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Player Controls and other questions


mlloyd74

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mlloyd74

Hi all, hoping someone can help.

I'm currently trying out Emby as a possible solution for my needs, but running into a couple of minor issues. I'm only looking to use this for music, as I use Kodi for TV/Movies. I have a couple of Sonos One speakers and I've not been happy with the Sonos software hence looking at alternatives. To explain; the issues with the Sonos software are the 65k song limitation, the artist order if looking at music stored on a mobile and the general look/functionality of the desktop software. Up until recently I've been using MediaMonkey, which is fine, but I was looking for something a little "nicer" looking.

Using Emby solves the latter aesthetic issues and of course the song limitation. I've connected the Sonos speakers - I did originally Cast to them, I'm assuming, using DLNA, before installing the Sonos plugin - not sure of the benefits of the latter, nothing seems to have changed. Am I right in saying that I still need to use the Sonos controller (Android or desktop) to group the speakers and currently there is no way to do this via Emby? Additionally, if playing from Emby, the album art is not displayed in the Sonos Android app - is this usual behaviour and no way around this?

My main way of playing music, probably like many others, is to play a playlist and I have a standard goto playlist of 4000 songs (imaginately titled Top 4000 songs!) - not sure if it is due to the size of this playlist, but when choosing it, firstly it take a few minutes to start (which is fine) but the player controls (usually at the bottom of the web app) don't show - is there a way to bring this up? Without this I can't find a way of seeing what is playing and what is coming next etc... without ironically going into the Sonos app.

If I start playing something from the web app, I can't then control it from the Emby Android app i.e. the player controls aren't visible. I can start something from there though I guess, but can't switch between the two, even though they are playing content from the same server. Is this normal? The Emby app does look nice though.

One of the things I did like about the Sonos Android app, was that it also allows playing music from the Android device - but as mentioned above there are current issues with the artist order in the app, making browsing by artist all but impossible. I tend to have my PC on all week, as I work from home, but like to turn it off over the weekend and play music from my phone to the Sonos speakers. Is it possible to add music that is on a mobile to the Emby android app to allow this?

And lastly, whilst I like the added bio's etc... Emby picks up multiple artists for the same artist from MusicBrainz (I believe) - sometimes this is understandable; I have all Bob Seger albums with metadata of Bob Seger for Artist and Album Artist, but Emby shows three Bob Seger entries.I believe these are probably Bob Seger, The Bob Seger System and Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - so I can understand the reason behind this, however, is there a way for Emby to just pick up my metadata instead, or for me to easily combine these into one entry? There are quite a few with multiple artists - one strange one is the majority of Mark Knopfler albums coming up under Eric Clapton! I've edited this so it now shows the correct Artist, but it still has two Mark Kopfler entries in the Album Artist list.

Sorry for all the questions - I generally do love the look of the software, but if I can solve the above issues that would be great.

Many thanks

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Am I right in saying that I still need to use the Sonos controller (Android or desktop) to group the speakers and currently there is no way to do this via Emby?

Hi, correct, your Sonos groups are managed by Sonos, not Emby.

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the album art is not displayed in the Sonos Android app - is this usual behaviour and no way around this?

We'd have to look at an example, but we do include album art in the response metadata.

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 I have all Bob Seger albums with metadata of Bob Seger for Artist and Album Artist, but Emby shows three Bob Seger entries.I believe these are probably Bob Seger, The Bob Seger System and Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band - so I can understand the reason behind this, however, is there a way for Emby to just pick up my metadata instead, or for me to easily combine these into one entry?

Hi, why not edit the embedded tags to all be Bob Seger, then run a library scan and Emby will pick up the changes.

On the other hand, if they're not actually Bob Seger, but instead The Bob Seger System, then no, those would be different artists.

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mlloyd74

Hi Luke,

Many thanks for your replies - regarding the album art, if using the Sonos plugin, the album art doesn't show in the Sonos controller Android app. However, if I connect via DLNA instead, then the art shows up fine. This also seems to fix my other issue of the player controls - I think they are staying available on the web app, whereas when using the Sonos plugin, they disappear after the first song. So that is all good - am I missing anything by not using the Sonos plugin instead of DLNA?

If I start a playlist/song/album etc... in the web app and then go to the Android app, I can't then control it from there - is that correct? Any development in this area at all?

Regarding the tags, all of my embedded tags in the files are labelled as Bob Seger - it is MusicBrainz that has them separated. I like the artist bio/album info being there, but is there a way of Emby just using my metadata tags? And now that I have three Bob Segers; amalgamting them?

Many thanks

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If I start a playlist/song/album etc... in the web app and then go to the Android app, I can't then control it from there - is that correct? Any development in this area at all?

Hi there, why do you feel that you can't do this?

Quote

Regarding the tags, all of my embedded tags in the files are labelled as Bob Seger - it is MusicBrainz that has them separated. I like the artist bio/album info being there, but is there a way of Emby just using my metadata tags? And now that I have three Bob Segers; amalgamting them?

You would have to disable the internet metadata features on your libraries to prevent it from happening. And for existing content, use the metadata editor to change the ones you wish to change.

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mlloyd74
3 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi there, why do you feel that you can't do this?

