Artist Info

WD Legacy Products WD TV Live Hub Discussions
1

When playing audio, how do you get the artist info to appear?

I have folders for each artist and subfolders for each album.

The subfolders are labelled with the album name only.

When an album folder is selected, the album name appears at the top but the artist info is unknown.

When a track is selected, the file name and album are diplayed but artist name is not.

I have used Mediamonkey to add info to the tracks but this doesn’t change anything being displayed through the hub.

Is this a firmware issue or is there something I can do?

2

You have to use “Get Content Info”.  When you have the album up, Press Option on the remote, then select “Get Content Info”. 

The info comes ffrom an .xml associated with the album not from the attributes.   If you can’t find the album using get content, then you’ll have to create an .xml for the album yourself.

3

Tinwarble, thanks for your response.  I tried the “Get Content Info”, but no results.

Therefore I’ll create the .xml for the album.

Haven’t done that before…

What should I use to create it and how should the file be labelled?

4

Yeah, I have a lot of albums that the “Get Info” didn’t work on.  Probably because the info comes from a site that hardly anyone uses.

I don’t use anything to create them, so I don’t really know of a program that might do it.  I just use notepad to create mine, but here is an example of one:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
The Better Life3 Doors DownHard rock2000-02-08The Better Life is the first studio album by 3 Doors Down, released on February 8, 2000. It has become 6 times Platinum since release. Lyrics are written by the lead singer, Brad Arnold, and the music is written by Todd Harrell, Chris Henderson, Matt Roberts and Brad Arnold all of whom are musicians in 3 Doors Down. Brad played drums on the album. "Kryptonite", "Loser", and "Be Like That" all reached the Billboard Hot 100 charts, peaking at #3, #55, and #24, respectively. The Better Life sold 11 million copies worldwide.

It is the band’s best-selling album to date, with sales of over 5,598,000 copies in the United States, as of December, 2010.
All lyrics written by Brad Arnold.
A Deluxe Edition with second disc was released in 2007 and features a live performance recorded at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in Houston, Texas.The Better Life3 Doors DownN/A

You can just copy this one and then change what you need to change for your album.

The .xml has to be labed like this:

The Better Life   would be  - The%20Better%20Life.xml

“%20” has to represent a space.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one, but I believe that you also need the Cover Art named the same way for it to show up on each song.

5

Tinwarble, I appreciate your help.  I’m doing some testing…

  1. Copied your example into Notepad and changed the Artist & Album info.

  2. Saved that as folder name.xml with UTF-8 encoding

I can now view the info through Options but still not getting what I want… at the Music Gallery page.

When I have some more time, hopefully later today, I’ll include some images of how things appear on my display.

I’m sure that I am not alone with this problem.

6

I have included 2 images that will help to explain the issue I am having with diplaying information correctly. I am not sure if this can simply be fixed by labelling the folders in another way or if this will require a firware update.

Thanks to Tinwarble, whom has helped me to create a .xml file, name it the same as the folder name with xml extension and place it within the Album folder.

So far, that xml file has only placed Artist/Album etc. info into the Album Info section.

My first xml file so I may be doing something wrong here.

Maybe there is a way that I should be ripping the audio that would solve these issues.

The images below have been labelled 1 - 7 to eplain what is currently happening on my hub display.

Any solution to making the display the way I want is greatly appreciated!

  1. Whatever the folder name is will be displayed here.

I want the Artist Name here.

  1. I have nothing diplayed here.

I want the Album Name here.

  1. Whatever the folder name is will be displayed here.

I want the Artist Name here.

  1. I have Unknown diplayed here.

I want the Album Name here.

  1. The file name is displayed here.

I can live with that.

  1. I have Unknown diplayed here.

I want the Artist Name here.

  1. Whatever the folder name is will be displayed here.

I want the Album Name here.

 

7

You images wont’ show up (you can see them, but no one else can) until they are approved by the moderators.  So you’ll have to wait until they show up or post the pics on a nother site and link them here.

8

Thanks Tinwarble, I guess we’ll wait for the moderators approval.  :smiley:

9

Ok, I’ll try to address all those issues.

First as for 1. and 2., there’s no way to have both show up.  Basically you can either have the Artist show up or the Album (since all that displays is the folder name, it doesn’t use any metadata there).  The way I have my music structured is like this:

Artist name folder

         Album name folder

                    Music track.mp3

                    Muisc track2.mp3

                    etc.

Then, use the Sort/Filter to sort by folder.  This way you’ll be able to select the Artist, then the Album.

Second, 3 thur 7 do use the metadata in the .xml.  The thing is though, you have to make sure that you have all the names correct in multiple places.  The first thing you’ll want to make sure of, is that you put the .xml in Album folder, then you’ll need to make sure that all the names are the same for the folder, .xml, album art and in the attributes of the track file.

For example, in my 3 Doors Down folder I have things named like this:

Album folder name: The Better Life

.xml name: The%20Better%20Life  (remember “%20” means a space and if it as a colon “:” in the name use “%3a”)

                   So if you have say an album named “Pink Floyd: The Wall”  it would be “Pink%20Floyd%3a%20The%20Wall”.

                   The name of the .xml has to be the same name as what is in the .xml, so if you open the .xml you would see something

                   like The Better Life, the .xmls name has to be this.

