Music browser 2

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jachin99

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Music browser 2

#1

Post by jachin99 » Thu Feb 22, 2018 5:02 pm

I'm putting a link to this tagging software here because adding embedded tags in windows music files might fix backdrops in music browser 2 https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

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newfiend

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#2

Post by newfiend » Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:30 pm

I've had good luck with a couple utility's for tagging Mp3's.
Jaikoz Audio Tagger works great.. Especially for WMC & WMP. http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/
I've had to use this multiple times over the years to correctly tag and insert the proper and or missing Metadata and Artwork. Highly recommended and worth the $.
I also use MusicBrainz Picard from time to time. https://picard.musicbrainz.org/
I like this little utility as well.. both are great for whipping your Mp3 collections into shape. https://lifehacker.com/5511473/start-to ... into-shape
newfiend~
Last edited by newfiend on Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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#3

Post by newfiend » Thu Feb 22, 2018 9:34 pm

This is also a good thing to watch if you want to get on with using MusicBrainz Picard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgNLx1IehIA
I use WMC and WMP as well as PLEX Media Server for my music and these utilities above have been a life saver. I tagged and renamed all my music with these and they view perfectly in WMC/WMC and Plex.
Hope this helps someone else out.
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jachin99

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#4

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:55 pm

What file format is your music in, and what ID version tags do you use? I might need to conver my music from WMA to something else. I'm thinking MP3 but I would like keep as much of the quality as possible.

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newfiend

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#5

Post by newfiend » Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:37 am

I have my music in .Mp3 format. I have ripped some CD's with Windows Media Player.
Other times I have converted FLAC to .Mp3 with Nero Recode. I like Nero Recode as I can select the amount of compression to put on each file. I set mine to 320 kbit/s. that way I'm not putting a lot of compression on each file.

FLAC is great if you like CD quality but I prefer .Mp3 and my AVR has a setting that boosts the sound quality of .Mp3's so they sound pretty good on my 5.1 system.

As far as what ID Version Tags I use... I don't select that in Jaikoz but after viewing in Mp3tag v2.86 it says the ID tags are set to ID3v2.3 (ID3v1 ID3v2.3) under Tag.

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jachin99

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#6

Post by jachin99 » Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:52 pm

Alright, I have made some progress on my Music Browser 2 Reboot. I'm in the middle of converting my music collection to high quality MP3s from WAV files. Zune software and music browser would not recognize any embedded information for my music but I'm starting to see cover art for the thumb strips on my MP3 library. I also figured out how to add backdrops in MB 2!! All you have to do is add an image in the artist's folder named backdrop.jpg, and MB2 will show that image as a backdrop when your navigating the folder. Music Browser 2 appears to read embedded cover art for each album BUT it also needs a folder.jpg file in order to display cover art for an artist (Folder.jpg would go in the artist's folder). It is also worth mentioning that MB2 was based off of Media Browser, so I went to the Emby wiki to look at potential naming conventions for cover art. I have my music nested like this

Artist
Album
Song.mp3


MB 2 is also reading last.fm data from somewhere but I'm not sure if it is inheriting my recently played track list, etc. from WMP track data or what.

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#7

Post by newfiend » Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:22 am

A few quick questions.. Do you not like the music setup in WMC?
Are you looking for something a bit more flashy? Background art etc?
Reason I ask is I used to use Media Browser. Long time user of that and liked it a lot. I just seemed to have issues getting certain things to play on extenders.. Some TV shows or movies wouldn't play correctly on my extenders.

After tweaking on MB for a long time trying to get things to just work I gave up on MB. I switched to PLEX and have been much happier. It just works so well and they have PLEX clients for just about everything. PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android, iOS.. And it just always works. Everything plays .. every time. It's also a nice looking application to boot.

Another thing I didn't like is how MB always wants to add stuff to my MP3 folders or I had to "add" artwork to each file. I like to have my files just be the Artist/Album/Tracks only. Plex makes a Database file that it keeps all that stuff in. If I don't like Plex I delete it and it takes all that stuff with it.. You can also add your own custom artwork to your albums and backdrops with Plex but it doesn't need it "in" the Album or Artist File folder... Nice and clean and I like that.

I can also share Plex with family members or friends. My Daughter is in the military and she can use Plex to stream all the stuff I have archived to her phone or tablet and watch it where she is over the internet at any time.
If you haven't looked into Plex check it out.. It's quite amazing.
newfiend~

jachin99

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#8

Post by jachin99 » Fri Mar 16, 2018 1:30 am

Music browser is essential if your music tags are screwed up because it's views are centered around folder structure. It also adds cover art, backdrops, and some last.fm capability I haven't quite sorted out. I figured I would give it a go, and see how it works but I don't think I'll be keeping it. I can get flash if I want it from Emby for WMC. I haven't tried plex too much but I'm pretty well invested in emby, and I think it looks nicer graphically, it lets me view trailers for all of my movies, I have video backdrops setup for each movie, and everything that works in regular emby works in Emby for WMC. It ties in a lot better, and I think it looks nicer. I see a lot of plex orphans on their forums, and its probably the same way for Emby on the plex boards.

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