Ideas for Music Section 1.3 (2 Viewers)

[Mike Lowrey]

Since i'm currently doing much work on a webservice which give's access to mp's media databases i may be have an interesting idea for MP 1.3.

One of the main problems especially for the music section are the old database layout and the missing support for multiseat setups(that's of course the case for all databases except tv).

But may be the above mentioned service would allow a bit more flexibility (because the database behind is hidden) and it would allow multiseat setups the problem is i don't know how much work it would need to switch from direct database access to a webservice access.
What do you think about that?

 

[jameson_uk]

Since i'm currently doing much work on a webservice which give's access to mp's media databases i may be have an interesting idea for MP 1.3.

One of the main problems especially for the music section are the old database layout and the missing support for multiseat setups(that's of course the case for all databases except tv).

But may be the above mentioned service would allow a bit more flexibility (because the database behind is hidden) and it would allow multiseat setups the problem is i don't know how much work it would need to switch from direct database access to a webservice access.
What do you think about that?

It is a nice idea and something to look at but I think the amount of code which is bogged down and specifically SQLite is probably too much to justify it.

You have the actual database side (scanning, adding, updating etc) which is all tightly linked to SQLite then you also have the view definition stuff which is really messy with lots of nasty SQL. These would basically need complete rewrites

 

[Mike Lowrey]

That's what i suspected but i thought it's better to ask once instead just forget the idea

Since the service currently has no scanning/adding/updating) the main question is whether getting the data from the service would be doable.
The scanning etc. could then may be at first reused(in the service) and then renewed).

The big question regarding this whole operation is how long MP 1.3 will be the main MP environment, are there any indications?

 

[emphatic]

Forgive me if this is already implemented, I feel out of the loop a bit:

* Allow skinners to access more fields from the Music Database, like cul8er's X-Factor Music Info plugin does. What it does is pull album reviews, artist biography etc that you get if you press Info on your remote and choose Show artist/album info.

Hopefully the above can result in the ability of showing artist + album name when browsing music in ALL the available views, not just List and what other (?) mode that can do this. Not all album covers have the artist and album names visible, you know.

Cheers
Emph

 

[jameson_uk]

Forgive me if this is already implemented, I feel out of the loop a bit:

Should be there in beta
http://wiki.team-mediaportal.com/1_...1.1.0_to_1.2.0/Music_Browsing_Skin_Properties

 

[CypherMK]

How about a search button. Should be a default possibility, without using the plugin Global Music Search.

 

[emphatic]

I'm just gonna quote myself from the old "Ideas for music section" thread:

Spoiler

Interesting topic. Here's what was planned for the MusicEvolution plugin before the coders disappeared from MePo forums:

* Support for portable devices (after a one time setup, instant recognition with local/device stored playlist support)
* Global search box with input for keyboard and SMS-style (for your remote control)
* Additional playlist paths can be set up in MP configuration
* Careful RegEx parser for "automatic" finding of artist/album-data from files with lack of proper ID3 tagging
* Support for online data grabbing with script support like Moving Pictures for localization
* User interaction for unmatched/conflicting files directly in GUI like MP TV-Series
* Commit downloaded data to ID3-tag (available as "Hidden feature" in the GUI?)
* "Hidden" advanced GUI options - show file path | mark database entries as incorrect/re-scan
* Multiple layouts to choose from in GUI
* Ability to give the plugin a custom name to show up in Home/Plugins list
* In-Plugin Artwork browser - A browser to watch the scraper results for artwork, and also browse, select, delete existing artwork

Available database fields:
Artist | Album artist | Album | Track name | Genre | Duration | Remixer | Album artwork | Artist artwork
Album rating | Track rating | Bitrate | Sample rate | Bit size | Sample freq. | Composer | Disc. no
Date added | Year | Lyrics | Resume marker data (for audio books) | Custom | Mood

"Album" and "Artist" would need some clever planning to allow for biography/discovery data as well.

