Support for Local .nfo (or .txt) files for artist bio and album review/info

Feature Suggestions
1

Currently there is a way to add local asset media for artist picture and background, album cover and background,
lyrics (untimed .txt and tilmed .lrc), and music videos (artist videos like concerts, and song videos like general music videos)
as mentioned in https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1319703/#Comment_1319703 and https://support.plex.tv/articles/205568377-adding-local-artist-and-music-videos/

I wish that Plex would support local sidecar files like album.nfo or artist.txt for adding the “Biography” part of the artist and “Review” text to the album.

Music /
|--Albumartistname /
   |  artist-poster.jpg            <--- a photo of the artist
   |  artist-background.jpg  <--- a background/wallpaper particular to the artist
   |  artist-bio.txt                   <--- artist biography text
   |  manchester arena 1998-12-24-concert.mp4      <--- music video of a concert  
   |-- Albumtitle /
         cover.jpg                  <--- album cover
         background.jpg      <--- album background/wallpaper [if not present, inherited from the 'albumartist' level]
         album.nfo                <--- album review
         01. Trackartist - Tracktitle.mp3
         01. Trackartist - Tracktitle-video.avi           <--- music video
         01. Trackartist - Tracktitle.txt                      <--- unsynced lyrics
          02. Trackartist - Tracktitle.mp3
         02. Trackartist - Tracktitle.lrc                      <--- time synced lyrics 
         ...

If you think, that it would be a good idea to support local sidecar files for text, plese press “like” on this post, so it could gain more visibility.

2

I agree that this would be very nice but my guess is that it is more likely to be done as a third-party dev plugin. Artist fields that look ripe for being set this way are Biography, Genres and Collections. For albums Collections as well as the Reviews. I would make them xml files rather than plain text as then you could add extra tags in as plex introduces new fields to populate.

Would name the metadata files artist-metadata.xml (or metadata.xml or artist.xml) rather than artist-bio.txt; and metadata.xml or album.xml rather than album.nfo unless you plan on using the kodi music nfo formats.

1 Like
3

I would like this!

4

Plex just needs to support local nfos for everything music/tv/movies without the need to use agents like emby does already

1 Like
5

That could be done with an agent easily enough but with 0 votes, i don’t see anybody taking the time to develop…

2 Likes
6

Actually, now Lambda does this kid of things: https://github.com/ZeroQI/Lambda.bundle

it creates local nfo files for movies series, episodes, artists, albums and can save locally the posters, all selectable in the agent settings
Didn’t went too much in depth in the audio parts so testers would be needed for feedback, whether it works or there is issues

7

Do you know if the NFO data is compatible with Emby in any way? Like, if I had the Lambda Agent in Plex, could I then use NFO data created natively in Emby to affect what Lambda imports in Plex; or use the NFO data created with Lambda in Plex to populate metadata in Emby?

I ask because I currently run 3 identical servers (at different locations) and at least 2 of them run both Emby and Plex concurrently. It would be nice to not have to configure metadata 5 or 6 times after importing new media.

8

It was designed to be compatible xbmc.
Use Lambda to export Plex details, try importing on Emby and vice versa. If not working attach the files generated

9

I’ve voted for this as I feel the auto biographies or “reviews” (which I prefer to be general overviews like you get on Wikipedia) for many artitsts or albums is just a bit naff.

10

+1 vote for NFO support improvements for audio files

11

I’m currently wondering if it’ll make sense to consider this suggestion in a more generic context.
There’s a (more) popular suggestion for a generic support of .nfo files (actually there’s been quite a lot of them over the years… this is the one that could gain the widest support).

That being said, I’m aware of the “nuances” and see that this is particularly focusing on certain aspects of supporting information – not necessarily the core metadata of a song/album. Therefore I’m open for opinions :wink:
Early 2021 clean-up: duplicate

Potential consolidation target: