How to adjust local stored metadata to Plex specification (Musicbrainz Picard / ID3v2.3 vs ID3v2.4)

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: Plex Media Server on Synology NAS, Version 1.19.3.2831.181d9145d
Player Version#: MacOS 1.11.0.1215.1d8c460c // iOS Plexamp 3.0.3

Dear Plex Team
I personaly prefer using local metadata (the stored in audio file version). I understand that I do have to deliver appropriate data to get the best possible outcome: I want to lern what Plex needs.
I try to understand how Plex interprets metadata from audio files. My goal is to tag classical music including multiple artists. Best would be including metadata for composer and other roles like conductor. I learned that Plex doesn’t support composers which is disappointing.

I’m working with the application Musicbrainz Picard to get the correct Metadata for my audio files. I learned that different versions of IDtags exist and that this versions differ in significant aspects.

Problem:

I use the application Musicbrainz Picard to write multiple GENRE and ALBUMARTISTS tags into my files (and to update other Metadata). This informations don’t show up in Plex. I believe this might be caused by

  • Plex looking for a specific “separator” in multiple Metadata which isn’t there (I guess Picard somehow presents the tags in separated lines and Plex expects “/”)
  • Plex is expecting a specific coding: UTF-8 / UTF-16 or ISO-8859-1 and this is not used

I would like to understand better the options and abilities of Plex. Could you please enlighten me on the specifications Plex has for metadata? In detail

  1. Is the file structure (folder name “Artist” / folder name “Album”) relevant for the presentation of music files in Plex? To be precise: is the folder name “Artist” of any relevance for the sorting / naming / presentation of the music files within Plex?

  2. Does Plex support ID3v2.4 tags and which encoding is required? If not: which ID3 version and which encoding is supported?

  3. Which “separators” for multiple Metadata tags are supported by Plex and do you have a suggestion how to force the application Musicbrainz Picard to use this “separator”

  4. As I understand different versions of ID3 can be present in a single audio file. Which version is given priority by Plex? And how can I make sure its always the newest version which is used?

  5. Plex uses the Metadata “artist”. I guess this tag is related to the tag Artist. Is it also relationship with a certain “role”. It would be helpful, if you could specify a) how to address this feature by the metadata in audio files (==> which tag does Plex uses to define a role) and b) it would be helpful, if Plex would include roles (like composer instruments, conductor) or to open this feature up for customization. Could you please specify what is possible and if this might be helpful?

Thanks for your help

With regards

Henning

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All valid points - they’ve been discussed mostly in this thread over the past years: https://forums.plex.tv/t/id3-tag-support-for-robust-music-library-organization/

As it is now, Plex reads id3v2.3 and 2.4 tags: but:

  • no multiple artists, no matter what you put in as separator
  • Plex reads/stores no other roles than album artist (TPE2) and artist (TPE1), so no composer, lyricist, conductor, producer, remixer etc.
  • Plex stores some fields like Genre (max two) and Year only on the album level, not per track. So: Plex reads (only one) genre from the first track, stores that for the whole album. When it encounters a track with another genre, it adds that to the whole album too, but no more than two genres per album. There’s only one year stored for an album, the highest number it finds in the tracks.

Nobody knows what they will do in the future, Plex has never opened up their roadmap.

It’s a bit of a moot point since Plex doesn’t support it, but in id3v2.4 there is a standard separator defined, the null character. id3v2.3 has no standard separator, so people started using ; or / which indeed makes it a bit of a mess.

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Avoid ID3v2.4
Always use ID3v2.3 with UTF-16
Multiple values are ignored.

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@OttoKerner: thanks for your clarification
@ certuna: your detailed answer is very helpful

This puts me into a real dilemma: I’m looking for a new “home” for music and audiobooks - as your response indicates: that’s not Plex for now and even more disappointing: there is no sense in waiting as there is no commitment from the company ever improving.

This might even have influence on my other media (movies) as I would like to pay only one service supplier - will see…

Yours
Henning

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