Cover Art name:  It will be the same as the .xml

Now for each track to be associated with the .xml you’ll need to make sure the Album name in the attributes are the same too.  So if you are using Windows, from your PC access the music on the HUBs internal drive, then right click on the Track(s), then click on the Details Tab.  Look next to “Album” and make sure that the name is the same as the .xml Name.  Only the Album name really matters, but you should also check the Artist name too, since it will use the first name (if there are multiple names) in the list if you sort by Artist.

All the names have to be EXACTLY the same or your data won’t show up.

If your data still doesn’t show up, then from the HUB go to Setup / System / Media Library, then Clear the Media Library.  Once the library recompiles you should see the data, although it can be hit and miss sometimes, especially if the Album name is long.

10

Tinwarble, that’s what I suspected for 1 & 2.  I will work on producing the proper .xml file and structuring it as you have indicated.  Thanks for your detail.  I’m sure this will help others. 

11

OK, I have discovered that if the audio files are .wav or .flac files, then the Artist tag and cover art for the track is not displayed.

If the audio files are .mp3 then all of the data is displayed properly along with cover art.

This is unfortunate as I just ripped a bunch of cd’s to .wav

Also discovered that the Get Content Info function under Options within the hub works for .mp3 but not .wav or .flac

I didn’t really want to compress the audio but maybe 320 bit rate will sound ok.

12

“Also discovered that the Get Content Info function under Options within the hub works for .mp3 but not .wav or .flac”

Get Content Info works for My Flac files? displays album art and info.

Does anyone know what site the hub accesses for Music info?

13

That’s good to know, that I don’t have any .wav or .flac files I wasn’t aware of that.  I’ll try to see if there might be a workaround for that, but no promises.

I believe the site that the HUB connects to for the “Get Info” is http://www.freebase.com/ since it and The Movie DB are the only 2 APIs showing up in the GPL.

14

thanks Tinwarble

15

It would seem that this is a fireware issue.  The same data is available for the audio track wether it is mp3, wav or flac.  For some reason the hub is only presenting the info correctly for mp3 (on my system anyways).

Hopefully WD will correct this.

The flac files that I tested with didn’t play properly, they would start and then jump to the next track.

I believe I read that someone else was having this same problem.

16

Ok, I don’t know if this will work on your FLAC’s or not, because I didn’t have any I just ripped a MP3 to FLAC, so keep that in mind.

So anyway, I did get the info to show up on the flacs’ that I did make.  So here’s what I had to do.

First, I after I ripped the music to flac, I opened it up in WMP in Library mode.  Then using WMP I changed the info (Artist, Album, Genre, etc.).

Once I did that, I copied it to the HUB, then add the .xml & Cover art just as I described above.  It seems to have worked, so give that a try and let me know if it works for you.

I’ll try some more extensive testing once I get a little more time.

17

Tinwarble, thanks for your continued efforts, I’m doing some testing as well. 

I’ll try using WMP, it very well could be the structure of the file that is playing a role in what the hub is able to extract and display.  I’m not sure, but I think that different programs like WMP, Mediamonkey, Nero etc… may structure the info within the audio file a little differently.

I was hoping that TonyPh12345 would notice this thread.  He appears to have a great deal of knowledge regarding the WD products but more specifically scraping for video.  Just figured audio would be less complicated than video.

In the meantime, hopefully our testing will come up with a solution for the .wav files.

Cheers!

18

Mapman (This is unfortunate as I just ripped a bunch of cd’s to .wav),

One other way is to batch convert all your WAVs to MP3s…alot of cheap, perhaps free programs out there.

Also, I use program called Tag & Rename ( http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm)  to properly tag all my MP3s…I use DVD Profiler ( http://www.invelos.com/Downloads.aspx) for my cover art and metadata for DVDs.  Both export XMLs and cover art pics.  They are both very good, accurate, easy to use.  I’m not crazy about paying $$ for software but these were worth the investment.

I’ve ordered my Hub so have not setup yet…but hoping the above XML & Cover JPGs will help me.

19

thekochs, I love DVD Profiler, probably the best software for the money that I have purchased.  Wish the same thing existed for CD’s.

I’ll have a look at the softpointer software.

Thanks for the tip.

20

Mapman, Tag&Rename is a really good for CDs/Music.  I have not played with it yet for XML…let me know what you think. 

http://www.softpointer.com/tr_help/02.07_Export_wizard.htm

It does embed the metadata and coverart into the MP3 files…ID3v2 tag.  Can the Hub use the ID3V2 tag ?  I assume it still needs a JPG for the folder cover…so coverart named folder.jpg is needed ?

Also, for coverart is it the same that you name/place a JPG within each CD/Artist & DVD/Movie folder.jpg and Hub sees/uses this folder.jpg by default for the folder cover ?  Is it really folder.jpg or the {folder name}.jpg, like movie name or artist name ?

For DVD Profiler have you tried their XML export to single files for each movie/profile ? Does is map to what Hub wants ?

I would just flip out if you could figure out a DVD Profiler and Tag&Rename XML export process that makes doing this easy and in bulk that the Hub sees and is OK with.   I think everyone here (that has any decent size music and movie collection) would pay for relatively small $$ for these to organize and clean up the metadata/coverart info and them use the simple XML export features of each to create files to drop into your Music and Movie folders…gotta be a way and easier that manually doing.

Let me know…thanks for the help in advance !!! 

Thx.