WMA Tags?

[sainswor99]

Hello,

Most of my music is ripped to WMA, and I have most of it organized using the tags generated by Windows Media Player. Although the files play fine, the OSD doesn't have all of the information populated. For example, most of my WMA's show up with "Unknown" by the Artist name.

I see that there is a WMA Tag parser plugin; has anybody tried it with v6 yet? Or, is there something obvious that I'm missing?

Thanks for all the help! Can't wait until I'm able to share some insight back.

Stu

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

I see that there is a WMA Tag parser plugin; has anybody tried it with v6 yet?

My understanding is that as of V6, SageTV now does all its own tag parsing and doesn't support third-party tag parser plugins anymore.

Also be aware that when you edit media info in WMP, WMP stores it in its own media database but doesn't necessarily write it back to the file. To force it to update the file, use the Process Media Information Now command (on the Tools menu). Then of course you have to tell Sage to refresh its media database before it will see the changes.

[sainswor99]

Greg,

Thanks for the help; I did the following steps:

1. In WMP, I Processed the Media Information. Took a bit, but it finished.

2. In Sage, I Refreshed the Media Information, but saw no difference (more details below).

3. I then deleted the Music directory from Sage, Refreshed The Media Information. When I saw I had no files, I then re-added the directory, and re-imported it. Saw no difference.

I realized when I was typing this post up that I didn't really describe what I was seeing. For my WMA files, Sage is sorting by album and artist correctly. When I use the Visualization option during playback, I see the album art, the song title, the album title, and the year. What I don't see is the artist name. I don't remember having this issue with v5, but I could be mistaken.

Any other suggestions?

[sleonard]

I'm also seeing this same thing on some albums but not on others. All my music is ripped in WMA lossless, tagged in WMP, and the tags are correctly written to the files. In Sage I am sorting by Album Artist and the Album Artist is the only tag chosen for display of Artists (I de-selected both the Artist tag and the Composer tag). Sage seems to sort properly on the Album Artist tag but some albums still have "By Unknown" when you drill down into a particular Album Artist.

Scott

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I'm also seeing this same thing on some albums but not on others. All my music is ripped in WMA lossless, tagged in WMP, and the tags are correctly written to the files. In Sage I am sorting by Album Artist and the Album Artist is the only tag chosen for display of Artists (I de-selected both the Artist tag and the Composer tag). Sage seems to sort properly on the Album Artist tag but some albums still have "By Unknown" when you drill down into a particular Album Artist.

Scott

Just confirmed; in my case it only works on MP3 files. I'm not seeing the Artist Name on any of my WMA files. What do you mean "tag chosen for display of Artists "; is there an option that I'm missing?

Stu

[GKusnick]

Just to cover all the bases: you're aware that WMP has separate tags for Artist and Album Artist, and that the Album Artist column is not shown by default? You must right-click the column headers and check-mark Album Artist to display it. If you haven't done this yet, you may find that some of your Album Artist tags are not filled in.

[sleonard]

Originally Posted by sainswor99

What do you mean "tag chosen for display of Artists "; is there an option that I'm missing?

Stu

When in the Sage Music Library, click the Tools icon (crossed wrenches) or right-click a column header. From the menu that pops up click the button that's labeled "Choose people to display as artist". You'll get another pop-up with three choices, Album Artist, Artist, and Composer.

Any names in any of the selected tags are displayed as an Artist by Sage. I selected only the Album Artist tag for Sage to use otherwise I have an unmanagable list.

By way of explanation, WMP uses two seperate tags, Album Artist and Artist. Album Artist is the same for every song on an album and is used for the person or group that is responsible for the album as a whole. The Artist tag may or may not be the same as the Album Artist tag and may be different from one song to another. It is used to list all artists that performed on that particular song. This lets you list a guest artist present for only one song for example.


GKusnick,

I have checked the Album Artist tag (and only that tag) in Sage and I have verified that the files are tagged properly but Sage still has "By Unknown" listed for the albums so there is still something not right in Sage.

Scott

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by sleonard

When in the Sage Music Library, click the Tools icon (crossed wrenches) or right-click a column header. From the menu that pops up click the button that's labeled "Choose people to display as artist". You'll get another pop-up with three choices, Album Artist, Artist, and Composer.

Any names in any of the selected tags are displayed as an Artist by Sage. I selected only the Album Artist tag for Sage to use otherwise I have an unmanagable list.

Hmm, Placeshifter doesn't have that option. I had to go straight to the server to get that option. Set it to Album Artist, but no difference.

Just to cover all the bases: you're aware that WMP has separate tags for Artist and Album Artist, and that the Album Artist column is not shown by default? You must right-click the column headers and check-mark Album Artist to display it. If you haven't done this yet, you may find that some of your Album Artist tags are not filled in.

