with chapters and a CUE file):

And the Kodi screen when a concert video track is played: (The quality of this 1976 video is not great of course):

 

[Mickb]

Hi,
I'm staring to delve into this - I've created an MKV from MakeMKV with the atmos audio (in this example Hams Zimmer).

In MMH, I can see options to create MKA files, & these play fine individually, however I'd prefer a single MKA & use the cue file method, as described previously.

I can't see an option within MMH to create a single MKA, what am I missing?

thanks!!

(sorry, just to clarify, I'm trying to create an audio-only version at this stage)

 

[HomerJAU]

You can create an mka file using MakeMKV from your disc or use the free MKVToolNix program to convert your MKV file to mka.

 

[Mickb]

You can create an mka file using MakeMKV from your disc or use the free MKVToolNix program to convert your MKV file to mka.

thanks - now using MKVToolnix to do this - seems to work fine

 

[letting1]

GOOD NEWS - THESE PROBLEMS ARE NOW SOLVED!
I stumbled across a relatively easy way to get Concerts from my BDV and DVD rips into Kodi's Music library.

If I take a single big Concert file and create a CUE file at the Chapter breaks, add the Video File and CUE to a new folder under a Music Source and scan with Kod Music, the Concert appears as an Album' under the audio library Artist and shows each chapter as a song. I can choose to play any track just like playing an audio album. Kodi switches to full screen video playback automatically, just like I am playing a Movie. If I have 'Auto Play next' enabled, there is no glitch between songs/chapters. My iphone/iPad remote apps can play all of my concerts as a complete album OR I can pick and choose which songs to play, queue my favorites etc.

I've done this with a fresh Kodi 19.1 install with no Kodi customization. It just works!

Can anyone tell me if this approach works as well with Kodi Nexus 20.4 on Windows? I want to make sure I can build playlists with songs from concerts that are added to the music library using this approach. Many thanks @HomerJAU for all your contributions.

 

[HomerJAU]

Yes. Cue files still get scanned into the Kodi Music Library is the concert folders are in a ‘Music Media’ library folder. Don’t put the concert folders in a Kodi ‘Music Video’ media library folder. This is still supported for Kodi 20 and upcoming 21.

You can also create playlists for any video/audio file using MMH’s Playlist tool with or without of the use of cue files or whether the file is in a Kodi ‘music’ or ‘music video’ library

I haven’t tested it recently but the MMH Playlist tool can accept any audio or video file and any song from a cue file when creating/editing Playlists for Kodi. (Example: add just the 4th song from a cue file to a playlist)

See the MMH PDF file for more information.