Some questions/problems re: how Music Videos are handled

[ChrisJ60 8]

I'm fairly new to Emby and I'm having some issues getting my Music Videos to be organised nicely within Emby. I am using Emby 3.2.70.0 on macOS 10.13.3.

 

I have 506 music videos. The videos are all M4V files and are rigorously tagged with Title, Artist, Album etc. The folder structure on disk is:

 

Music Videos

   |-  Artist

   |       |- Video File

   |-  Artist

   |       |- Video File

   |       |- Video File

   |-  Artist

   |       |-  Album

   |       |      |-  Video File

   |       |-  Album

   |       |      |-  Video File

   |       |      |-  Video File

   |-  Artist

   |       |- Video File

   |       |- Video File

   |       |-  Album

   |       |      |-  Video File

   |       |-  Album

   |       |      |-  Video File

   |       |      |-  Video File

 

I created a 'Music Videos' library pointing it at the top level folder (Music Videos). I enabled all metadata and artwork download options and the metadata saving option. I ticked 'Prefer embedded titles over filenames'. After the library generation was complete I observed several issues with the way that Emby handles this...

 

1.    The metadata scraping doesn't seem to extract important metadata from the files (Artist and Album are the main ones).

 

2.    Items are named using the file names not the embedded titles.

 

3.    Only files in the next level off directory (the 'Artist' level above) are processed. The 'Album' folders within each Artist are not processed at all.

 

4.   Artist folders with only a single Video file are named using the name of that file rather than the name of the Artist (folder).

 

5.  Sort by 'name' simply does not. The display order at the top level of the library is quite strange but certainly is not sorted by Name.

 

My question is basically, is this really how Emby works for Music Videos (i.e. is it really this broken)? Or am I doing something wrong? I have had pretty good results with Films and TV Shows so the Music Video side of things is rather a disappointment.

[Luke 37050]

Hi, what do you mean by this exactly?

 

 

Only files in the next level off directory (the 'Artist' level above) are processed. The 'Album' folders within each Artist are not processed at all.

[ChrisJ60 8]

Sorry, that should have said 'of' not 'off'. To be clear (please refer to the folder structure in my original post), what I mean is that files in the top level directory of the library (Music Videos in the diagram) and files within the first level sub-directories (identified as 'Artist' in the diagram) get processed by Emby i.e. they appear in the library, NFO files and image files get written etc. Files in lower level sub-directories (identified as 'Album' in the diagram) do not get processed by Emby i.e. they do not appear in the library, no NFO files get created, no image files get created.

[Luke 37050]

The issue is that we need to improve our support for a true mish-mash folder structure. I've created a ticket on our tracker. You can follow it here:

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby/issues/3207

 

Thanks.

[ChrisJ60 8]

I wouldn't describe it as a 'mash-mash'. It is pretty logical in terms of music videos. Also, all of the files have the necessary tags in them (artist, album, track etc.) to completely figure this out. At the end of the day as long as the support for music videos improves that's all I care about. Emby should pay more attention to tags (where present) instead of relying so much on folder structure.

[Quiffster 1]

I have some observations that might help others, and a few quirks to raise with the Emby team around Music and Music videos - so will tag on the end of this discussion, rather than start a new one!

 

My Music is structured fairly traditionally:

 

\Music

.........\Artist

................\Album

................\Album

 

etc...

 

In Emby - configuring a Music Library and setting the folder work great :-)

 

However - in many (not all) of these music folders, and usually at the "\Artist" level - I have individual Music videos.

*if* I create a "Music Videos" type library in emby and set the folder to the same (local) path as I have set for my Music type library - then the result is that when I browse Music Videos in Emby it just shows me the Music files, and plays music.....

*however - I noticed that when I did a Library refresh from the admin console - both the Music and the Music Videos did a refresh (the little green progress circle showed up on both)...

Hmmm.. guessing that Emby just thought they were the same (maybe a library alias) - I instead set my Music video library folder to the UNC path and did a refresh.....

 

voilà! - I think emby recognised it was different and now it presents my music videos only when browsing the "Music Videos" library... 

The downside / suggestions:

1. Every folder shows up in the list when browsing - including empty ones.  This is a bit of a ball ache as it necessitates browsing in and out of folders to play videos.  It would be great if empty folders (I.e. those without a video in them - not those without files, as they all have other music files in them already) were not displayed..

A workaround for the above (in the web client at least, not sure about the Samsung app) is to set a HD and SD video type filter on the library display - this then only shows folders with video in them....

2. An Instant mix option would be great to just randomly play through vids!

 

Hope this helps anyone else with Music Vids library

[Luke 37050]

Thanks for the feedback.

[Guest asrequested]

For music videos, I don't want to have album folders. I just want to make an artist folder and drop the videos in it. This is working better, now that the artist appears as a folder in the UI. The one complaint I have is that if you only have one video, in emby it shows up as the video name, not the artist. Can it be made to strictly obey the folder name (artist)?

[CharleyVarrick 277]

HI @

thought I'd throw my 5 cents worth.

Some time ago, I had artist folders in my music videos collection (for clarity/neatness sake), but I (regrettably) resolved to lose artist folder because Emby would only show those (so ugly) generic colored artist tiles. Is there a work around I'm unaware of (apart from manually getting artist mugshot)?

 

AFAIK, Emby treats music videos like home movies (no attempt whatsoever to (automatically) look up artist

Edited March 24, 2018 by jlr19

[Luke 37050]

I wouldn't describe it as a 'mash-mash'.

 

I didn't mean to insult your folder structure, rather I'm referring to anything not officially supported as a mish mash.

[Guest asrequested]

HI @

thought I'd throw my 5 cents worth.

