Guide to the music section of mediaportal (4 Viewers)

[kiwijunglist]

The above music view is album artist view. Each of the lines represents a step when you are browsing the music. So first we will see all the album artists arranged in a list ordered by name, when we click enter we will then see all the albums belonging to that album artist, with big icons, if we click enter again we will see the music tracks from that album presented as a list. Hopefully you understand what I mean and can make your own views, if not just copy the screenshot exactly

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Mediaportal Configuration: Audioscrobber plugin:

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To manually add or change artist images you must locate the \thumbs\music\artists directory
There are two files for every artist, %artist%.jpg and %artist%L.jpg (the %artist%L.jpg file is the large thumbnail pic)

Guide updated to include changes as above suggested by new users.

 

[globaldonkey]

I still don't quite understand how to use audioscrobbler to create a dynamic playlist.

I normally use albumartist view to select a track and play it, but this seems to just play the tracks in the album sequentially. How are you supposed to play a track, and then have audioscrobbler take over from there and play the playlist it builds? Is it supposed to work this way? I managed to do it once, but for the life of me of not sure how I managed it.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Press the 'p' or 'play' button on the highlighted track, this will start a new playlist with only that track. hopefully audioscrobber should take over from there.

 

[Spragleknas]

You also need to make sure that artist are properly tagged. If wrong name is used (REM/R.E.M. etc), then Audioscrobbler won't do much.

I generally add two or three songs t playlist, and AS takes it from there (not every song I play makes AS populate new songs to the list).

 

[globaldonkey]

Thanks guys..... too used to pressing enter on my imon remote Need to use Play (P). It all makes sense now.

 

[ltfearme]

Just read your guide well done, I didnt see any mention on how to handle featured artists e.g. Usher ft. Jay Z. My understanding is that you use semi-colin seperated list of artists in the Artist tag.

 

[kiwijunglist]

Thanks, yeah i need to update the guide for multi artists, my understanding is that semi-colon works for that. However I need to experinent to confirm it works nicely before updating my guide.

the current method i use would be

Artist: Usher
Title: Hot Toddy (Feat Jay-Z)

but obviously this only lists the track under Usher and not Jay-Z

 

[hwahrmann]

Yes, you should separate the Artists with a semi-colon.

Works for Artist, AlbumArtist and Composer

 

[ltfearme]

Yes, you should separate the Artists with a semi-colon.

Works for Artist, AlbumArtist and Composer

Thanks hwahrmann, noticed some issues with multiple artists...could you take a look at this post please:

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...-pipe-seperated-now-playing-87979/#post667186

 

[emphatic]

Here's a tip I'd like to share if you suffer from the "missing artist thumb syndrome". I believe this requires that you have the Fanart Handler plugin enabled and set to scrape Music Thumbnails.

1. Problem: You try to use the scraper (i.e. pressing F9 then "artist/album info") but while data on the artist shows up, no thumb is available

Solution:
2. Start playback of this artist
3. Switch to "Music now playing" screen
4. Wait a moment until you see the cover art changing into an artist photo (this is now your new thumb image)
5. Press escape (on your keyboard) or back (on your remote) to the artist view and see that you now have an artist thumb
6. Repeat for next artist without a thumbnail image

If you still can't find a thumbnail for some rare artist, or want to add one for your own personally recorded music, drop a suiting .jpg file in your "Thumbs\Music\Artists" location folder and name it exactly as the artist name appears in MediaPortal.

Examples:

Artist: "Madonna" Jpg name: "Madonna.jpg"
Artist: "A Perfect Circle" Jpg name: "A Perfect Circle.jpg"
Artist: "Extra / Special : Character" Jpg name: "Extra _ Special _ Character.jpg"

The last example shows how to enter a name for an artist with a character that's not allowed in Windows filenames.

Emph