Can Media Portal display certain tag info in Now Playing screen? (1 Viewer)

[baldytheman]

Would it be possible to have Media Portal show tag info in music files, say for instance a tag info field like "comments" - and have it shown for each album or something, say in the Now Playing screen? I know for some this might not be very important, we all have different use of Media Portal. A big part of my Media Portal use is related to music. And since I appreciate having my lossless collection tagged properly at all times, I found myself wondering about this as I was tagging more files - it would be incredibly nice to be able to read background stuff about albums or artists/band when browsing the collection and listening to music.

I always try to place relevant information in the tag field called "comment"when tagging music files, but this has no value if I need to read this info outside Media Portal. With a fairly nice Hi-Fi connected to Media Portal, ASIO sound, FanArt and all the other goodies ... for my part, all that is missing now to make Media Portal 110% perfect is more info about the music files being played. When I first started out using Media Portal music was all about MP3, and that was it. But today, with so many different kind of files - MP3, Ogg, FLAC, APE - and also all the different level of sound quality within one specific format - for instance FLAC, there is normal 16bit 44.1khz, 16bit 48khz, 20bit recordings, 24bit 96khz and so on. I have some albums in normal 16bit 44,1khz and also in 24bit 96khz, and more information on the Now Playing screen about the different albums and so on would be so nice. The album/artist/band information I would of course add myself in the process of tagging the files.

I have no skills in programming myself, and what goes on "behind" the skins in Media Portal is a great mystery to me. I have tested most of what is available of so called Media Center software, but there is only one I consider as good enough - Media Portal of course. If I did have some way of adjusting skins or what ever, I would do this myself and in doing so - giving a little back that way. But I have no clue here.

I would really appreciate if someone with knowledge in skin production could look into this and at least reply me - maybe give me some pointers as to what I have to do to be able to adjust a skin in the way I describe here. Is it a huge task, adjusting a skin in a way so that certain tag info can be displayed for instance in Now Playing screen?

 

[Dadeo]

Hi baldytheman, afaik at present there is not an easy (possible?) way to do this. In fact, there is not even a way built into MP to display the data you can lookup (i.e. using F9/info key and artist/album lookup) even though that data is stored in the MP database. I know that cul8er has added a plugin for use with xfactor which does some of this. You may wish to check that out, although it is not what you are suggesting.

It is always hard to say "no you can't" and then find out someone has come up with a unique way of doing it. LOL With MP, someone always seems to be figuring out new ways to do things we never knew were possible.

It is certainly a great idea and one I also hope can be added to MediaPortal. I really like your suggestion of exposing such data in Now Playing while a song is playing. There are many possible ways to do that. One idea would be something like what Harley did in his new Fidelity skin where you press the Info key to get more detailed info in a screen.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I love the idea, and if you don't mind I may get back to you when the time is ripe for further elaboration?