Post Tue Mar 12, 2019 11:59 am

Audio - improved use of Artist and AlbumArtist metadata

There are ID Tags/metadata fields for both "Artist" and "AlbumArtist" in digital audio files.
(Sometimes there is confusion in the way in which they are used).
Most of the time (probably 98%) they are the same when populated by CD rips and on digital downloads.

There are some cases where they are different:-

1. Compilation albums with various artists
e.g. Soul Decade-The Sixties - about 30 different artists

2. Compilation albums where an artist has been in several groups
e.g. Steve Winwood - The Finer Things with solo work, Spencer Davis, Blind Faith, Traffic etc

3. Concert or soundtrack albums with multiple artists
e.g. Knebworth 1990 with Pink Floyd, Eric Claton, Robert Plant, Phil Collins etc.

There may be times where either artist or albumartist may be the desired access method.
Taking the example of the 4 CD Steve Winwood set the album gets split up over the different groups even though the album is a Steve Winwood one. I might want to play all the tracks (select by AlbumArtist) or just those by Traffic (select by Artist).

There is a better way to present this media (and avoid any confusion) if the Artist and AlbumArtist are joined together.

The proposal is:-
1. AlbumArtist data is additionally presented as Artist data in cases where they are different (but ignored if they are the same).
2. It is an Optional facility in the Serviio console (users who do not wish to use the facility continue as present).
3. The file metadata would be unchanged.
4. There would likely not be a significant performance overhead as the fields are mostly the same.
5. This would provide a nice option to accessing all artists tracks (whether they are found in Artist or AlbumArtist).
6. The AlbumArtist category on Presentation would become redundant and could be disabled if the user wants to (i.e. only use Artist category).

This would represent an additional feature and benefit of Serviio in providing this facility.

Any comments/thoughts etc. and I will then raise it as a request.

Raised as BitBucket request issue #1103 - https://bitbucket.org/xnejp03/serviio/i ... artist-and
Serviio Pro v2.3, DBpoweramp & Asset UPnP (R7.4), HP Elitebook, HP Pavilion, Windows 10 Pro, Linn Majik DS/1, NEET AirstreamPro renderer, Naim NAC72/NAP140 (x2), Celestion Ditton 25 and Spendor A5 speakers, WD TV Media Player (x2), Panasonic Blu-ray DMP-BDT360, Panasonic TV, Amazon Fire 7 HDX, Kazoo & BubbleUPnP apps, Qobuz Studio Hi-Res.