QQ Media Player NUC Buyers Club - Discussion

[HomerJAU]

I will add a new menu/source Category on these NUCs before delivery: ‘Classical’ whack all your albums in the Classical sub-folder and you can go straight there in one click.

You can filter by Composer too, I think. I will confirm.

 

[HomerJAU]

For the upcoming Kodi 22 (next Kodi major release later this year): I have been talking to a Kodi dev to implement MKV tag support, so no CUE files needed for any Matroska files at all. Tags fully supported in both MKV and MKA.

If that doesn’t happen I will write a Kodi addon to support to MKV tagging by ‘fooling Kodi into ‘thinking’ it’s scanning an MKA instead of a MKV’. Because right now I can do that manually in Kodi 21.2. It works, it’s just a bit too tedious to do it. It needs a program to do it instantly, I mean all your tagged MKVs near instantly!! After I spend a few days coding and testing!! Ha ha

 

[humprof]

@humprof

Question 1: Yes
Question 2: Any MKV file. A Matroska container can hold audio and video. MKV and MKA files are identical but usually MKV extension means the file contains audio and video, mka is audio only.

Currently (Kodi 21.2) on these NUCs only reads tags in MKA files.

If your MKV file is only audio from a BDA etc, just rename it from .mkv to .mka. Tag it. Kodi reads the tags, Simple

If you want Music with video and audio (concerts) in the Music Library, you need to use MMH’s Chapter Editor tool to create a CUE file for your MKV file. Then it gets imported into the Music library using the limited ‘tags’ in the CUE file.

In both those scenarios the Matroska files should have chapters if the mkv/mkv has multiple songs.

MMH gets the song titles and tags from its automated Get Tags from Musbrainz feature, so very little data entry, just the Artist and Albun title, the rest is automated.

Question 3:
I will post about classic albums in a new post. The short version: A Kodi Developer was a classical music junkie, he added extensive support for all things classical, the metadata gets there automatically when you tag as it’s all based on the MusicBrainz IDs. It’s not difficult. You won’t have to enter ‘composer’ it comes for free when you select the release in the tagging UI from the MBZ database.

Thanks!

 

[humprof]

I will add a new menu/source Category on these NUCs before delivery: ‘Classical’ whack all your albums in the Classical sub-folder and you can go straight there in one click.

You can filter by Composer too, I think. I will confirm.

As long as I've opened the whole "genre" (category, classification) can o' worms: how fine-grained can you get with genres, and how much can you customize?

I can slot things into big, broad umbrella categories if I have to (rock, rap, jazz, soul, classical, etc.). But we all know that there are lots of more precise style- and/or period-based subcategories and sub-sub-categories underneath each of those labels. And often you could place a given artist or album into two or more categories at once.

Anyway, I guess what I'm asking is: is there a way that you can tag using multiple categories--and then get Kodi to sort and display according to any category of your choosing--or even more than one at a time?

 

[HomerJAU]

Categories and Genres are independent.

I’ve used Categories on my (and your NUCs) as ‘Surround Release Types’ - Atmos, Quad, Upmixes etc. Users can create their own.

Genres are, well genres . In Kodi users can use anything, it’s free form if you want that. So ‘Live Jazz’, Jazz Trumpet’, anything.

The UI genre filter looks for unique Genre values it finds in the database, you genres are in the database.

EDIT: Users can create Menu Nodes (what you see in the Kodi UI), these can have user defined genre filters like: Genre contains ‘Jazz’ or ‘Genre Not contains ‘Rock’ or Genre contains Rock and Year between 1970 and 1979.

 

[humprof]

Categories and Genres are independent.

I’ve used Categories on my (and your NUCs) as ‘Surround Release Types’ - Atmos, Quad, Upmixes etc. Users can create their own.

Genres are, well genres . In Kodi users can use anything, it’s free form if you want that. So ‘Live Jazz’, Jazz Trumpet’, anything.

The UI genre filter looks for unique Genre values it finds in the database, you genres are in the database.