Hi Luke, thanks for your reply - I'm assuming from your reply that this is possible, but I'm not sure how, if you can explain that would be great.

Just to clarify, I'm wanting to start playback on the Web app and then control that on the android app - when I go to the android app there are no player controls showing.

Many thanks

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mlloyd74
4 hours ago, Luke said:

You would have to disable the internet metadata features on your libraries to prevent it from happening. And for existing content, use the metadata editor to change the ones you wish to change.

Presumably the metadata editor doesn't actually change anything on my files? As they are all as I want them.

Tried disabling the internet metadata, if I  refresh metadata nothing seems to happen. Is there a way of removing these three Bob Seger (for instance) artists and then rescanning them (now without the internet metadata being scraped)?

Many thanks

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10 minutes ago, mlloyd74 said:

Hi Luke, thanks for your reply - I'm assuming from your reply that this is possible, but I'm not sure how, if you can explain that would be great.

Just to clarify, I'm wanting to start playback on the Web app and then control that on the android app - when I go to the android app there are no player controls showing.

Many thanks

You have to use the Play On menu to switch to the device you want to control. Did you do that?

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3 minutes ago, mlloyd74 said:

 

Tried disabling the internet metadata, if I  refresh metadata nothing seems to happen. Is there a way of removing these three Bob Seger (for instance) artists and then rescanning them (now without the internet metadata being scraped)?

Many thanks

As mentioned in the help text, disabling options won't necessarily remove data from existing content, so that will require manual correction.

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mlloyd74
5 minutes ago, Luke said:

You have to use the Play On menu to switch to the device you want to control. Did you do that?

Got it - many thanks, that's great

 

5 minutes ago, Luke said:

As mentioned in the help text, disabling options won't necessarily remove data from existing content, so that will require manual correction.

Went into the metadata editor, nothing seems to need changing - not sure what I need to do in there to be honest. Just trying to get rid of the multiple artists - as you can see below I have two Bob Marleys and three Bob Segers. All have the same Artist and Album Artist in the tags of the files i.e. all the Bob Seger files state Bob Seger. Can I delete these and rescan, not that I have turned off the internet metadata and then perhaps do that manually?

Many thanks

 

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mlloyd74

Tried deleting the metadata and refreshing - all three remain. Tried deleting the metadata and identifying each - all three remain. Can't see how to delete them from the library? Or combine them into one?

Many thanks

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mlloyd74
29 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, deleting what metadata?

So, I went clicked the three dots next to one of the Bob Seger entries and clicked Edit Metadata, deleted the entries and then did as mentioned above.

As mentioned, unless I can combine these three, it would seem to be best to delete them and rescan them in. Don't want to delete the whole library though

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Tremas

Hi mlloyd74. Are all of your Bob Seger albums and tracks under the same artist folder in your directory structure? Emby currently uses both folder structure and tags to determine artists and albums which can be confusing for first time users. Also, I have found that if you have MusicBrainz albumID or artist ID information in the file EMBY will use that information even if you change the Artist or Album tag in the MP3 file metadata in MediaMonkey. Emby is testing a beta that will eventually make the music database completely metadata/tag driven, but for now there are some quirks that take getting used to. I would start by looking at what files are in each Bob Seger entry and where they are located on your drive. Next check in MusicBrainz Picard if the artist ID string points to something different than what is written in the artist tag.

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mlloyd74

Hi Tremas,

Many thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions; yes, all Bob Seger albums and tracks are in the same Artist folder i.e. Bob Seger > Night Moves > 01 - Night Moves.flac etc...

I use mp3tag for my audio files and ensure that all is correct, as per how I like it. I don't input Musicbrainz information onto the files - just checked and they don't seem to have any under the embedded tags in mp3tag. Presumably they would show here if there were any?

What seems to have happened is that when I scanned my library into Emby, the Musisbrainz scraper has determined (technically correctly) that some of these albums were by Bob Seger, some by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and some by The Bob Seger System. However, as I have all audio files tagged as just Bob Seger, Emby is showing three Bob Seger entries, rather than under the above three different names, or under one name (which I would prefer).

Deleting these entries from the library and rescanning, without scrapping musicbrainz might solve this, but I can't see how to do this?

Many thanks

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mlloyd74

So I moved my Bob Seger folder out of My Music folder (in Explorer), rescanned the Emby library, so no Bob Seger entries were then showing. Moved the Bob Seger back in, rescanned the library now without the Musicbrainz and TheAudioDB scrapers on and all albums are showing fine under the one Bob Seger entry. Weirdly, the artist information still scrapped from somewhere.

What would now be interesting is what happens if I refresh the metadata for an album with the scrapers turned on - will it split the entries again?

Bit of a task to do this to all the multiple entries, might be easier to start again without the scrapers, but then I'm guessing I wouldn't have the album info for any

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Tremas

I think the artist information was still in the database and EMBY is doing it's best to match it up when it saw Bob Seger again. I expect if you did run the scrapers again, it would try to split the albums.

I was going to suggest you look at the the "edit metadata" screen for one of the albums (not an individual track), and see if there is there anything listed under "External IDs"? If the scraper added a MusicBrainz album or artist ID at the album level, it would point to the "silver bullet band" entry even though the artist text in the file says "Bob Seger."

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