Question on existing metadata. I have an extensive music collection which I have hand added data through Media Monkey. This includes pre-analysis of the Loudness data for each song which is stored in the file’s metadata.
With that said, does Plex read the data if this exists rather than needing to re-process all the files again? I ran a few tracks that I know have different loudness values and it seems to not play back at a unified volume. I’ve tested this with the Android app and directly in Chrome.
My Plex server is not a power house and it wouldn’t make sense to re-analyze all the files again if my data already exists in the tags.
I would also be interested to learn more about other data that is read from the files besides the generic information. I have a lot of additional data I’ve gathered and I would like to make good use of it in Plex if I can.
Loudness data is not read from pre-existing meta tags. This is due to the fact that Plex does not only require one or two numerical values to work correctly but several dozens per track. Only this enables the ‘Sweet Fades’.
And it uses the ReplayGain v2 algorithm (i.e. EBU R 128), while most embedded meta tags still only have the old Replay Gain v1 values.
Track analysis can be set to perform immediately after ingestion or nightly during the maintenance period. Select the latter if your server is not a powerhouse. https://support.plex.tv/articles/200289526-library/
If, let’s say… if the EBU R 128 (ReplayGain v2) information exists already in the tags, can this be read? I have a couple of analysis programs on my more powerful desktop which would easily push out such a render job (12 tracks at once rather than just 4 on the NAS with slower speed).
I basically would prefer to not process the 1.74TB of music on the NAS and instead do it on my desktop if possible. Even with a scheduled task, this could take months to process my full library. In addition, if any processing of this nature is to take place, I would prefer that the new processed data be added to the metadata tags for use in other applications.
I actually ran a check as I wasn’t sure what Replay Gain I had calculated, and I can confirm my metadata contains the replay gain and replay gain peak metadata. I do not have the album tags, just per audio track. But it conforms to ReplayGain v2 standards.
So, even if the data exists that I have painstakingly generated with a proper desktop machine, Plex is unable to read it and will assume that it needs to generate everything again. Oh boy… this could take a significant amount of time to handle this…
It would be great if Plex, in the future, would read this data if it exists to save all this effort.
This is due to the fact that Plex does not only require one or two numerical values to work correctly but several dozens per track. Only this enables the ‘Sweet Fades’.
