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Which ID3 Tags in music files does Emby utilise?


JamFestival

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JamFestival

Hi,

I am new to Emby. Having had poor experiences with iTunes, MediaMonkey, and MusicBee, and as my music files are stored on my Synology Diskstation anyway, I've just started using Emby.

Is there a full list of which music ID3 tags reads, and the syntax (e.g. delimiters for multiples)?

Specifically, I'd like to know which ID3 tag corresponds with the Emby "Tags" metadata. My music files already have tagging info in the 'Grouping' ID3 tag (Chart position, Nationality, "Christmas", "Halloween", etc., e.g. "Top 10, British, Christmas"), and it doesn't read that. I was wondering whether I can 'fix' that by moving these into another ID3 tag?

My music files have multiple genres separated by ";" and Emby seems to be reading that correctly.

Thanks in advance.

Edited by JamFestival
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JamFestival

Hi,

I am new to Emby. Having had poor experiences with iTunes, MediaMonkey, and MusicBee, and as my music files are stored on my Synology Diskstation anyway, I've just started using Emby.

Is there a full list of which music ID3 tags reads, and the syntax (e.g. delimiters for multiples)?

Specifically, I'd like to know which ID3 tag corresponds with the Emby "Tags" metadata. My music files already have tagging info in the 'Grouping' ID3 tag (Chart position, Nationality, "Christmas", "Halloween", etc., e.g. "Top 10, British, Christmas"), and it doesn't read that. I was wondering whether I can 'fix' that by moving these into another ID3 tag?

My music files have multiple genres separated by ";" and Emby seems to be reading that correctly.

Thanks in advance.

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Hi, we need to get this documented, but generally speaking we go by what Picard supports, and then try to be as accommodating towards other software as possible.

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I believe the only thing that corresponds to tags is roontracktag, which was added recently upon request.

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Tremas

Hi @JamFestival. I'm also a MediaMonkey and Emby/Synology user. I don't use the grouping tag and I'm not sure how many music players support it, but I can see how it would be useful. The thing that comes the closest is Genre, but from your post you are already using that. If you combined the info from your Groupings tags into Genre with ";" you could get additional entries in Genre, but I'm guessing that is not what you want.

You could also consider hijacking the "studio" tag if you are not using it. This would give you the ability to filter or sort on "studio" when searching or browsing the web interface for song and album views.

The other avenue to explore with Emby would be "tags" and "collections." When going to the metadata view of a song or album, there is an option for "Tag" (below "studio"). The value will be unique to the Emby database and won't be directly related to your ID3 tags. But if you set a tag, it can be filtered from the song and album views. If you set an Emby tag on an album, it will also list these Emby tags on the album view, and when clicking on it it will take you to all other albums with that tag.

Collections are a way to group media and can be viewed as a separate tab or in line with other albums. I use collections for audio outside of music like radio series or audio books. If you create music collections, they will show up in the "collections" library and you can also set them to be displayed in-line with the media. That may be your best option, but it will take some manual setup.

Emby tags and collections cannot be imported from ID3 tags, and also won't be visible to other media players. The are Emby specific. For collections, you can multi-select items and then choose "add to collection" from the three-dot menu. To bulk edit Emby tags or collections, you can also use the bulk edit tool found here:

Before the 4.6 update, it was possible to use something like MediaMonkey reports to generate an album NFO file from ID3 tags that Emby could import. That could help with bulk transferring ID3 tags to Emby specific metadata. However, I don't believe NFO import for music/albums is currently available but has been requested here.

I hope that gives you some ideas to try.

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5 hours ago, Luke said:

I believe the only thing that corresponds to tags is roontracktag, which was added recently upon request.

We can certainly support more mappings for tags if there are others that are frequently used by other software. Just let me know.

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VicMoore

Tremas, are you asking for a way to create Emby tags from id3 tags?  