Okay--and sorry to be slow here, but: how do what you're referring to as "Genre" and "Category" (or "Surround Release Type") map onto the actual tags that I'm attaching to my files (using mp3tag or MMH or whatever)? And which of those tags will Kodi's UI genre filter look at when I ask it to find all the albums I think of (and have designated) as, say, "Instrumental Funk" or "Vocal Jazz" or "Minimalism" or "Renaissance Choral Music" or "Piano Concerto" or whatever? And where & how do I enter those extended and/or self-invented tags in mp3tag and/or MMH?

I get that I can label and organize files and folders on my hard drive any way I want, and I'm still experimenting with that. But it's figuring out how, and how "granularly," I can tag, in ways that Kodi will be able to interpret and sort, that I'm still not clear on.

 

[HomerJAU]

Please read Part 2 of this introduction I wrote for new Kodi users, targeting QQ NUC buyers, the Optional Categories Feature is discussed near the end :
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...cial-edition-media-players.37171/#post-835869

how do what you're referring to as "Genre" and "Category" (or "Surround Release Type") map onto the actual tags that I'm attaching to my files

I implemented Categories by grouping albums by ‘Music Source’ naming as ‘Category Sub-folders’, no tagging required or involved. It’s purely a folder structure, and governed by where your album is located in the folder structure.

In my implementation a release should only have one Category (one copy ) This version is ‘Quad’, this one is ‘Atmos’ etc. If using Categories, a BDA with both Quad and Atmos mixes would have the Quad stream in one Album folder and the Atmos stream in another album folder. You can easily find either or both in the Kodi UI, you do not navigate by folders, You filter by a category my selecting from a simple menu node.

Categories and Genres are independent. You can use both, either or none at all. How can you use them to allow you to group and find albums of interest to you.

Genre is implemented in Kodi by the value of the ‘Genre’ tag, like every other music app I know that uses tags.

Genres are not restricted to certain values, users can have any ‘genre’ want, there no rules, or the rules are ones you define:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_genre

The Kodi Remote smartphone app video, I posted earlier in this thread, shows clearly a user finding music by selecting by Genre. This shows the Remote UI not the Kodi UI, but the functionality is identical in concept in Kodi’s UI: ‘Show only my Jazz albums’ shows every album that has the word ‘Jazz’ in its genre tag.

Do what you want with it, it’s optional. Don’t use it at all, use it later. It’s your choice, now, later, never.

 

[roundhousequad]

What abreveations are you talking about?

Look at the post after this mkv, mkay IAA,MMH

• Can Kodi “decode” (legacy) Dolby Surround? (foobar2000 has a Dolby Surround plugin)
• Will it only play MKV files (e.g., those downloaded from IAA) as videos, or can you tag them and have Kodi play & display them like any other audio file? Or do you have to strip out the audio, save it as MKA, and then tag?

One more:

• I have a lot of "classical" albums in my library (a huge tagging headache, as no one has come up with a completely satisfactory approach to classical metadata). Can you configure Kodi to search and sort by "Composer" as well as "Artist" and/or "AlbumArtist"? (BTW: mp3tag offers a "Composer" tag by default, but I haven't found it--or figured out how to add it--in MMH yet.)

 

[HomerJAU]

IAA = Immersive Audio Album (online store for surround albums via download)
https://immersiveaudioalbum.com/

MKA, MKV = Matroska file format/container that can contain multiple audio and/or video tracks ‘streams’: MKA Audio only MKV Video and Audio.
Matroska is typically used for Blu-ray and DVD disc rips to files as it can hold lossless copies of almost all audio codecs (TrueHD, DTS-HDMA etc) and Video codecs (in 4K, HD/1080p, PAL, NTSC etc) and can hold multiple songs as chapters enabling gapless playback of Atmos etc. and easy selection af any song within the Matroska file. So ideal for us on QQ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska

Codec = A method used to encode audio or video and store for use in media file or on a disc. This often included compressing the data to reduce the file size and for video, to discard data to reduce file size (raw 4K video is far too large to store even on 100GB UHD disc). Different codecs perform (decode, encode, size, perceived quality etc) differently and may or may not require royalties etc.