By way of explanation, WMP uses two seperate tags, Album Artist and Artist. Album Artist is the same for every song on an album and is used for the person or group that is responsible for the album as a whole. The Artist tag may or may not be the same as the Album Artist tag and may be different from one song to another. It is used to list all artists that performed on that particular song. This lets you list a guest artist present for only one song for example.

Thanks for covering all the bases, but I'm pretty anal about making sure that my Album Artists are complete. All of my songs have Album Artist applied to them, and Sage must be able to read those tags at some point, because the search functionality works (right?). Just doesn't show up on the OSD.

Stu

EDIT: Just noticed that once I set the option on SageTV to sort by Album Artist only, the option for sorting appeared on PlaceShifter as well. I adjusted it there as well; the song still plays with "UNKNOWN" as the Artist Tag.

[sainswor99]

Just submitted a bug for this. If I hear anything, I'll let everyone know.

[sainswor99]

No response from the bug I submitted, but in another posting, I found out about log files I would have added this to the bug I had previously submitted, but didn't know how to do that; sorry to keep adding to this thread, but I wanted to help narrow down the problem as best I could. I think the Artist Tag for WMA files is not being imported (as opposed to not being displayed).


Looking though some of the log files, I found the following:

WMA file with no Artist Tag being parsed.

Mon 10/9 15:21:37.104 File Format Parsed D:\Music\T-Bone Burnett\Twenty Twenty- The Esssential T-Bone Burnett Disc 2\15 I'm Coming Home.wma=ASF 0:04:03 161 kbps [#0 Audio[WMA8 44100 Hz 2 channels 160 kbps idx=0]{Album=Twenty Twenty: The Esssential T-Bone Burnett Disc 2, Year=2006, WM/ProviderStyle=Rock, Genre=Rock, WM/URL=, AlbumArtist=T-Bone Burnett, WM/Publisher=Columbia/DMZ/Legacy, WM/ProviderRating=7, Composer=Burnett, WM/Provider=AMG, WM/EncodingTime=-858867456, Track=15, WM/UniqueFileIdentifier=AMGa_id=R 833318;AMGp_id=P 60998;AMGt_id=T 8839567}]

MP3 File with Artist Tag
Mon 10/9 15:21:16.536 File Format Parsed D:\Music\Neil Young\Decade Disc 1\14 After the Gold Rush.mp3=MP3 0:03:46 319 kbps [#0 Audio[MP3 44100 Hz 2 channels 320 kbps idx=0]{Album=Decade Disc 1, Year=1977, Duration=224900, Genre=Rock, Artist=Neil Young, AlbumArtist=Neil Young, Title=After the Gold Rush, Composer=Neil Young, Track=14}]

I've attached four image files to demonstrate that a) the tags for the WMA file are not showing, b) the tags for the MP3 file are showing, and c) the tags are present in the WMA file (using both WMP 11 Advanced Tag Editor and Tag & Rename, a shareware tag editor).

Sorry to be so persistent about this, but I am really trying to help make this a better product. I realize others are experiencing far worse kinks than I am, but it's the little details that make me like this software so much.

Stu

[sainswor99]

I've gotten some initial responses from the Sage Beta Support technicians, and they are insisting that there is no Artist tag on my WMA file. However, I find that hard to believe, since both Windows Media Player and every other tag editor I've tried has seen the tag and the value stored in it. I'm sure its a miscommunication, but in the meantime, if you've experienced a problem with tags being parsed incorrrectly for WMA files, would you submit a bug report?

Stu

[chadman]

I have the same problem. I have posted on this, but did not get a response yet. I had my files with the .ape extention and converted them to wma. I have 3 media player and all of them see the tags fine. Sage is the only player I have that shows unknown. Chad

[sainswor99]

Did you submit a bug report? I'm not sure how closely the support team monitors these forums.

Stu

[rickgillyon]

Support team does NOT monitor - just occasional dips. If you need support, you've got to go through the channels...

[chadman]

Tech Support just sent me a fix (sagetranscoder.exe) for the wma tagging problem and it works! I guess we will all see it in the next release. Chad

[sainswor99]

Originally Posted by chadman

Tech Support just sent me a fix (sagetranscoder.exe) for the wma tagging problem and it works! I guess we will all see it in the next release. Chad

Did it actually read the Artist tag and not just the AlbumArtist workaround? If so,YAAAAAYYYYYY!

[chadman]

Yes it works like it should! I could not get the workaround you mentioned to work correctly. I just re-imaged a machine, added Sage, copied the file they sent me to the Sage Directory, and did my first import. Works great! I am not converting about 400 cd's from .ape to .wma. Should be done this evening. Chad