Adding metadata to an existing library

[sjkiss 28]

HI there: I have a well curate library with only a few custom genre tags. When I was building my library, I wanted to have fewer genre tags to make it easier to scroll through the genre list to find an album or artist I wanted. But I'm thinking I now want to add more fine grained genre categories. Like maybe it's time to add metadata from last.fm or something like that. Does anybody have any experience adding on genre categories to existing libraries? Thank you. 

[Luke 42078]

HI, what you can do is enable the internet metadata providers that you wish to use in your library settings, and then refresh metadata on existing content. Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.

[sjkiss 28]

Hi there, is this step reversible if I don't like it?

[Luke 42078]

You'd be able to turn off internet metadata features to prevent it for future metadata downloads, but existing content may require manual edits.

[Happy2Play 9780]

7 minutes ago, sjkiss said:

Hi there, is this step reversible if I don't like it?

No, you would need a full backup of that entire library.

But not sure how much difference written metadata vs embedded metadata will make since we are talking about music.  

Edited February 19, 2021 by Happy2Play

[sjkiss 28]

I'm just following up on this. It doesn't not appear that when I manually edit metadata in the Emby interface that it changes the underlying metadata. So, I just added Test to one artist's genre tags in Emby and it is not showing up in the DLNA Emby Server or my Asset UpnP DLNA server. So, are manual edits to metadata in Emby restricted to Emby?

 

[Luke 42078]

40 minutes ago, sjkiss said:

I'm just following up on this. It doesn't not appear that when I manually edit metadata in the Emby interface that it changes the underlying metadata. So, I just added Test to one artist's genre tags in Emby and it is not showing up in the DLNA Emby Server or my Asset UpnP DLNA server. So, are manual edits to metadata in Emby restricted to Emby?

 

Hi, yes it certainly does. Perhaps try restarting those other software applications.

[Ronstang 294]

On 2/19/2021 at 2:36 PM, Happy2Play said:

No, you would need a full backup of that entire library.

But not sure how much difference written metadata vs embedded metadata will make since we are talking about music.  

So you are not sure how emby handles music metadata?  Emby is not capable of generating all it's library information solely from the embedded tags? Because that should be the default as anyone with a well organized library like me does not want someone else or some piece of software interpreting how I like my music organized.  Yes, I think it is great that emby CAN pull information from the internet to organize a music library but I can guarantee you if I let it loose on my library it would end up in a mess so using the internet to determine information for the music library should be a choice you have to turn on, not off.  It's one of the reasons I have not used emby for my music yet because I have over 6000 full albums that have been meticulously tagged by me over the years and I don't want to have to spend a lot of time manually cleaning up a messy library.

[Luke 42078]

1 minute ago, Ronstang said:

So you are not sure how emby handles music metadata?  Emby is not capable of generating all it's library information solely from the embedded tags?

Emby can do that.

[Happy2Play 9780]

It is solely read from the file already, just turn off providers.  And all you get is what the file contains.

But my comment was about provider vs embedded.  So could a provider write something different the what is embedded?  So from that aspect if you customized your embedded to something different then the provider, which metadata will be used?

Edited March 9, 2021 by Happy2Play

[Ronstang 294]

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

It is solely read from the file already, just turn off providers.  And all you get is what the file contains.

But my comment was about provider vs embedded.  So could a provider write something different the what is embedded?  So from that aspect if you customized your embedded to something different then the provider, which metadata will be used?

Being read solely from the files is great as that is how it should be but does that mean that if you have providers turned on it overwrites your embedded tags....or it overwrites emby's nfo file data?   I assume the latter but if it overwrites my tags I would be pissed....if it overwrites the nfo file data then all you would have to do to revert to your old data would be to do a search on *.nfo in your music folders and delete all, turn off providers and then initiate a library scan.....probably several....to repopulate the library info from the tags....correct?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Nfo Emby does not edit any embedded metadata in any format.  As for which takes priority is my question also.  To me online metadata will change nfo metadata as it always has, but Music is a special case.  But this is back to what do you want online or embedded as there could always be a conflict.

[Ronstang 294]

10 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Nfo Emby does not edit any embedded metadata in any format.  As for which takes priority is my question also.  To me online metadata will change nfo metadata as it always has, but Music is a special case.  But this is back to what do you want online or embedded as there could always be a conflict.

