My entire music collection is .wav files. While this works fine in windows media player, there is next to no functionality for it in xbmc. My music library is just a list of artist directories which forces me to either listen to one artist at a time or flick over to WMP to listen to random tracks.
Yes I have read in the wiki that there is no support for wav files. Of course I didn't know that 9 years ago when I started my digital music collection.
So, please bare with me while I ask... Is there a work around for WAV files? Can xbmc somehow read or import the database of windows media player to extract the info? Or can I use external player for music the same as you would use for videos?
You'll have to be more precise in what you're seeking to achieve and how you are adding your music files, as XBMC supports both WAV file playback and id3v2 tags for adding to the Music Library.
Thanks jjd-uk
My music collection existed prior to me installing xbmc. I used windows media player to convert my large cd collection to wav files. When I installed xbmc at the start of the year, I "added" my collection to xbmc by selecting from the main menu Music>files> add files and then selected the path where my music resides. It is the same path accessed by windows media player.
Music is stored as ... e:\music\artist name\album\songs.wav
So, having done this, I can only navigate my music using music>files. I have no option to search music via genres, or all songs, or albums or year etc... There is no album artwork, even though I have the cd artwork saved in each directory as folder.jpg. So no background album cover slideshows either. When I try to play my music, I can only navigate through music>files and select an album. When all songs in the album are played, it wont skip to another album or artist. I have to manually navigate the files to select another album to play.
Scattered in my collection are eleven mp3 songs... so when I try to search or play via genres, year etc, they are the only eleven songs that show. And those options are not always there, they are only there when I run a scan, then it disappears the next time I try to play music.
Is there a way to bring functionality to my music collection? How do these id3v2 tags work?
Is there any tag writer that can write tags to WAV files that XBMC can read?
If it was me I would convert my WAVs to FLAC, but that's me. Might not work for anyone else.
scott s.
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I don't think .wav files support tagging, they are pretty well PCM as I understand it. Yes FLAC would keep your perfect files and add tagging.
Thank you for researching this jjd-uk.
But this is where I feel really stupid. I went to the github link, but don't know what to do with it. Is there a program or add-on there that I download?
Also, having used WMP to rip my cd's, would WMP have added the tags to the wav files, or does it add the song info into a database within WMP, meaning I would have to create the tags individually?
Only you can answer if the files have tags, by looking with some tag reading software. google reveals some software that does this.
(2014-07-21, 09:50)blossom24 Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you for researching this jjd-uk.
But this is where I feel really stupid. I went to the github link, but don't know what to do with it. Is there a program or add-on there that I download?
Also, having used WMP to rip my cd's, would WMP have added the tags to the wav files, or does it add the song info into a database within WMP, meaning I would have to create the tags individually?
The github link was for general information to show WAV tag support had indeed been added to XBMC in case of any doubt by contributors to this thread, the best starting point for what you need to do is maybe asking the users in the thread I linked to what they use.
The problem with usings WAV files is there's no standard covering how they should be tagged as the format doesn't official support tagging, this is why the general advice for rippling cd's losslessly is to use FLAC which has a defined standard for tagging, so different applications handle tagging WAV in different ways. So it's entirely possible that although WMP maybe tagging the files, it may do so in a way that is not compatible with any other application, however you should be able to verify this by seeing if a tool that does standard id3 tags can read them, I would suggest starting with Mp3tag although I'm not sure if it supports WAV however it's a free tool, another alternative is Tag&Rename however this is a paid app but there is a free trial so you can try it out and that does appear to support WAV going by the website, I've also noticed the authors of Tag&Rename also have a newer app that's free called AudioShell that should display tags in the Windows Explorer but I've not used that so don't know it's capabilities.
If you cannot find a solution to tag the .wav files, I'd repeat the recommendation to convert to .flac. Using something like foobar, you can convert in bulk and automatically tag based on filename and directory, not a lot of effort required. This would likely be a more future friendly configuration, and would save you a bit of disk space as well.
Ok, so this is where I am at with my small problem...
I read up on Mp3tag as suggested by jjd-uk, unfortunately it does not support .WAV. I then researched some other tag editors and installed Smart ID3 Tag Editor. After I was able to shut down all the pop up coupon windows, I quickly uninstalled it. So I went low tech. I right clicked on the wav file in windows explorer, selected Properties>Details, and presto, there is the tag info. I then dragged the file into iTunes... and no tag info. So now I see how the non-standard tags of wav files come into play!
I installed Foobar and after about an hour of frustration, finally figured how to convert from wav to flac. Incidentally, Foobar could read the wav tags. I converted a file to Flac and it also copied the existing tags across which is great!! So happy about that. (I haven't tested it on xbmc as I assume with all the recommendations for flac that it works)
So this is where the dilemma is...
I generally listen to music in three places
1. Home on Stereo (htpc)
2. Car (2012 model)
3. iPhone (but too a much lesser extent than the other two)
So, my wav files do play in xbmc, but have no functionality without tags, so I have to switch over to WMP. Flac, I have been told, will work in XBMC, but not in WMP without additional codecs.
My car plays wav files but no tags, so can only scroll an endless list of songs. My car won't play FLAC
FLAC is not supported by apple.
Although I became excited by the prospect of fixing the issue by using FLAC, it looks like I am stuck with WAV files as I can easily play them in my two primary listening locations. And maintaining two formats of my music collection seems to be a bit strange.
Just wanted to pass on what I had done and thank you for pointing me in the right direction to research it.
ALAC is the Apple Lossless Audio Codec, does the car support that?
I am facing a dilemma soon in that I am making a car music player which, although it will play FLAC, won't have enough space for my 110G (and growing) music collection, most of which is FLAC.
So I am faced with a choice of running parallel libraries (one FLAC, the other probably a decent rate mp3 for the car) or cutting my collection down for the car (which is a difficult manual sort of job) or getting a large SSD (don't want moving parts).
There are other lossless audio codecs which support tagging. Without knowing what your car supports, it's hard to recommend one that will work all round. But you could maintain two versions of your library with a bit of scripting.
Maybe look at dBpoweramp as that can do conversions between all sorts of formats.
I decided to simply make a 320 kbps MP3 duplicate directory of my FLAC directory, just so I can easily copy to MP3 players, phones,or car USB drives. FLAC is just not portable & takes too long to copy. I just don't think there is any other workable solution.
I keep a separate MP3 directory of albums where I don't have FLAC, so I can index them along with the FLAC directory on XBMC.