Can Emby look up XMP metadata in the photos?

[Teredactle 37]

I was wondering if there is a way to have Emby read the XMP metadata from photos?  I've gone through and face tagged my family photos, in particular the super old ones and saved this info on the photo(s) and would love to be able to search Emby from those tag names in the XMP metadata.

Any way to do this either by a plugin or perhaps this is already being worked on?

TY!

[Happy2Play 9780]

From an old topic it appears to read but do not the extent of what is read or if it was disabled so @Lukewill have to comment further.

[Luke 42078]

Hi, tags should be supported.

[Teredactle 37]

Face Tags? I have them written in the XMP metadata and they are in the RegionName field.

Just want to confirm that Emby 4.6.7.0 supports looking that up in a photo library. If this is supported in a later version, I would then consider upgrading

TY!

Edited July 1, 2024 by Teredactle

[Luke 42078]

Nothing is looking in the RegionName field. Tags are supported via the Keywords field.

But generally the older the Emby version that you use, the more limited this will be in terms of what photo file formats it will work with.

[Teredactle 37]

1 minute ago, Luke said:

Nothing is looking in the RegionName field. Tags are supported via the Keywords field.

But generally the older the Emby version that you use, the more limited this will be in terms of what photo file formats it will work with.

Ok, I understand, the only field that is ready from XMP metadata is the keywords string/field. Do I understand correctly? I have tagged a lot of my photos with face names after facial recognition and was hoping to read that by emby so I can to people search by name.

[Luke 42078]

I am guessing in 4.6 it will only work with jpeg. The 4.6 server is using the skia graphics library to get this information, but it doesn't support extracting it from very many formats. The 4.8 server has supplemented this with libvips, and so it should work with all supported photo formats now.

[Happy2Play 9780]

I don't know if upgrading from 4.6 to 4.8 would even work properly with all the changes that happened in 4.7.  I would guess one would need to do 4.6 to 4.7 then to 4.8.

[Teredactle 37]

I have 4.8 installed for testing on a separate rig and can test for these metadata tags!

[Luke 42078]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[Teredactle 37]

So Emby doesn't pick up any of the face tags form the XMB metadata, I've added a bunch of JPGs to the latest version of Emby server, with a photos/videos library, and there is no metadata in those photos - yes, there is a way to manually add metadata, but this isn't automatically added/read.

A plugin would be awesome to have, one that would look at XMB data RegionName field(s) and use that to populate the metadata. At this point I wish I was a programmer.

To note though:

Picasa writes the face tags to the "RegionName" field in XMP metadata

DigiKam can read that field and import those tags, however when it writes it's not in the same place (is what I read); not clear where it writes them but not in the same place; however Digikam can to file renaming using the tags. I will (when time permits) look at Digikam to replace Picasa for this.

In case others are doing this, it may be helpful.

My workflow is

1. Run facial recognition in all my home photo library
2. Tag the faces recognized
3. Write those tags to XMP metadata
4. Use that metadata to rename the files, and append the names to the original file name.
5. End result is my home photo library can be searched by person's name

Having a plugin to read the XMP metadata directly from Emby server would save me step #4 here.

Cheers

[Teredactle 37]

Would an addon like that be reasonable to build, or would it generate too much resources? Curious.

[Luke 42078]

Hi, yes supporting People via faces is something that can be looked at in future updates. Thanks.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello friend,

I was told by the devs that a new feature request was required to raise the subject of the possibility of using the ALBUM native metadata common to a lot of IMAGE file types in order to gather up PHOTOS into an Emby COLLECTION along with VIDEOS in that same COLLECTION; however, there were already lots of other PHOTO metadata-themed feature requests dating back several years, so I thought they were closed topics.

This General forum discussion appears to be on the subject of whether and what XMP metadata Emby can read and use. 

Here is a question about how Emby handles the metadata differences between VIDEOS and PHOTOS: As you already know, users can populate their NFOs with the xml code <set><name>COLLECTION</name></set> to gather together VIDEOS into a COLLECTION; however, the only method to gather PHOTOS into that same COLLECTION is to edit manually the metadata for each PHOTO. At present, the Emby database accepts and records four native IMAGE file metadata tags; specifically, date, title, description (OVERVIEW), and subject (TAG).

Can the Emby library database be updated to accept and record a native XMP metadata tag that my extremely tiny PHOTO community could use for COLLECTIONS; for example, ALBUM, which is already commonly coded into lots of different IMAGE file types?

Cheers! Ta!

[Luke 42078]

6 hours ago, CasaAtardecer said:

Hello friend,

I was told by the devs that a new feature request was required to raise the subject of the possibility of using the ALBUM native metadata common to a lot of IMAGE file types in order to gather up PHOTOS into an Emby COLLECTION along with VIDEOS in that same COLLECTION; however, there were already lots of other PHOTO metadata-themed feature requests dating back several years, so I thought they were closed topics.

