[procreate]

I switched over to XBMC from Boxee since they no longer seem to have downloads for PC anymore... while i liked Boxee as it seemed to do everything for you once you set a folder to track, but their apps left a LOT to be desired.

so i am totally new to XBMC and have slowly been figuring out how to work it, get files organized [just spent a whole day updating my ID3 tags for all my music which was somewhat of a mess].

Dharma didnt work at all for me, well some worked but weather was broken so i am using the Eden RC1 with the default skin which is really nice and works really well for my movies and TV shows, which is what i mostly use the HTPC for anyway.

However my music wont let me use Library Mode and the file mode is just not a good way to view available music. Currently i am rescanning all the music and i see that it is doing so in the upper right so im not touching the computer until it has fully finished hoping that is why i cant enable Music Library Mode.

i have read as much as i can on the wikiManual but wondering if anyone can link me to further reading regarding how the music part of the XBMC works. i tried searching the forum but too much information seeming irrelevant comes up.

im just trying to figure the best way of setting up my library. i have 14,000+ songs. i have folders for most artists unless its a single album which then its just a folder for that album. i also have some songs that havent been sorted in the root music folder or that are just single songs. i used mp3tag to enter in all the tag information, however i didnt change actual filenames or directory structure that they are contained in, would i need Tag&Rename for this?

any help would be appreciated. thanks in advance.

on a side note regarding scanning, it seems i cant touch the XBMC or it stops scanning. also it doesnt seem to actively scan, i always have to manually search. for TV Shows, i cant seem to do a scan all, just seems to catch whatever TV Show i was hovering over when i right-clicked/scan on. i left XBMC up all night and it SHOULD scan anything and everything associated [music/tv/movies] for any changes or updates so i dont have to sit here and watch it scan now.

[jhsrennie]

XBMC just reads the file tags, though it can optionally download extra info from sites like AllMusic or last.FM. To download extra info go to System settings, Music, Library and enable "Download additional information during updates" but note that this will drastically slow the scanning.

As longs as the tags are correct XBMC will populate the library correctly. It's nice to have albums neatly filed, but not essential. Once you've scanned at least one track you should be able to enable the library.

JR

[procreate]

so as long as my ID3 are correct, then the file structure doesnt matter? right now it is not library enabled so i view the window as files, which isnt the best way to view music, i am hoping library view is much better.

i believe i enabled the download additional updates, so i am only a little over halfway through my scan since my first post. i dont mind this being the first time and doublechecking my ID3 information etc... but you are saying i could uncheck that for faster scans in the future?

right now i dont want to touch it since it is scanning, seems whenever i do it kills the scan. so after thats finished, you say music library will when be able to be enabled?

fingers crossed!

[jhsrennie]

I would create a music source pointing to a directory with only a few tracks and try scanning that. If that works and the library can be enabled try removing the test source and scanning your main source with the "additional info" turned off.

JR

[procreate]

curiously, i have a LOT of B-Sides/Rarities/Unreleased. the ID3 information is set on them, but i doubt it will ever be able to find these songs... as long as i have the ID3 stuff set, i should be good with them coming up in the library mode [obviously no cover art] correct?

[procreate]

okay, the library mode now works, thanks. hoever Allmusic scraper doesnt work due to copyright reasons [the message i get] and none of the other scrapers seem to allow artwork/fanart.

so a lot of my music shows up with nothing but folder icon, or shows up with the wrong picture.

i tried freebase to rescan, but its not getting images at all, and some artists it cant find so i cant adjust anything under artist information.

so what is a decent music scraper?

also i cant seem to ID properly for ARTISTS. i have the ARTIST set to say [Bob Marley], but some of his work has been covered by others in tribute albums like Chant Down Babylon so it will be [Bob Marley/Chuck D] or something, i changed those to Ablum Artist in mp3tag but its still seperating them out under artist view, which i thought would only take the ARTIST into account when listing out...

this also causes a double entry when i click on [Bob Marley] it will list as ARTIST and then again as ALBUM ARTISTS so the entry shows up twice... i notice the availability of tag uses, http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Tag...udio_Files but artist is only listed as %A but there doesnt seem to be a filter for ALBUM ARTISTS.


Nevermind, after looking around the internet and there being no sense of organization regarding the ALBUM ARTISTS field, i have decided to simply kill it.

[jmarshall]

Just some info for you regarding music:

1. There's 2 windows (unlike video) as I didn't have time to reduce it to one before Eden. Thus, separate Library/Files views.

2. When you scan there's actually 2 processes that (unfortunately) get done in tandem: One is fast (scanning your music tags) one is slow (scraping extra info for artists/albums). I normally recommend disabling the scraping part so that you quickly get everything into your library and can then check/update tags as necessary and quickly rescan (Update Library will be fast).

3. XBMC doesn't care about your filesystem layout EXCEPT for some assumptions we make in order to find artwork: To find album art we look for folder.jpg inside a folder where all songs have the same ALBUM tag. Similarly, we can make some assumptions about ALBUM_ARTIST if all songs in the same folder have the same primary artist (and don't have ALBUM_ARTIST already set - if you set ALBUM_ARTIST then XBMC assumes you know what you're doing and takes everything verbatim). Lastly, we find artist artwork by finding the common "root" folder of all songs by that artist (so this nicely handles an artist/album/songs structure, which many tend to go with).

4. Multiple artists in a song (eg guest artists) are typically handled by specifying them in a tag (or multiple tags if the song format supports it) such as U2 / Johnny Cash. The ALBUM_ARTIST can be auto-detected to be U2 (assuming all songs in the folder are by U2, eg Zooropa) but Johnny Cash will be added as the song artist in addition to U2 (so The Wanderer will appear under Johnny Cash's listing.

There's a setting to ensure that compilation-only artists (those artists that are never an album artist) don't show up in the main "Artists" list as well.

Enjoy XBMC.

Cheers,
Jonathan