Music Media Helper (Tools for Multichannel Audio & Music Videos)

[himey]

Is Kodi media organization software? If so, that's what I use.

It will probably be worth effort to organize your folder structure to exactly what Kodi recommends.

 

[HomerJAU]

I'm ready to change to this format, but I'm wondering what advantages it offers over my current Artist/Album format. I remember following this thread, and I'm curious when and why you decided to change: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...i-file-and-folder-organisation-storage.22380/

Originally Kodi used the Artist\Album hierarchy but a developer wanted to create features needing multiple music Sources and the way Kodi found Artist data could not be used since an Artist could have folders in multiple Sources. Kodi expected one per Artist.

Kodi implemented the new ‘Artist Information’ folder so all artist data (fanart, biography, discography etc) could be stored there. No media though. So Kodi needs one Artist Information folder but now supports multiple music Sources.

So now users no longer need to keep their albums under an Artist folder. But for users an album name alone is not ‘readable’ so ‘Artist - Album’ (e.g. ‘Pink Floyd - Animals’) is recommended when using an ‘Artist Information’ folder.

I used multiple Sources so I can create Kodi menu nodes (defining music database filtered albums), so instead of navigating from over 2000 albums I can now start from albums that are ‘Atmos’, ‘Quad’, ‘Surround’, ‘Upmixes’, ‘Stereo’, ‘Concerts’ buy creating those 6 Sources with 6 menu nodes. Those Sources can also be over multiple drives.

For me that has been good as I often listen to just Atmos or Quad or Concert music during a listening session.

But it’s up to each user to decide what they prefer. You don’t have to do it this way, you can use the original recommendation.

 

[paligap]

Originally Kodi used the Artist\Album hierarchy but a developer wanted to create features needing multiple music Sources and the way Kodi found Artist data could not be used since an Artist could have folders in multiple Sources. Kodi expected one per Artist.

Kodi implemented the new ‘Artist Information’ folder so all artist data (fanart, biography, discography etc) could be stored there. No media though. So Kodi needs one Artist Information folder but now supports multiple music Sources.

So now users no longer need to keep their albums under an Artist folder. But for users an album name alone is not ‘readable’ so ‘Artist - Album’ (e.g. ‘Pink Floyd - Animals’) is recommended when using an ‘Artist Information’ folder.

I used multiple Sources so I can create Kodi menu nodes (defining music database filtered albums), so instead of navigating from over 2000 albums I can now start from albums that are ‘Atmos’, ‘Quad’, ‘Surround’, ‘Upmixes’, ‘Stereo’, ‘Concerts’ buy creating those 6 Sources with 6 menu nodes. Those Sources can also be over multiple drives.

For me that has been good as I often listen to just Atmos or Quad or Concert music during a listening session.

But it’s up to each user to decide what they prefer. You don’t have to do it this way, you can use the original recommendation.

Interesting. Two of my Video folders, Concerts and Videos, have the Artist - Concert (or Album) format. Movies just have the movie titles. Where does one get the info for the Artist Information folder? In my current Artist/Album format, I assume some of the info for both artist and album is in the tagging, but it's not separate in a folder.

Are the Artist Information and Source(s) folders at the same level?

 

[HomerJAU]

MMH 8.0.6 beta 1 released:

Version 8.0.7 beta 1 (November 5 2024)
-------------
Fixes:
DR measurement failed for some flac files due to issue with ffmpeg - fixed @M-K

Changes:
Updated 3rd party UI controls to latest 24.1.7*
Updated Ffmpeg to 7.1.0

Direct download link to 8.0.7 beta 1 installer:
https://reva.blob.core.windows.net/mmh8/beta/MMHInstaller.msi

* this is the last update for MMH's 3rd party UI controls as the annual subscription cost is no longer affordable. MMH will now remain at .NET 8 and using version 24.1 3rd Party UI controls.

 

[HomerJAU]

Audio Batch processor. But Channel Volume does not work either, I just found out. See below. DR0 is wrong.

View attachment 110746

Now fixed:

I could not replicate your error in any of my tests but could with your test files that were uploaded. ffmpeg 6 and 7 gives errors on that problem flac file. I have now included an old ffmpeg 4 file just to use for DR calcs. That works fine with your files.

Some sort of minor file corruption I think. Newer versions of ffmpeg report 'No Dynamic Range Data found', probably a bug in newer ffmpeg DR calcs.

THX
Garry

 

[HomerJAU]

I assume some of the info for both artist and album is in the tagging, but it's not separate in a folder.

Are the Artist Information and Source(s) folders at the same level?

The only Artist info in tags is Artist Name.

