Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[d2b]

We have a large FLAC-based music library with many tags in them, all with standard (TITLE) and many with the custom (LIBRARY) tag, among others.

What is the procedure for correctly adding these field names so that JRiver Media Center 22 can search for, read and display those tags? I've tried to do that using the Library Options >  Manage Library Fields > Add New Field steps and various combinations of choices in the resulting dialog box, but beyond that, nothing I've tried creates a field name that displays the value of those fields when searching or even when selecting a file containing those tags.

[blgentry]

It's really two steps:

1.  In Manage Library fields, create the new fields with the EXACT names as they are in the tags.  Capitalization might matter; not 100% sure.

2.  For any files that are already imported, force MC to re-read the tags and populate those tags into the Library fields with Library Tools > Update Library (from tags) .  Select some files before you run this and it will update them.  When you get the results you want, select more files and update from them.

Brian.

[d2b]

Thank you. I had not performed the Update Library (from tags) step. I overlooked that obviously critical step.

However, I can't find any instructions on how to fill out the several fields that appear in the window when or defining a new tag. I tried looking at other "stock" fields but the variation in the settings appears inconsistent to me.

Perhaps beyond the scope of this post, it there anyway to delete "stock" fields. For example, FLAC files use the tag TITLE and not NAME to identify a song title.

"d2b"

[blgentry]

All of the standard fields in all supported types are "mapped" to the JRiver equivalent fields.  For example, Title maps to the [Name] field as it should because JRiver uses [Name] for song name.

What are you trying to do specifically?

Brian.

[d2b]

We have a large music library with both "standard" and custom Vorbis comments that we decided to standardize throughout the all-FLAC library on our music server. Some of the custom tags do not appear in the "stock" list of tags. For example, we have one field named "Library" to indicate where that album might be found in our physical library of CDs which is organized (somewhat arbitrarily) by a single genre, such as bluegrass, Celtic, world, folk and so on. Other tags, such as Performer and Album Subtitle do not appear in the list either, so we have to add them in order to view them in JRiver's tag panel. Furthermore, some tags that we use, such as Format, have a similar but different meaning than the format tag in JRiver MC.

There are two things that we would really like. I can't imagine that many other might agree:

1. A means to display ONLY the tags that appear in the file from the list of tags that we've defined, omitting all of the other tags we don't support. That implies the following:

2. A means to search the library by any one (or at least most) of those tag fields, in a manner that JRiver currently uses to search by the genre field name. In other words, we'd like to be able to customize JRiver so that we can create and add custom tags, keeping the standard tags that match ours and eliminate all of the other tags we don't use or don't want to see. For example, we the Rating tag is useless to us as we consider Ratings to be a personal preference, and not applicable to a media library used by a community radio station with over 150 volunteer DJS. The tag Name is not a standard in the Vorbis comments specifications, whereas Title is specified. Wherever possible, we'd like to adhere to the established Vorbis comments descriptions.

Here's just one example of what we can't do efficiently at the moment. I can create a way to ready the Library tag in those files that have it, but I can't search the library for all of the albums whose Library tag is "bluegrass." Now, I know I can search for all of the files whose Genre tag is Bluegrass, but that's not the same thing.

Can we find a way to create a full list of our custom and standard tag field names (and hide or delete all of the others that we don't want to support) and then be able to search by any or at least some of these fields to locate all of the files that have the specified tag value?

Since we have so many users from all walks of life, a simple way to create these custom 'search by tag name' would be to place them in the left hand panel in the Audio column along with Albums, Artists, Files, Genre, Recent Albums.

What's wrong with using the Search Wizard at the top right of the screen, you might ask? Well, if one tries to search on Bluegrass, you cannot limit the results to just those files or albums that have the Library tag value of "Bluegrass."  Why not? Because the suggestions that result list albums with bluegrass in the band name, bluegrass in the album title and so only, bluegrass in the song title and so on, and does suggest files with the Library tag value of "bluegrass." That search function is too "broadband" for this kind of search requirement.

I could go on but I've probably written too much already.

[ferday]

all of this is in the basic scope of JRiver!  in fact it's the best out there to do these things with a large library.

first, the tagging

the tags are mapped, so that JRiver can recognise all the major tagging standards.  [name] is the "friendly name", the tag maps to tit2 (id3), TITLE (vorbis), @name (itunes), etc. and you can map others to this tag as well.  you cannot get it to display as "TITLE" (it will just map back to name) but you could get it to display to "TITLE." or some other slight modification to the word that doesn't map

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Tag_Mapping

to create the tag, go into tools>options>Library&folders>...manage library fields
add a new tag (for example, Library).  Type the tag name EXACTLY as it appears in another program.  you can find this out by selecting a file that has the Library tag, selecting Tag, and viewing the tag dump, which will show you the "unfriendly name" of all your tags. 

Once you have created the tag correctly, select the files and right click>Library Tools>"update Library (from Tags)" which will force the mapping to take place

more info on tag mapping - http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Tag_Mapping

edit:  i posted a screenshot below of a tag dump (from the alternative tag window).  note at the bottom, is a non-standard tag (custom tag) called SUB GENRE

in the manage library fields, i would add a new tag called EXACTLY
SUB GENRE

now when i update the library (from tags) i am able to view that tag

[ferday]

second, the display of the tags

if you select your file(s) and press and hold SHIFT while selecting "Tag", you will enter the alternative tagging window.  this window is customisable to display only which tags you want to see.  once the new tag window is open, at the top left (the little book icon) select "Customise" and choose your tags that you want visible, you can make a new grouping like "My Tags" or whatever you want to call it

There are 3 options to display your files:
1. Views
2. Search
3. Smartlist

what view are you using to browse files?  Artist browse, file browse, etc.?

for the Search Bar:  try typing in [Library] = "bluegrass" 
this will only display files which meet exactly Library = bluegrass

search expressions - https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Search_Language

Smartlists are basically views that are easy to configure.  if you go into the Tree on the left, right click Playlists>add Smartlist

it will come up with a window that has some "Rules" at the top.  for the rules, type in [Library] is bluegrass  and click ok (or [Library] contains bluegrass, which will show files that contain bluegrass in the [Library] field, but may have another value in a semi-colon delimited list)

now that smartlist will only show files that exactly match [Library]="bluegrass" and acts like a big files list view of those files.  this is an easy way to sort only those files.  you can make a smartlist for every category if you like, and name it appropriately

The Views (say under Audio) are even more powerful than smartlists, and while they aren't hard to configure, it would help to have more information on what type of view you want so we can get you to create some views that meet your criteria.  If you work at a radio station (i used to myself) you must be willing to put in a bit of work to meet the requirements, since there are so many ways of doing it and so many different people that may be searching around the library.

edit:  screenshot shows a sample from the smartlist view of one of my smartlists, that only shows files which meet [genre] contains "grunge" and [sub genre] contains "female fronted".  this list only shows grunge bands that have female singers, for example.