Context menu (content dynamic options when browsing track, album or artist views):
* Add to playlist
* Change view
* Artist fanart menu (enable/disable, like MP TV-Series)
* Show extended options ("hidden GUI options") | pin code required
* Settings | Show lyrics: on/off | Randomize available fanart: on/off

Playlist specific options:
* Merge current playlist into saved playlist (select this, and all your saved playlists will be listed)
-> confirmation "Are you sure?" yes/no -> save playlist as new yes/no
* playlist "view filter" : re-arrange by artists | re-arrange by album | re-arrange by genre | re-arrange by play time
(this will change the sorting descending, choose a "re-arrange" again to sort ascending)
* Shuffle current playlist
* When saving a playlist, you can set a "mood" marker for it, like "Party", "Make out-music", "Fancy dinner".
You can use pre-defined or name them "on the fly"

But more important is the possibility to import scrapers, so that should some data source "dry up", the scraper can be kept up to date more easily than hardcoded stuff. I have been looking at discogs.com and they have API for data collection: API Documentation

Using the Discogs API, display of "online" data rather than ID3 data can optionally be chosen instead of ID3 tagged data for display in the music section. For example, if you notice that one of your albums are not properly tagged, you can switch to data from Discogs by a menu selection and if you see that the data matches correctly, you can save the data into the database for this item.

Hopefully this doesn't sound like a broken record, I just want to preserve these ideas. Now, some of these aren't possible, so I'll just focus on the ones I feel strongly about:

* Careful RegEx parser for "automatic" finding of artist/album-data from files with lack of proper ID3 tagging

Spoiler

When you see an album that has no cover or weird tags you click the Info/F9 and you can scan it. This will show a new screen that will show the Folder Name of the album as well as a list of possible matching albums (including Deluxe versions, re-masters etc) filtered to match the number of tracks in the album. If an album for example is available in a 1-disc as well as a 2-disc version, you will only be shown the 2-disc if you have the correct track count (an "ignore track count" option could be added). You select one option and the files from the folder in one column to the left, and the scaped song titles to the right so you can see for yourself that it's a positive match. You then have the option of selecting OK or Next result. If you choose Next result, the two columns will once again be shown until a match is found. Next step is to choose the album cover you want.

* Support for online data grabbing with script support like Moving Pictures for localization
* User interaction for unmatched/conflicting files directly in GUI like MP TV-Series
* In-Plugin Artwork browser - A browser to watch the scraper results for artwork, and also browse, select, delete existing artwork

Something that's really bugging me is that you CAN'T edit album covers inside MediaPortal. I have all of my music with embedded artwork, yet somehow MediaPortal is able to change them into something else. If it can't be done with automation, why not let the user choose?

Playlist specific options:
* Merge current playlist into saved playlist (select this, and all your saved playlists will be listed)
-> confirmation "Are you sure?" yes/no -> save playlist as new yes/no
* playlist "view filter" : re-arrange by artists | re-arrange by album | re-arrange by genre | re-arrange by play time
(this will change the sorting descending, choose a "re-arrange" again to sort ascending)
* When saving a playlist, you can set a "mood" marker for it, like "Party", "Make out-music", "Fancy dinner".
You can use pre-defined or name them "on the fly"

Cheers
Emph

 

[IchBinsShort]

AW: Ideas for Music Section 1.3

Tagging

I think you should be able to tag the playing Song. And this should be save in the List. Now you can only save it for IRC. Because you hear a song on the radio, and see the Artist and Titel, but you can't save it.
At the time i take my< Smartphoe with Shazam and save the track, but why is it not implement in Mediaportal. I think it is not too difficult for the developer ?!

 

[tourettes]

* Careful RegEx parser for "automatic" finding of artist/album-data from files with lack of proper ID3 tagging

That is something for non-HTPC frontend application. Just use a proper tagger (or even MusicBrainz which can analyse the audio content) and you can do the tagging much more efficient way. I think the small amount of development resources we have is much better to be used in something else. Just tag the files properly and consider it as a donation of development time that you are providing to the MP team.

 

[bodiroga]

* Support for online data grabbing with script support like Moving Pictures for localization

This would be awesome!!! +1

We could use Last.fm as the information source as it has many artist information in many different language. What do you think?

Thanks for your work jameson and best regards,

Aitor