[Powerhouse]

Being somewhat new to XBMC (been using Windows Media Center with MyMovies for years), and using ACE since its release, I'm trying to get all my Movies, TVShows, Music, and Music Videos all labeled correctly so as to make the whole experience look awesome for not only myself, but also family and friends.

My Movies (DVD and BluRay) are all in separate folders, as are my TVShows and Music Albums. Each folder has been scraped, and so Poster, Fanart, Discart, Actors, etc. is in each folder. This makes everything in ACE just look awesome.

However, I've been having issues with Music Videos that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I have pointed the Concerts Menu to the location of my Music Videos. Every Artist is in a separate folder. The AudioDB scraper ( http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=136105) has made great strides in adding my large collection (I've counted over 5,000 Music Videos) to show up within ACE (currently at 2,600 that actually show up with data from the Scraper). However, I would like to add the artwork for Artists/Albums myself to each folder.

According to the Wiki (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add...Downloader), the following should work...
Musicvideos:
poster
fanart
extrafanart
extrathumbs
clearlogo
clearart
discart

I have created NFO files for nearly all of my Music Videos, but I'm not sure if they are being read. I've also added Album artwork, fanart, and Artist pictures to a few Artist folders, but none of these get displayed within ACE either. I'm not sure if this is an ACE issue, or XBMC issue, or something wrong with AudioDB.

Am I missing something? Can anyone post some examples of their Music Video folders with Artwork that works?

[scott967]

I have yet to figure out exactly how art works in music video. What I can say is that there is a video option to capture a thumb (screenshot from some point in the file that I'm guessing uses ffmpeg to capture), and that will be the default thumb/poster. AFAICT, there is no way to get XBMC to show album cover as an art, though you could manually set it as the thumb for individual music video files. But even if you do that, if you go to album view all you will ever get is the default icon. For artists, it seems like XBMC can pull art from an identical artist in the music database. Otherwise, if you go to artist view the context menu for an artist has the ability to set the artist thumb. I guess in theory artwork downloader will obtain art but at least for my music videos all I ever get is the wrong artist so I don't use it for music video.

I have all my music video set up as artist/album/musicvideo.mp4 (for the most part) and I have an nfo for every file that I use to provide the metadata for the library. I try to have an artist in my music library for every artist in music video. All my music video consists of files containing single songs, so not really "concerts" as MQ4/ACE terms it.

None of this I think is ACE related, it's how XBMC works.

scott s.
.

[Powerhouse]

OK, I've messed with this a lot, so here is what I've figured out.

My layout is the following: Artist\musicvideo.mp4(or mpg, avi, etc).
The following artwork names work:
artist - musicvideo-poster.jpg
artist - musicvideo-thumb.jpg
Also, artist - musicvideo-fanart.jpg should work, but I don't know now to bring it up in ACE.
poster.jpg
fanart.jpg

So the musicvideo-poster.jpg would be the Album cover. The musicvideo-thumb.jpg would be CDART, and the musicvideo-fanart.jpg would be whatever fanart you have for the group. For examples on these check out the fanart.tv, in my example below, I used several of the arts from fanart.tv (http://fanart.tv/artist/bf600e2b-dc2d-48...87cd0/311/). the poster.jpg would be the Artist picture you see when you view Concerts/Music Videos by Artist, and the fanart.jpg shows up as the background when you actually click on an album to see the music inside.

So for example, the music group 311 folder looks like this...

311 - All Mixed Up.mpg
311 - All Mixed Up.nfo
311 - All Mixed Up-fanart.jpg (different image than the fanart.jpg, but didn't load)
311 - All Mixed Up-poster.jpg
311 - Amber.mpeg
311 - Amber.nfo
311 - Amber-poster.jpg
311 - Beautiful Disaster.mpg
311 - Beautiful Disaster.nfo
311 - Beautiful Disaster-poster.jpg
311 - Come Original.mpg
311 - Come Original.nfo
311 - Come Original-fanart.jpg (different image than the fanart.jpg, but didn't load)
311 - Come Original-poster.jpg
311 - Come Original-thumb.png
311 - Down.mpg
311 - Down.nfo
311 - Down-poster.jpg
fanart.jpg
poster.jpg

Here is an example of the nfo files (this is for 311 - All Mixed Up.nfo)...

