Bypass/Selectively Gather Metadata from ID3v2 Tags - Including Cover Art

Feature Suggestions
1

I am getting into the audio side of Plex now that it has beta Sonos support. Good add!

I have noticed that Plex apparently bypasses the ID3v2 tagging in my files and is pulling data from the 'net, despite my setting of the preference to gather from the files if it exists. I am not sure of really what it is doing. Does it fall back to the metadata if it cannot find a match?

Anyways, the ability to selectively force it to respect the tags vs. sourcing from outside would be excellent. All my metadata is completely accurate (artist, album, genre, etc.) and it would be best (and quickest!) if it just grabbed. it. A glaring omission is also that it doesn’t grab the cover art for any album from any embedded cover art within the file, or the classic “folder.jpg” that may reside in the directory of the album. I have sourced the artwork for everything and to have it not show is a let down.

Seems like simple additions to give the user control of the metadata grab overall and what comes from where?

Kev.

2

This is already possible. Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - last.fm/Plex Premium Music
make sure the line ‘Local Media Assets’ is ‘checked’ and is on topmost position of those lists.

see https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201035758-Set-the-Agent-Order

Where does your server run on? Is it a NAS?

3

I am running on UnRaid as a docker…NAS, yes. Hmmm…reordering the agents didn’t occur to me…let me try this! >:D<

Kev.

4

Question: I have moved the agents and forced a refresh. Will this still allow premium access to all the other enhancements such as fingerprinting (if needed), lyrics, bios, etc?

Kev.

5

@kdackiw said:
Question: I have moved the agents and forced a refresh.

Beware: if the Gracenote data led to wrong matching of an Album opr Artist, it is better to Plex Dance the affected albums/artists.

Will this still allow premium access to all the other enhancements such as fingerprinting (if needed), lyrics, bios, etc?

Yes. Fingerprinting will still be performed, but if the embedded metadata or the folder hierarchy/filenaming provides enough data for a successful recognition, it won’t be used.
Artist bios are handled separately: Settings - Server - Agents - Artists - last.fm/Plex Premium Music
Album reviews do definitely work.
Lyrics are handled by their own agent, so that will also continue to work. Just make sure LyricFind is ‘ticked’ - its position is not important.

You might wanna take a look here: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1050849/#Comment_1050849
and here
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1093611/#Comment_1093611

6

I am rebuilding the library and letting it run. I have emptied the trash and cleaned things up. Every Artist and Album agent has the local media assets at the top now. It still seems to find the album name rather that use my explicit album name. I actually place the format and label in the album folder name for my clarity and would like Plex to just carry this through. The files themselves are tagged internally this way as well:

ie:

Air Supply - The Definitive Collection (DSD64)
Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic (MFSL) (DSD64)
Deep Purple - Made In Japan (Deluxe Edition) (24-96)
Electric Light Orchestra - Eldorado (24-192)

Only is showing me the artist and album. The format and any other label notes don’t make it to the album name in Plex…?

Do I need to disable any artist and album agent lookups in the system so it only sees local metadata? Does that strip me of outside PlexPass premium features?

Kev.

7

@kdackiw said:
I actually place the format and label in the album folder name for my clarity and would like Plex to just carry this through. The files themselves are tagged internally this way as well:
Air Supply - The Definitive Collection (DSD64)

The folder name will never appear in Plex, if your files have embedded metatags. It is only used for recognising the ‘structure’ of your music, i.e. which files do belong to one album and which artist is this album from.

Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic (MFSL) (DSD64)

is this a folder name or do you put this into one or several embedded meta tags?

Do I need to disable any artist and album agent lookups in the system so it only sees local metadata? Does that strip me of outside PlexPass premium features?

No need.
Could you please give me one particular example of:

  • how an album appears in Plex
  • how its files are named
  • how the folders are named where the files are stored in
  • which embedded metatags the files possess and which content they have
8

“Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic (MFSL) (DSD64)”

This is my folder name and I embed this name into the tags as the album name. I need to differentiate the formats since hi-res has a few formats and I prefer DSD over PCM.

For this album in question via Plex:

nv13i497ksf8.jpg747×654 111 KB

Folder listing and directory name (“Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic (MFSL) (DSD64)”

nard1qj2bsjq.jpg1478×310 302 KB

ID3v2 tags:

pbxyzithhpsb.jpg1570×219 280 KB

Plex definitely does not grab the folder name and the track names verbatim. Looking through my collection, it appears to prefer the internet naming over my tags. I have verified this with other folders. Characters that would be illegal (:, etc.) that are periods in my filenames become colons again in Plex.

It looks like it mostly? grabbed the cover art however as that changed from my last scan. It is still not 100% grabbing any “folder.jpg” images or the embedded cover art in the files.

