Twonky Server Tags

[john.glasson]

Does anyone know where Twonky stores its definitions of what Tags are mapped to what upnp values?

There must be a specification showing, for each type of supported container format, which tags are used. For example, it seems that Album Title is derived as follows:

MP3 container: 'TALB' tag
WMA container: 'WM/ALBUMTITLE' tag
M4a container: '©alb' tag

This example uses obvious tags; but some values are less obvious - eg M3a AlbumArtist.

I can't believe that tag decoding is hard coded into the twonkymediaserver executable; surely it must form part of a configuation file - maybe an xml file is the 'resources' directory. But I've had no success in locating it.

If only Twonky documented some of this stuff, there would be no need to go digging for it! But in the absence of this, maybe we users could fathom it out for ourselves. Any suggestions welcomed!

[edrikk]

This has been asked for so many times that it's not funny any more!

I honestly don't understand why Twonky doesn't want to tell its userbase how to use their product / get the most out of it...


Rick can you PLEASE help us with this once and for all?

I'd love to know the mappings from the MP4 container (for Videos) to database / twonky fields.

[john.glasson]

Have done some tests on MP3. M4a and WMA files. It seems that these music tags are evaluated as follows:



The tags seem to be hard-coded into the twonkymediaserver executable. I find that even in 6.0.30, the M4a tags for 'Composer' and 'AlbumArtists (ie ©wrt and aART) don't feature in the code and are not evaluated.

Rick, there must be a better way of helping your customers than this. I've wasted endless time trying to figure out why my .m4a files don't show up - the reason is simple: the custom tree I nearly always use starts with 'Composer (which is not evaluated).

I know that m4a tags are not properly standardised; but they are very widely used (for example, in the UK the BBC now output all classical music in AAC in a M4a container).

So please, PacketVideo/Twonky: do give us some additional documentation, and do please evaluate the main tags used by the popular container formats.

[edrikk]

A couple more for MP4 ( / m4a):

Atom "trkn" for track number
Atom "covr" for the jpeg album art / video poster
Atom "©day" for date (Put this into file in format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ for example --> 1998-12-25T12:00:00Z

[john.glasson]

Thanks for the additional information, edrikk. I've updated the table above.

Do you know where Twonky derives Cover Art from for MP3 and WMA files?

I now realise that the m4a tags embedded in the twonkmediaserver executable also include 'cpil' (Compilation) and 'gnre' (which I think equates to ID3V1 standard genre), so I've included them though I'm unsure how Twonky server evaluates them.

[edrikk]

I'm affraid I don't know for MP3s... My collection is all MP4s, which shares the same tagging scheme as M4A / M4V


One more to add to your list for MP4/M4A/M4V:

Atom "rate" for rating (value out of 100)


http://www.twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=8007

The only app that I know which can currently write this tag, but the user has to compile it themselves:
http://bitbucket.org/wez/atomicparsley

[john.glasson]

Table updated - thanks edrikk.

[edrikk]

It appears that MP4 atom ©ART is mapped to both the upnp:artist as well as dc:creator database attributes

[Twonky_Rick]

The issue that John Glasson reported about "©wrt tag is not evaluated in m4a files" should be fixed in 6.0.31-RC5. Sadly I'm too busy to check the server forum on a regular basis. If you have other issues like this, send them to me at tmm-beta@pv.com. Thanks.

- Rick

[edrikk]

The issue that John Glasson reported about "©wrt tag is not evaluated in m4a files" should be fixed in 6.0.31-RC5. Sadly I'm too busy to check the server forum on a regular basis. If you have other issues like this, send them to me at tmm-beta@pv.com. Thanks.

- Rick

Hi Rick... And what about "aART" (Album Artist)? The database already supports this attribute... why not pull it as well for mp4/m4a files?

[edrikk]

FYI,

As I mentioned here (http://www.twonkyforum.com/viewtopic.ph ... dd8#p36257) mp3tag now supports the Rate tag for MP4 files, along with all other tags listed in the chart above.

If you find the program useful, please donate to the author guys! This is a great application with great support over the years! The author deserves it.

[Twonky_Rick]

Hi Rick... And what about "aART" (Album Artist)? The database already supports this attribute... why not pull it as well for mp4/m4a files?

I've asked our developers to consider this for a future release.

- Rick