<musicvideo>
<title>All Mixed Up</title>
<artist>311</artist>
<album>311</album>
<genre>Alternative rock</genre>
<director></director>
<composer></composer>
<studio>Interscope</studio>
<year>1995</year>
<runtime>3:50</runtime>
</musicvideo>

and just for another example here is 311 - Come Original.nfo...

<musicvideo>
<title>Come Original</title>
<artist>311</artist>
<album>Soundsystem</album>
<genre>Alternative rock</genre>
<director></director>
<composer></composer>
<studio>Interscope</studio>
<year>1999</year>
<runtime></runtime>
</musicvideo>

Give me a few, and I'll post my findings in ACE.

[Powerhouse]

Step 1
From the Main Menu highlight Concerts/Music Videos. Notice the Widget at the top (Random\In Progress\Recently Added) pulls artwork from If this is a fresh XBMC install, and you have all the correct artwork in each Concert/Music Video folder, it will look just like the Movies/TV/Music Widgets (meaning it will display the Album artwork). However, if you are just starting to add artwork to your Concerts/Music Videos, you will probably have to clear the texture cache (in Windows 7, C:\Users\Username\A[[Data\Roaming\XBMC\userdata\Database\Textures13.db rename, and when you start XBMC it will create a new one). This should import all the correct artwork from each of your Concerts\Music Video folders.

Step 2
Still on the Main Menu, Concerts/Music Videos, highlight one of the Albums displayed on the Widget at the top. Now the middle Widget comes up, displaying From the Left...fanart, Name of the Song and below that the Artist. Below the artist there is a bar with NR, Star Rating, Year, and Time. Finally on the Right is either the poster or thumb you created for the artist (3 Doors Down - Kryptonite-poster.jpg or 3 Doors Down - Kryptonite-thumb.png). This seems to be random, so if you want only the poster, make sure the thumbs aren't in the folder.

Step 3
Still on the Main Menu, Concerts/Music Videos, bring up the Submenu (press down) and select Artist. Now you should have a list of Artists, and when you highlight over them, you should see the Artists Image (poster.jpg located in the Artist folder - 3 Doors Down\poster.jpg). I believe some of these (if you haven't downloaded any yet) are brought up via the thumb cache in XBMC using theAudioDB plug-in for Music Videos.

So how do we fix the wrong or no Artist pictures, etc. Hold on to that thought for just a bit.

Step 4
So from the Arttist View, click on an Artist, you are now in the Albums View. If you setup your Artist folder like I did...

3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Here Without You.mpg
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Here Without You.nfo
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Here Without You-poster.jpg
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Here Without You-thumb.png
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Kryptonite.avi
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Kryptonite.nfo
3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Kryptonite-poster.jpg
poster.jpg
fanart.jpg

I'm using the Right List View BTW, there is a picture frame at the bottom left of this view, but I haven't figured out what loads in it. There is also whatever Albums you defined in your NFO files (if you don't see the correct Albums, again hold on to that thought for just a little bit more). The Albums view also has information like Themes, Type, and Mood. Which according to the XBMC Wiki, should load from the artist.nfo (needs to be lower case for some reason). I have tried putting an artist.nfo under the artist folder, but it doesn't load the correct information. Here is an example of one I made for 4 Non Blondes...

http://musicbrainz.org/artist/efef848b-6...a48fbdd51d
<artist>
<name>4 Non Blondes</name>
<genre>Pop/Rock</genre>
<style>Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock</style>
<mood>Cathartic, Quirky, Self-Conscious, Tense/Anxious, Earnest, Rebellious, Angst-Ridden, Reflective, Searching, Witty, Yearning, Aggressive, Brooding, Irreverent, Organic, Provocative, Melancholy</mood>
<yearsactive>1980's-1990's</yearsactive>
<born></born>
<formed>1989</formed>
<instruments></instruments>
<biography>4 Non Blondes was an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1989. The group was formed by bassist Christa Hillhouse, guitarist Shaunna Hall, drummer Wanda Day, and vocalist and guitarist Linda Perry. Prior to the release of their first album, Roger Rocha replaced Hall on guitar, and Dawn Richardson replaced Day on drums. They hit the charts in 1993 with "What's Up?", their only major hit single. Perry left the band in 1994 to begin a solo career, and the remaining members disbanded shortly after.</biography>
<died></died>
<disbanded>1995</disbanded>
<artist>

Perhaps it needs to be named something other than artist.nfo. I've tried the artistname.nfo, and the artist - musicvideo.nfo, these don't work either.