The Artist Information folder can be anywhere but typically is root folder and not under any music source folder. If you don’t specifically set an Artist Information folder then Kodi presumes you are using its original Artist\Album folder hierarchy with only one music Source folder (i.e the Artist information is in the Artist folder and all Artist albums are there also).

 

[paligap]

The only Artist info in tags is Artist Name.

The Artist Information folder can be anywhere but typically is root folder and not under any music source folder. If you don’t specifically set an Artist Information folder then Kodi presumes you are using its original Artist\Album folder hierarchy with only one music Source folder (i.e the Artist information is in the Artist folder and all Artist albums are there also).

I found some good info about the Artist Information folder here: https://kodi.wiki/view/Artist_information_folder

Of particular interest to me is this information in the "Recommended Setup" section:
A frequent question from users is what do you recommend?, in the case of the Artist Information Folder the answer is simple: unless you have local artwork for artists, or want to enter artist information via NFO files there is nothing to do. For a first time Kodi user the recommendation is to tag your music files accurately, scan them into the library and allow the scrapers to fetch additional artist and album information and artwork for you.

With v18 you can arrange your music files however you like and still have access to local art and NFO files. We would recommend that all the music files from an album are kept in a unique folder, perhaps with subfolders for each part of a multi-part set. Perhaps you choose to arrange those in artist folders of some kind, but that does not have to be strictly adhered too. You could divide a large music collection by genre (with an artist having albums in more than one), or by decade, or some broader music category e.g. Xmas music. Use an Artist > Album > Songs structure if it is convenient for you.

Once you start to extend your use of Kodi then a number of situations can arise:

• you have artists that the scraper was unable to find information or art for
• you want to manually edit some of the information
• having selected particular art from the many choices the scraper has found, you want to backup that choice
• you want to transfer your current library to another installation of Kodi

I don't currently have local artwork for artists, unless the "cover" file in most of my album folders counts as that. The only NFO files I have are for concert and music videos I have split and tagged with MMH, but when MMH asks if I want it to scrape, I've always answered "No," so I, assume the NFO files just have minimum data.

I don't know if I'll ever import local artwork for artists, but I might go back and create new NFO files for my concert videos using the Scrape function in MMH. Would that also work for my music video collections as well?

Even if I don't do any of that, I can see the advantage of the "artist - album" format over the "artist/album" format in terms of moving albums to different source folders. Does the "artist - album" format absolutely require the Artist Information folder? That's not clear to me from the wiki I quoted because it says, "Use an Artist > Album > Songs structure if it is convenient for you."

 

[HomerJAU]

The most obvious ‘Artist Information’ used by Kodi is the artist image seen in its music UI. Also if you use the Artist Slideshow, the Artist fanart images are artist information. Cover files are album information and reside in each album folder along with disc images.

If you want to use ‘Artist - Album’ folder format the you must have an Artist Information folder (and a sub-folder for each Artist). Of course the ‘Artists\Album’ structure already has an Artist folder for all your artists!

Did you download my Kodi Artist Information folder I posted about a year ago? That had all my artist sub-folders with artist images (inc fanart) plus nfo files for biographies etc that I’d created using a free program called ‘MediaElch’. I also hand picked many images from the Internet by hand (and recently upscaled quite a few to 4K using AI image enhancement - what else do you do in retirement in the middle of winter?)

MediaElch needs either an Artist Information folder or your library in ‘Artists\Album’ folders. It scrapes/copies data/images for each artist into artist folders (it uses each Artist folder name as the lookup to various music websites). Date is saved to nfo files and images to jpg/png files in each artist sub-folder.

The Kodi Artist Slideshow add-on also scrapes and downloads artist data and images as it plays each music file and Kodi’s internal music scrapers also does similar scraping/image downloading (if enabled - ‘Fetch Additional Info during Scraping’ setting enabled’). I believe all those need an Artist Information folder or your library in Artist\Album folders format. I may be wrong. Not sure where the info is saved without having either of those. It’s not saved in the database it saved as picture files and nfo files.

MMH’s music video NFOs contain the absolute minimum to get the file into Kodi’s music video library (db). Track no., Song title and ‘album’ name, genre. Nothing else.

 

[paligap]

Thanks so much for the replies, Garry. I've gotten by with just a rudimentary knowledge of Kodi for a few years, but now that I'm retired I'm willing to learn some more. Did you post your Kodi Artist Information folder on this forum? I'll search for it.

 

[HomerJAU]

The post is here but looks like I since deleted the file… But check out screen grab as it shows the files/folders in a typical ‘artist’ folder:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-for-surround-music.35316/page-13#post-755464

I’ll create a new zip and pm you the link later today.

 

[Marplot]

Can I get a snippet as well? I am getting ready to take a run and follow you kodi on firestick install directions.

 

[HomerJAU]

Can I get a snippet as well? I am getting ready to take a run and follow you kodi on firestick install directions.

Sure. I was just looking at that thread a moment ago. I should update the Firestick files to latest Kodi release. I’ll do that today.

 

[tormento]

How can I completely delete preferences?

I deleted folder + AppData one and can't understand if it saves something in Registry.

However, light theme appeared upon launch even if dark is the default one.

 

[HomerJAU]

How can I completely delete preferences?

I deleted folder + AppData one and can't understand if it saves something in Registry.

However, light theme appeared upon launch even if dark is the default one.

Does your theme change to Dark immediately when change it in the MMH Preferences?

What version of MMH are you using? Windows version? Which Dark skin are you using (name in MMH)?

 

[M-K]

Now fixed:

I could not replicate your error in any of my tests but could with your test files that were uploaded. ffmpeg 6 and 7 gives errors on that problem flac file. I have now included an old ffmpeg 4 file just to use for DR calcs. That works fine with your files.

Some sort of minor file corruption I think. Newer versions of ffmpeg report 'No Dynamic Range Data found', probably a bug in newer ffmpeg DR calcs.

THX
Garry

Error in ffmpeg? Not true really? But great anyway that you found a workaround for this little bug. I was surprised that ffmpeg delivers the DR information. foobar uses a plugin for DR calculation, so that worked. ffmpeg worked most of the time. But not always.

Thank you!

 

[HomerJAU]

Error in ffmpeg? Not true really?

MMH uses ffmpeg to get DR stats.

If you don’t believe me copy the ffmpeg.exe file from your working 6.4.8 version to your MMH 7 version or any MMH 8 prior to latest beta and you see the MMH DR bug is fixed.

Latest MMH beta release adds that old ffmpeg version to MMH as ‘ffmpeg.4.4.exe’ and uses that for ffmpeg -stats command used to get DR.

EDIT: Don’t do this as a permanent fix as the old ffmpeg does not contain new features used in MMH 7 and 8.

 

[JediJoker]

MMH uses ffmpeg to get DR stats.

What algorithm does ffmpeg use for DR?

 

[MrSmithers]

You’ll should use the ‘Get Titles from MusicBrainz’ option for MMH to get the album information including sing/track titles. Take a look at the MMH PDF docs.

Also, if you load your MKV file into the MMH ‘Chapter Editor’ tool you can use its MusicBrainz tool to get the chapter/song names. When you split a MKV with song names the MMH split tool uses the chapter names for its song titles.

There is also a ‘Tag and Rename’ tool in MMH to load album folder files and tag from a MusicBrainz lookup or copy and paste from selected text on a webpage etc. all documented in the PDF.

MakeMKV will only create MKV files for DVDVs (or the DVDV files on a DVDA disc). It does not read DVD-Audio files.

Hey Garry,

Just a thought… Do you think it would be possible to have a preferences option where you could change the default track number plus file name structure? A lot of my music is stored as eg 01 - songtitle.m4a but if I use MMH after using musicbrainz / tag and rename, the file name will always default to 01. songtitle.m4a.

I just wonder if there is a way to set up an option to personalise it? I see there is already a tick box under Preferences to ‘Use Artist Name in File Names’ but is it possible you could have the option to have a different file name structure? Eg 01 - songtitle

Cheers

 

[tormento]

Does your theme change to Dark immediately when change it in the MMH Preferences?

What version of MMH are you using? Windows version? Which Dark skin are you using (name in MMH)?

Last beta of 8.0.7. I’d like to rollback but can’t find where to download the previous version.

I can easily change theme but the strange part is that when I delete the folder, it remembers when I change to white.

Is mandatory to install Dolby Reference Player in the default path? I installed it on a different partition and that’s probably the reason of greyed out Atoms button. Perhaps it should ask for path as it does for DEE.

 

[jabbr]

Newbie here.
I was using MMH 8.0.6 on an old windows laptop, but just upgraded to a new HP laptop and installed 8.0.7
MMH8 Launches and seems to work fine except that when I click "MMH Atmos Helper" the launch circle (attached to cursor) spins for a second or two but no Atmos Helper screen appears. All the other screens load. Reloaded .NET, tried to run as admin to no avail.

I notice that MMH itself uses DevExpress at 24.1.6 but MMH Atmos Helper 24.1.7, could that be it?

...
I was able to revert to 8.0.5 and it works ...