MMH = Music Media Helper. A free Windows program to convert, tag, split, join, convert, edit music files (video and audio). It can fetch music artwork and metadata from online sources. It only works with music your have as files, it does not rip discs or download music.
Search for it here on QQ.

 

[humprof]

Please read Part 2 of this introduction I wrote for new Kodi users, targeting QQ NUC buyers, the Optional Categories Feature is discussed near the end :
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...cial-edition-media-players.37171/#post-835869



I implemented Categories by grouping albums by ‘Music Source’ naming as ‘Category Sub-folders’, no tagging required or involved. It’s purely a folder structure, and governed by where your album is located in the folder structure.

In my implementation a release should only have one Category (one copy ) This version is ‘Quad’, this one is ‘Atmos’ etc. If using Categories, a BDA with both Quad and Atmos mixes would have the Quad stream in one Album folder and the Atmos stream in another album folder. You can easily find either or both in the Kodi UI, you do not navigate by folders, You filter by a category my selecting from a simple menu node.

Categories and Genres are independent. You can use both, either or none at all. How can you use them to allow you to group and find albums of interest to you.

Genre is implemented in Kodi by the value of the ‘Genre’ tag, like every other music app I know that uses tags.

Genres are not restricted to certain values, users can have any ‘genre’ want, there no rules, or the rules are ones you define:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_genre

The Kodi Remote smartphone app video, I posted earlier in this thread, shows clearly a user finding music by selecting by Genre. This shows the Remote UI not the Kodi UI, but the functionality is identical in concept in Kodi’s UI: ‘Show only my Jazz albums’ shows every album that has the word ‘Jazz’ in its genre tag.

Do what you want with it, it’s optional. Don’t use it at all, use it later. It’s your choice, now, later, never.

I think we're talking at cross-purposes, Garry--and I'm probably misconstruing something in your intro. But I appreciate your patience in trying to straighten me out, and I'm grateful for your detailed primer. I'll study some more and figure it out.

 

[Marplot]

Some tagging options.

You could use artist Bach and Album Artist National Symphony Orchestra

You could go with genre
Classical
Classical Bach
Classical Mozart
etc

 

[Marplot]

Obviously you could also include them as the artist
National Symphony Orchestra, Bach

Multiple ways to accomplish your ask without too much effort.

If Kodi honors the composer or comment tag it becomes even easier.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

For the new users out there, i offer some advice. I was a new user once as well, so i understand where you are coming from.

Dont try to get 1000 albums all ready to go at once. Narrow the focus. You dont want to get something wrong and then have to edit tags on a huge collection of albums. Choose a subset of your music. Start with a small test group, maybe 25 to 50 albums or so from 5 to 10 different artists. Flac files or mp3s are probably the easiest to work with initially. Maybe just stereo selections at first. Dont get into any video yet. You can easily add files and formats as time goes on. Kodi will update it all when the time comes.

If you are going to change your directory structure, get the new directory structure set up. Remember, the directory structure dosent really matter to kodi, so set it up in a manner that makes sense for you. Copy your test group of files into that structure.

I use a pretty simple structure. It looks like

M: multimedia/stereo/artist/albums
M: multimedia/multichannel/artist/albums
M: multimedia/atmos/artist/albums

That simple structure takes care of all the music files i own. For ease in filing, dont specify an artist directory using "The Beatles". Name it simply "Beatles". Else, a lot of artist folders bunch up in the Ts when displayed alpabetically. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, etc.

Another thing i do is set up artist folders based on the album artist only. I think the concept of artist vs album artist has already been explaine earlier in the thread. This means in the artist folder "Tom Petty" i keep albums made by "Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers" as well as solo Tom Petty albums like "Wildflowers". Ditto for Alan Parsons, Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, etc. The artist ans album artist tags will display it all correctly in kodi.

More to come.

 

[skinner07crooner]

Really looking forward to receiving my box in due course and then the Kodi learning exercise begins….

Prior to doing so, though, does anyone know if Tidal can be made to work in the new build?

I am keen to use the box to listen to Dolby Atmos stuff on Tidal, if at all possible.