Some time ago, I had artist folders in my music videos collection (for clarity/neatness sake), but I (regrettably) resolved to lose artist folder because Emby would only show those (so ugly) generic colored artist tiles. Is there a work around I'm unaware of (apart from manually getting artist mugshot)?

 

AFAIK, Emby treats music videos like home movies (no attempt whatsoever to (automatically) look up artist

 

I just created artist folders and put the videos in it. When you have more than one video, it becomes a folder in the UI. It scrapes an image, but you can choose your own.

[CharleyVarrick 277]

I just created artist folders and put the videos in it. When you have more than one video, it becomes a folder in the UI. It scrapes an image, but you can choose your own.

GTK, last time I tried, it just created an artist bland colored tile, which just didn't work for me. I resolved to throw all my music videos in a single master folder; easier on the eyes when browsing within Emby. I find I now have too many to switch back for test purpose.

[Guest asrequested]

GTK, last time I tried, it just created an artist bland colored tile, which just didn't work for me. I resolved to throw all my music videos in a single master folder; easier on the eyes when browsing within Emby. I find I now have too many to switch back for test purpose.

The way I have it, I can change tile pictures.

[davechap 0]

Hey folks,

Been a long-time plex user but giving Emby a shot. Movies/TV work well ... music video not so much. One of the strangest things ... some folders are detected as folders, some are not and only the first title in the folder appears. Eg, folder structure:

 

MusicVideos

     A-F

               Akon

               Vid1

               Vid2

               Vid3

               Vid4

          Coldplay

               Vid1

               Vid2

               Vid3

               Vid4

               Vid5

               Vid6

          Evanescence

               Vid1

               Vid2

               Vid2

... etc ...

 

When I go to browse the Music Video library in Emby, I see Akon Vid1 as a file - no folder and no visibility (including in search) of vids 2, 3 or 4. Coldplay appears with a little folder icon on in the top right of the box and, if I click it, I get vids 1 through 6 to view and play. Evanescence however doesn't display the folder icon and I only see vid1 displayed an playable. Again, vid2 and 3 (when I use their proper names of course) don't appear even in a search of the library, so it hasn't tucked them away anywhere. 

 

Am I just going too many levels here? I read somewhere that Emby doesn't go more than two in Music Videos, so perhaps that's the problem. 

 

Strange thing is - it DOES work sometimes. The issue seems to depend on how many files are in the folder, not how many levels deep the folder is. I had four files in "Bon Jovi" and browsing the media library only the first appeared. I copied those four files - renamed them (just with 'copy' at the end) and added them to the folder. Voila - suddenly Emby sees it as a folder and I can select the folder now when browsing the media library and all files (four original plus four copies) now appear. 

 

Anyone noticed this/have a solution, or should I just stuff all my folders together to reduce the number of levels?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

Rgs, Dave.

 

 

[Guest asrequested]

Can you show screenshot?

[Luke 37050]

@@davechap, yes this is exactly the kind of structure we need to improve to support, thanks.

[Xorp 47]

I think I'm having the same issue Doofus is having. Is there way to stop Emby from categorizing all my music videos for a single artist as a multiple version file, to instead be seperate files? The behaviour seems to be recent.

 

Previous added music videos for an artist folder:

 

Current behavior, should be 3 different files, but its putting the first file name as the folder name:

Edited May 29, 2018 by Xorp

[Guest asrequested]

If your file names have the same name at the start, like Radiohead, just remove that. Only have the name of the video. Then they won't be multi-versioned. 

[Xorp 47]

Both Radiohead and Nirvana, and all my music video files are named "Band Name - Song Name Or Performance (Date)". All my music video files follow this format and only this recent addition has issues.

 

It will be irritating to rename hundreds of files to remove the band name, to prevent Emby from breaking their presentation in the future.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Xorp

[Guest asrequested]

Ah yeah, that would be a big pain. Just following the folder name and/or the band name on the tag, would be good, I think. The whole idea of following the music library structure, never made any sense to me. I want to browse all the videos, not go album to album.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Doofus

[Luke 37050]

@@Xorp, please let us know if this helps. thanks !

[CharleyVarrick 277]

Don't know if its just me, but for years, Emby would just add a recently added music videos "as is" (without any apparent attempt to identify it). I had to fill in the artist name manually.

 

I noticed a new behavior for a month or two, now it tries to guess a song name and artist name, but fails miserably at both.

My music videos files are all named like this: "The Beatles - Let it be.mp4".

This folder is now setup to sort by descending date added so I can easily catch the mistakes and correct it.

[PenkethBoy 2063]

Have you got the IMVDb plugin loaded?

 

I name mine without the artist in the file name in a artist directory and sub dir by video

 

and generally they are picked up - i.e get a imvdb id etc

 

[CharleyVarrick 277]

Hi PenkethBoy,

yes, I already have IMVDb enabled.

My music videos are not in artist folder, at first I did, but I grew tired of staring at colored artist tiles, and went with a single mother folder for all videos.

I realize I can manually edit artist tiles but it proved to much work (about 2k videos).

Edited September 26, 2018 by jlr19

[jamvids 37]

Great, time to chip in,

 

I haven't posted for a while as Emby is fairly solid now and has been for a while, and this is my greatest frustration. I have the same folder structure as most people here, Music Videos/Artist/Artist - Title.ext. I have been patient and my music video collection has been hung there going largely unused.

 

I would really love it if it just worked like the rest of Emby, share the artist artwork from the music collection, be on the artist page and even the album page if it matches, so if you have a greatest hits album it will link whatever music vids you have that match the Artist and title. Also have any concerts or documentary of that artist on the artist page as well. Get this right and Emby is near perfect.

 

Keep up the good work.