No, I understand but I would think the nfo would take precedence over the embedded because from what I understand about how emby works it uses nfo files for everything so I would assume it copies data from the embedded to the nfo file for easy and quick indexing in the database.  If it had to read from the tags every time you peruse your library it would be rather slow I would think.  As to the conflict between imbedded and online are you saying if different constantly battling over re-writing the nfo file?

[sjkiss 28]

What's nfo Emby?

[Happy2Play 9780]

6 minutes ago, Ronstang said:

If it had to read from the tags every time you peruse your library it would be rather slow I would think.  As to the conflict between imbedded and online are you saying if different constantly battling over re-writing the nfo file?

These operations are a one time operations ie when imported into Emby.  As for embedded vs online,  Emby could export your embedded metadata and get online metadata do to your library setting.  Now if there is a different in tags, what tag should win, embedded or online?  To me online as that is how the library is configured.

But yes any Refresh operation should reread embedded and online if configured that way but at no time does a normal scan or browsing have anything to do with a nfo file as it is reading the database.  Now Images are another story as they are read from media folder.

 

[Ronstang 294]

@Happy2Play OK, I guess I misunderstood things then.  So if emby does not store metadata in an nfo file for each piece of media then where is it stored? 

[Happy2Play 9780]

Just now, Ronstang said:

@Happy2Play OK, I guess I misunderstood things then.  So if emby does not store metadata in an nfo file for each piece of media then where is it stored? 

Metadata is read from file and written to nfo and database (but am not sure where/when online metadata comes in and which is used for nfo/database).  Emby does not continuously read file or nfo, once imported the metadata comes directly from the database.

[Ronstang 294]

1 minute ago, Happy2Play said:

Metadata is read from file and written to nfo and database (but am not sure where/when online metadata comes in and which is used for nfo/database).  Emby does not continuously read file or nfo, once imported the metadata comes directly from the database.

OK, then I understood it correctly.  Personally when it comes to music I think you should be able to choose whether embedded metadata or that from online sources has priority.  For many online having the say so is fine but for me personally I would always choose embedded as I am very specific about my music, so much so for instance the Ramones....I have every CD pressing from every era and country which means I have multiple copies of every album and the differentiation in metadata would be lost if I let my library let online providers overwrite my metadata.  I can recognize a pressing from listening.  Some groups have both proper and improper remasters yet metadata could not differentiate an album on catalog number, actual year of release of the pressing, country of origin of that pressing etc. etc. etc.....but I can differentiate simply by listening on many bands that are my core favorites.

[Guest]

Just a side note.. here.. for The Ramones, and ALL those discographies.. I found a way to take care of it in mine... ( The new Beta is actually trying to use folder structure to help it differentiate.. I think... between albums ) 

I had to indicate which type of release in the %album% of the files for example... Album (Vinyl 12" Single), Album (CD Maxi Single), Album (CD Single 1), Album (CD Single US), Album (CD Single Promo), Album (Vinyl 12" Whitelabel Promo)... When I attach these tags to the album name/folder structure in 4.5.4.0; it then shows me each album properly.. Before It would try to put them together as the same album, which looked like a mess.. but it was aggregated from my data in my files. I still probably have some areas to polish this off within my archive BUT this worked nicely to show each one separately, and to be able to choose the right release for a song I am looking for, as well as properly represent the releases for the artist in question. Worked out nicely.. ( trying to decide rather taking singles/EP out of 'Singles' folder and using them in the main album folder is a good idea, and about multi discs at the moment. 

A Print Folder Listing could be a good tool too for the upcoming release that would allow users to choose one of the options along those lines ( Mine comes from CFi Shell Toys ). It helps you track down errors in your folder structure for 0% error when choosing the option. Not on the Beta right now.. though I did find a few "caveats" to it like Blur' - 21 Box.. My albums are listed by their original release year instead of disc number.. anyway.  

The above fixed my issue.. in the current release.

[Luke 42078]

Quote

The new Beta is actually trying to use folder structure to help it differentiate.. I think... between albums

No it isn't, not unless your audio files are missing the Album tag, and you've identified the folder structure of your library, then it will use the parent folder name as the Album. But for most, that will be a very rare case.

[Guest]

Sorry I was unclear about that.. Thanks