For example, I have two hi-res versions of “Brothers In Arms”. Different cover art and folder names. Same output for both in Plex:

Tags:

83lfcnfqdes8.jpg1562×191 224 KB

lxckwvgp9e2v.jpg1555×188 228 KB

Plex:

e3z604szdn5f.jpg611×586 82.8 KB

vwdvp2mpflt4.jpg611×584 79.9 KB

I also see tour dates, etc., below all this so at least that is grabbing too!

We just need to make it completely ignore any outside influence and only read the filename as the track, the foldername as the folder, and respect any internal tags completely, including cover art (both as folder.jpg and/or internal art).

Anything more to snapshot?

Kev.

9

@kdackiw said:
“Billy Joel - Songs In The Attic (MFSL) (DSD64)”
This is my folder name and I embed this name into the tags as the album name.

IMHO the Album name should not contain the Artist name.
There is a separate metatag for the Album Artist.

I need to differentiate the formats since hi-res has a few formats and I prefer DSD over PCM.

Hint: There is not a single Plex client able to decode DSD itself. So you will always hear the audio which the Plex transcoder a) decoded DSD to PCM and then b) transcoded to MP3 or OPUS (depending on which type of client you use) and then sent to the client.
Even if some clients were able to decode DSD, probably none of them has a DA converter able to handle DSD, as this requires a fundamentally different circuitry in the converter. The sonic advantage of DSD will only reach your ears if such a special DA converter is used.
In almost all cases, the DSD data is computationally converted to PCM and then sent to conventional DA converters - hence the sonic advantage is lost.

But that just as an aside.

747×654 111 KB

Everything I previously said about embedded metadata is not valid for DSF files, since Plex cannot read metadata from them.

Plex definitely does not grab the folder name and the track names verbatim. Looking through my collection, it appears to prefer the internet naming over my tags. I have verified this with other folders. Characters that would be illegal (:, etc.) that are periods in my filenames become colons again in Plex.

What type of music library do you have?
Have you moved the ‘Local Media Assets’ to the top in every library type? (there are 3, ‘Personal Media Albums’, ‘Plex Premium Music’, ‘Last.fm’ )

It looks like it mostly? grabbed the cover art however as that changed from my last scan. It is still not 100% grabbing any “folder.jpg” images or the embedded cover art in the files.

What server platform are we talking about? Is this Linux, Mac, Windows, Linux, NAS?
There are a few pitfalls for the Local Media Assets agent when it comes to non-ascii characters in folder and file names on some Linux-based platforms.

Which file types did you test. Only .dsfor others too?

10

I am good that Plex is not bit-perfect with DSD or that any client doesn’t speak DSD (yet). I have a second high-end system that I use exclusively for critical listening…high rate flac and DSD stuff.

All six libraries have been modified with the local agent at the top now.

I did a plex-dance and forced the library to delete all entries. Adding back a few at a time to assess behavior seems to now have it gathering metadata firstly from the files and correctly keeping itself to just how I have things named.

Hopefully once the Sonos-Plex marriage is out of beta, they will have the DSD stuff converting to plain CD standard and streaming to Sonos (it doesn’t work for me to Sonos but does play to my Nexus 6P). This is a big win and opens up high bit rate for streaming. I am sure this can be ground breaking work for other wireless players out there that do support higher resolutions.

I am running on Linux BTW.

Kev.

11

@kdackiw said:
I did a plex-dance and forced the library to delete all entries. Adding back a few at a time to assess behavior seems to now have it gathering metadata firstly from the files and correctly keeping itself to just how I have things named.

So that’s a win already :slight_smile:
Do refer to my linked articles regarding organisation of multi-disc releases. Without access to the embedded metadata, Plex must revert to the folder structure to get hints about disc number etc, so sticking closely to it ensures success.

You can take a look here for how to add artist photos and artist and album backdrops/fanart just with “sidecar” files: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1224068/#Comment_1224068

12

Scan is complete and it looks mostly ok. Plex has some issues with compilation albums it seems. I name them as such for the folder name:

Various Artists - The Greatest Songs Of The Fifties (DSD64)

Tracks are artist and track name:

  1. Four Lads - Moment To Remember
  2. Tommy Edwards - It’s All In The Game
  3. Al Hibbler - Unchained Melody

Tagged appropriately. The metatag “album artist” is set to “Various Artists”. The “compliation” flag is set in the metadata too.

Plex is just plain wrong it seems as it made a variety of albums as various artists with snippets of tracks in them.

Just need to clear this hurdle…

Kev.

13

@kdackiw said:
Tagged appropriately. The metatag “album artist” is set to “Various Artists”. The “compliation” flag is set in the metadata too.

Since Plex doesn’t read embedded metadata from DSF files, this is no use.
Do also take into account that the ‘compilation flag’ is only used by iTunes. Plex does not use it.
To recognise a compilation album Plex relies solely on the AlbumTitle and the AlbumArtist and the circumstance that all files for the album are in one folder (and there must be no files from other albums in that folder).

14

Early 2021 clean-up: implemented (agent/source selection and prioritization; option to use/ignore embedded metadata in newer agents)