Step 5
So if you actually click on the Album displayed under the Albums View, you are taken to the Concerts View. This one should display the Artist Albums Poster (3 Doors Down - Here Without You-poster.jpg), and the Fanart fanart.jpg as the background. You will also see the Year, Country, Genre, and Studios listed next to the Poster. These are actually loaded from the song nfo file (3 Doors Down\3 Doors Down - Here Without You.nfo)


So now, finally, what you have been waiting for, a partial fix...

Highlight a Concert/Music Video you intend to play
Press 'C'
Select Music Video Information
Select Reload, and the following information will come up...

Locally stored information found.
Ignore and refresh from internet?
No or Yes

Select 'NO' since we want the local information.

Now if you go back to the Main Menu, and follow all the steps above, you should see the correct Artwork loaded. At least mostly, there still seems to be some issues loading the correct Artwork.



Maybe with some help from you all, we can figure this all out.


P.S. I wish I could post some PICS of this, it would make it much easier to understand.

[Powerhouse]

Ok, found another interesting issue with Concert/Music Videos, this based on the ACE skin, but probably applies to all skins.

If you download the Artists picture (which I've been doing and placing them in the same folder as the Music Video and calling it poster.jpg), it doesn't always seem to display that picture when searching through Music Videos (Artist view).

Yet if I put the same Artist picture, in the folder under Music (you know, where you keep your Music MP3's), it will then show up under Concerts/Music Videos when searching by Artist.

So I have folders called...

D:\Music Videos\Britney Spears
D:\Music\Britney Spears

So somehow Music artwork is also tied into Music Videos artwork.

It would be nice if we could combine them into a single listing...

D:\Music\Britney Spears

...where you could list separate albums under each Artist, and each album would have the music (flc, mp3, wmv, etc) and any Music Videos you would have for that album as well (avi, mp4, mpg, mkv, etc), would be in that folder as well.

[scott967]

Yes, I've noticed something like this too, but can't figure out exactly how it works. But what really drives me nuts is there is no way to assign art to the album in concert/music video (at least I can't find it).

Meanwhile I went through my music and redid all the tagging so hopefully when I do the same on music video I can get consistent art. In doing that I found that the Vorbis comment tags in FLAC files and APEv2 tags in MP3 files work best (you have to set "prioritiseape" in advancedsettings.xml to get the ape tags to work).

scott s.
.

[AnalogKid]

Music videos is a buggy / messy.

Here's what I've discovered using Krypton and Estuary....

If you don't assign an Album to a video (using the NFO) then if you browse the Music->Music Videos->Artists you will see the artists that have a video, but no videos appear.
If you browse to Music->Music Videos->Titles, you WILL see those videos.

Personally I assign an Album to ALL of my videos, but it's not a music album I am assigning, it's simply a notional 'album' that matches my concert DVD name.
If you have a collection of single videos (not concerts), you could either assign them to the music album of the song, or just use some notional album called 'Band Videos' or similar.

For the Artist fanart and Artist thumb, you need you have that Artist in your music (audio) library too. Arguably, this is a slightly flawed implementation as it's theoretically possible to have a Music Video by an artist that you don't have an audio track for. In which case, no easy way to supply artist thumb or fanart via local file.
A better implementation would be to have completely separate thumbs and fanart for the the Music Videos, and fall back to using Music thumb / fanart if none exist in the Music Video structure.

[scott967]

Well, AFAIK there are no devs working on / interested in music video for Kodi, so I guess the position is open for any volunteer. As I've written elsewhere, I've experimented with adding .mp4 as a "music" file extension and tagging mp4 music video files, then adding to the music library. It sort of works but there are quirks. I think single-song music videos would work better if they were treated as music and concert music videos treated as videos/movies.

scott s.
.

[zag]

Yes treat concerts as movies and use the universal scraper with a Concert Node.

Individual Music videos are very different.

[zomers]

I've read ed this post, and from what I understand, there is no option to get artist artwork for music videos, besides adding those images manually? For me it's I kind of problem, because my android TV likes to make kodi not working at all, and backups don't work, so I have to reconfigure it, and add I ng those images manually it's a lot of wasted time