This General forum discussion appears to be on the subject of whether and what XMP metadata Emby can read and use. 

Here is a question about how Emby handles the metadata differences between VIDEOS and PHOTOS: As you already know, users can populate their NFOs with the xml code <set><name>COLLECTION</name></set> to gather together VIDEOS into a COLLECTION; however, the only method to gather PHOTOS into that same COLLECTION is to edit manually the metadata for each PHOTO. At present, the Emby database accepts and records four native IMAGE file metadata tags; specifically, date, title, description (OVERVIEW), and subject (TAG).

Can the Emby library database be updated to accept and record a native XMP metadata tag that my extremely tiny PHOTO community could use for COLLECTIONS; for example, ALBUM, which is already commonly coded into lots of different IMAGE file types?

Cheers! Ta!

Duplicate Re: 

 

[Teredactle 37]

My post was not the same as those other two (duplicate) posts, but rather to see if Emby can (through a plugin or natively) read the metadata from the photo files (jpg), in particular the XMP metadata for face tags, so one could search Emby by person name in the face tag metadata, and Emby would then return all photos with that person.

[Luke 42078]

1 hour ago, Teredactle said:

My post was not the same as those other two (duplicate) posts, but rather to see if Emby can (through a plugin or natively) read the metadata from the photo files (jpg), in particular the XMP metadata for face tags, so one could search Emby by person name in the face tag metadata, and Emby would then return all photos with that person.

HI, yes that's something we can look at in future updates. Thanks.

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello @Teredactle,

It might interest you to learn that @Lukehas only just recently "crafted" a new metadata tag ("embycollections") for Photo files.

It took quite a bit of research and trial/error, but the end result is that you can now create a custom XMP tag in your photos that Emby can read and gather into its Collections area.

This has a lot of advantages over the Tags (Subject metadata) area because Collections has a details view, where you can group, filter, and sort your media items, whereas in Tags, you cannot do any of these things.

I imagine that something like this could be developed as a custom "embypeople" XMP tag that will create a searchable people tag for your photos.

Cheers!

 

[Teredactle 37]

Hi @CasaAtardecerand @Lukethanks for replying to this post. I'm not sure I understand though.

So, if I have photos with XMP tags, Emby (photos library) can now read those tags when I do a search? Is this documented anywhere so I can take a look and better understand?

Thank you!

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello @Teredactle

To the best of my knowledge, at present Emby will read 5 photo file metadata tags: These are title, filecreatedate, subject, description, and embycollections.

The last one is a custom tag that you will have to create on your own using an XMP editing tool.

These 5 tags for Photos will then become title, ‘date added’ (if your Emby settings are configured this way), tag, overview, and collections, respectively, when added to an Emby library that will recognize photo file extensions.

As far as I can tell, title, tag, and collections are searchable by Emby, while ‘date added’ and overview are not.

@Lukeis the authority with regard to documentation.

As a fellow photo archivist, I hope this helps you out. We are in the minority here and do not get the same attention as movie, tv, music, and games. But I am trying to change that.

Cheers!

[Teredactle 37]

Thanks, good infos!!! i have no "just photos" libraries, because my hone photos and videos are in the mixed type libraries so i can share with my family.

@Lukedoes embycollection apply to the home videos photos types of libraries too, if not can it?

I looked at those libraries sorting options but didnt find the option for embycollection

 

Thanks 

[Luke 42078]

Just photos right now.

[Teredactle 37]

Im going to create a temporary photos library to test if embycollection will pull/find photos that i know have this Xmp populated with face tags

[CasaAtardecer 27]

Hello @Teredactle,

My primary enjoyment of Emby at the present time is also to archive and share Home Videos and Photos with family and friends via the Roku TV app.

Emby consolidates all videos and photos within the Home Video and Photo library type that carry the same metadata name(s) for Collection(s) together into one or more Collections.

As I said before, the custom tag that you will have to write into your PHOTO files for Emby to understand is called 'embycollections' that was crafted by @Luke.

However, the collections tag for VIDEO files is NOT an embedded metadata tag; rather, it is written into the XML NFO file that must accompany each video.

Emby reads and understands each different file type (i.e., video and photo), and their corresponding xml code (i.e., NFO for video and embycollections for photo), and consolidates them into a Collection that has the name of whatever value you have used in your xml.

I hope this helps to clarify things a little bit more for you.

Cheers!

[CasaAtardecer 27]

5 minutes ago, Teredactle said:

this Xmp populated with face tags

Hello @Teredactle, provided your tag name in your photo files is called 'embycollections' Emby should read the values and create Collection(s) for each of the different values of the tag.

Good luck! Cheers!