Vic

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Tremas

@VicMoore I'm not asking for anything, I'm just trying to help a new user find a way to organize his media with the tools that Emby has available. It sounds like @JamFestival has already spent time adding a "grouping" tag to his music. I know this tag is available in MediaMonkey but am not sure how widely used it is (I've never employed it myself). But it looks like he is using it to create categories (he mentions Chart position, Nationality, "Christmas", "Halloween"). If he's already put the work in to add tags, I'm just trying to think of ways he could get the same info into Emby without too much fuss. The bulk edit utility could help do that quickly (if manually). I don't know exactly what "grouping" would map to if you were to formalize it, so I was just giving a few ideas.

Just for some background, I use a plugin for MediaMonkey to create .NFO files from ID3 tags. This works great for music videos where I can bulk edit tags in the video file for Artist, Genres, etc. and then just export all the NFOs to be saved with the files and picked up by Emby. That's one way I know of to map ID3 tags into Emby, but it works for music videos because they are video files. I don't think it works for music since 4.6, but if you want to map a less common tag like "grouping," to an NFO that establishes an Emby Collection, MediaMonkey could probably do it. For JamFestival, I think collections might be the way to go and it is one of the best and most flexible parts of Emby.

From my own personal experience, I was doing this ID3 to NFO procedure for albums in my audio series library (radio shows, Big Finish audio dramas, podcasts, etc.). I have detailed overviews and cast lists tagged in the "comment" section of the ID3 files which I want to get into the Emby album overviews. I just happened to move my server when 4.6 came out and Emby was unable to pick up the NFOs for albums (music/audiobooks) when I re-scanned. I know Luke said it was coming back eventually, and it looks like in 4.7 comments are now mapped to overview for audiobooks, so that might resolve my issue. However, there is lots of discussion and very little agreement on how to handle ID3 mappings for audio series and audiobooks (just look at the forums on MusicBrainz), so I am not requesting a feature here. Just my 2 cents on manual mapping ID3 to Emby.

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VicMoore

Thanks Tremas for taking the time to teach me your ideas. I enjoy learning.  

Vic

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  • 4 weeks later...
zetetic

I also use the Grouping tag extensively for smart playlists with Jriver. I use and Beets and Jriver for tagging.

It would be great if the Emby smart playlist function had access to the Grouping tag, even better if it had access to all ID3 tags.

For me the display of some ID3 data is secondary to my ability to make use of it for playlists. I haven't used Emby much for music since I discounted it as an option many years ago but it seems to display most info needed. If functionality to give playlist access to all ID3 tags was added, the display of that metadata could then be added slowly or experimented with more easily perhaps.

Other tags I use for smart playlists in Jriver that I suspect are not read by Emby are Publisher and Country.

I saw a feature request to add comments from ID3 tags, I would submit a feature request to add support for all ID3 tags if it isn't already buried deeper than I searched. Music files have a great metadata system already so it seems it would be frustrating to have to make workarounds as Tremas mentions. Why not just read that data that many users have probably spent time editing?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/17/2022 at 7:01 PM, zetetic said:

I also use the Grouping tag extensively for smart playlists with Jriver. I use and Beets and Jriver for tagging.

It would be great if the Emby smart playlist function had access to the Grouping tag, even better if it had access to all ID3 tags.

For me the display of some ID3 data is secondary to my ability to make use of it for playlists. I haven't used Emby much for music since I discounted it as an option many years ago but it seems to display most info needed. If functionality to give playlist access to all ID3 tags was added, the display of that metadata could then be added slowly or experimented with more easily perhaps.

Other tags I use for smart playlists in Jriver that I suspect are not read by Emby are Publisher and Country.

I saw a feature request to add comments from ID3 tags, I would submit a feature request to add support for all ID3 tags if it isn't already buried deeper than I searched. Music files have a great metadata system already so it seems it would be frustrating to have to make workarounds as Tremas mentions. Why not just read that data that many users have probably spent time editing?

Hi, we don't currently have a smart playlist function, although it is planned for the future. Or are you referring to Instant Mix?

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zetetic

I am only referencing the ability to use ID3 tags in some kind of smart playlist functionality

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