Again, huge thanks to all involved.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Really looking forward to receiving my box in due course and then the Kodi learning exercise begins….

Prior to doing so, though, does anyone know if Tidal can be made to work in the new build?

I am keen to use the box to listen to Dolby Atmos stuff on Tidal, if at all possible.

Again, huge thanks to all involved.

I dont stream anything through kodi. @HomerJAU will have to answer that one. But how do you stream it now? What do you think adding kodi is going to do for the experience?

I have an apple 4k streamer. Its a stand alone thing . Has nothing to do with kodi. Its a seperate source on my AVP.

 

[humprof]

Some tagging options.

You could use artist Bach and Album Artist National Symphony Orchestra

You could go with genre
Classical
Classical Bach
Classical Mozart
etc

Thanks, @Marplot. Buried in all my poor phrasing and dense prose, my core concerns were really about subgenres, "custom" genres, and (above all) multiple genres.

Google assures me that for a given track or album, I can tag it with any sort of genre name I want (i.e., as Garry also clarified, I don't have to limit myself to the tagging software's pre-selected list; I can make things up) and with as many genre names as I want--and that they all get entered in the same field (i.e., I don't have to somehow create new, separate fields for "Subgenre1," "Subgenre2," etc.).

But I'm finding conflicting info about what kind of separator to use when entering multiple genres. (E.g.:
"Classical\\Baroque\\Chamber" or "Classical;Baroque;Chamber"?)
It seems that different programs recognize different separators. So far, the results of my limited experiment (@LuvMyQuad has good advice above about starting small) indicate that mp3tag recognizes the "\\" separator and renders it as a comma. So...all good.

On the Kodi side, my related concern was whether, if I entered multiple genres, Kodi would be able to search on any or all of them--e.g., if I tag an album by Earth, Wind & Fire "Rock," "Pop," "Funk," and "Soul" (or an album by Stereolab "Post-Rock," "Avant-Pop," and "Indie Electronic"), can I search on any one of those genres--or even, in the Stereolab case, any one word in any of those genres (rock, pop, electronic) and expect that album to appear on the resulting list? Seems the answer to that is also Yes.

 

[HomerJAU]

If Kodi honors the composer or comment tag it becomes even easier

Yes for both

 

[skinner07crooner]

I dont stream anything through kodi. @HomerJAU will have to answer that one. But how do you stream it now? What do you think adding kodi is going to do for the experience?

I have an apple 4k streamer. Its a stand alone thing . Has nothing to do with kodi. Its a seperate source on my AVP.

I don't currently stream Tidal and have no way of listening to its multichannel output. I am hoping I can do so through the new unit, hopefully it is possible. If not, I will look at other ways to stream it. I am a new Tidal user and this is really the the first time I have looked into it.

Thanks again, for all of your work on our behalf.

 

[HomerJAU]

@humprof Multiple genres are supported. The default separator is ‘ / ‘

Example:
Genre Tag: Rock / Space Rock

Creates two genre references for the file in the library:
Rock
Space Rock

Users can also specify multiple artist with any of these (and user definable/changeable) delimiters:
<artistseparators>
<separator>;</separator>
<separator>:</separator>
<separator>|</separator>
<separator> feat. </separator>
<separator> ft. </separator>
</artistseparators>

I need to confirm but I think this NUC’s Kodi also defines ‘ with ‘
Artist Tag: Elton John with Kikki Dee
Creates two Artist references in the library:
Elton John
Kikki Dee

 

[HomerJAU]

I don't currently stream Tidal and have no way of listening to its multichannel output. I am hoping I can do so through the new unit, hopefully it is possible. If not, I will look at other ways to stream it. I am a new Tidal user and this is really the the first time I have looked into it.

Thanks again, for all of your work on our behalf.

You would need to search on the Kodi forum. There probably is a Tidal add-on for Kodi but not may not support Atmos.

If you have a recent smart TV supporting apps you can use Apple Music or Amazon Music to play Atmos and/or stereo. Not sure about Tidal apps on TVs. I’ve not used one on my TVs. But Apple Music on LG = Atmos. Amazon Music on a $50 FireTV stick = Atmos.