[SOLVED] conversion/tag handling question

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The.Great.ESCape
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Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

[SOLVED] conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

I am converting multi-audio file audiobooks to single m4b's to simplify my library. Conversions are going fine for the most part. I'm using the Pattern "%albumartist%[ - %album% - %track2%] - %title%[ - %genre%]" which names my output file the way I want, but the Title and track tags are getting removed from the resulting m4b's requiring me to re-tag those fields. The optional parts of the pattern are used for books that are in a series. I'll generally just go in and re-tag all the files of a book before converting so they all have the same tag info before hand. So they all have the same track before getting converted if they are part of a series. If not I will empty that and the album field. This way I can put all audiobooks of a series in one folder and my player will play it like an incredibly long multi-file audiobook. Plus that's just how I like to organize my books. As for the reason I prefer to handle re-tagging before conversion. that's because tagging of mp3's is much faster than m4b's. Alternatively I'd just use xrecode to tag the output file the way I want, but that doesn't seem to be how tagging works in xrecode, and all the tag fields I need don't seem to supported at least when converting to audiobook. Suggestions for getting results with fewer hoops if possible? I might just not be familiar enough yet, so I wouldn't be surprised if I am missing something obvious to others.
admin
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Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by admin »

If I understood you correctly, you are converting mp3 files to m4b and the resulting m4b file is missing the title/track from the original mp3 files?
Could you, please, send couple of mp3 file to xrecode@gmail.com as well as Diagnostic information (it's under About button Diagnostic tab). You could use https://wetransfer.com/ if files are too big.
The.Great.ESCape
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

Multi-mp3 audiobooks when converted to a single M4b using the convert to audiobook are missing track and title info. I can imagine that this is on purpose, because normally multi-mp3 audiobooks have different title and track information. So it just ignores that metadata to avoid complications, but I try to bypass that by tagging all the MP3's the same before the merge/convert to m4b. It happens every time that the title and track metadata is missing from the m4b. I don't have time to send samples right now. I'd have to transcode again as I have been removing the mp3 files as I go. I'm doing this to simplify my library after all.

It would be great if I could just set intended tags for the m4b prior to conversion, but that's not possible in xrecode as I understand it. That would be a less destructive option for people that want to keep their source files.
admin
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Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by admin »

After you have selected Audiobook as Output Format, you can click on Metadata tab - there you can edit all Metadata, which will be used to create the Audiobook (it's a bit less items than usually).
Track is used as a chapter number.
Title is used as a chapter title.
and so on.
Or you are talking about the Metadata of the m4b file itself, not the individual chapters?
The.Great.ESCape
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

I meant for the m4b itself. I use the track number for the m4b mainly as the book number in a series, unless the book has no sequels or prequels. In that case I may go to the trouble to name all the chapters and whatnot, but for the most part I don't worry about that since they keep track of where you are as you listen anyhow.
I pretty much treat most audiobooks like others treat chapters. I will put an entire series into a folder and listen to it like it was one exceedingly long audiobook. I worry more about what book I am on than what chapter. I usually use Smart Audiobook Player on my phone and it treats a folder of files as an audiobook. If it's an exceedingly large series I might break it up into as many folders as I need, but with a 64GB SD card it's not often an issue.
admin
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Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by admin »

Here's the update to try - https://xrecode.com/test/setup_xrecode3 ... t_1.94.exe
You can now edit Audiobbok tags under Metadata like this - https://imgur.com/DGUd4ud. I only added Track and Title there for the moment.
The.Great.ESCape
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Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

I will give that a try. Thanks for adding the option. I'll let you know how it goes.
The.Great.ESCape
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

okay.... after a little playing. I realize I would need "album" for tagging audiobooks as I tend to use that for the name of the series. Also, to make it an extra useful as a feature for the odd people like me, it would be nice if there were a way to tag audiobooks per grouping that way you can set up a batch of folders; set the tags and off you go winding up with wonderfully custom tagged resulting M4Bs. I can prevent Track and Title winding up blank every time though, so that's awesome. I really appreciate your help in addressing the issues I'm having trying to reach my desired end result more easily.

One more thing to add for my wish list here would be able to store my own list of genres in a text file that would show up in a dropdown in the Genre field. I've done a little coding myself so that should be a fairly simple edit if you don't want to get too fancy. What can I say, I'm lazy about typing I suppose. Alternatively, though slightly fancier would be placing two buttons maybe one with "+" on it and the other with a "-" on it next to the genre field one to add to the dropdown list, and the other to remove from the dropdown list. That's one thing I wish audioshell had. It's very handy for music and will auto complete any matching genre in it's database, but it only has common music genres... not audiobook genres.
admin
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Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by admin »

Here's another update with Album to try - https://xrecode.com/test/setup_xrecode3 ... t_1.94.exe
If it's only one genre you want to use, you can use Tags replace file as described here - https://xrecode.com/wiki/index.php?title=Metadata
In your case the file would contain those 2 rows

Code: Select all

[Genre]
<ANY>=Audiobook
The.Great.ESCape
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2019 8:51 am

Re: conversion/tag handling question

Post by The.Great.ESCape »

Thank you so much for adding album. As far as genre goes I usually use tags like "Podcast", "Instructional", "Science", "History", "Thriller", "Spy Thriller", "Sci-Fi", "Fantasy", etc. I try to keep them fairly short since I usually add them in the file name as well, but they help me when selecting what to listen to next. I have a fairly large library, so Its not easy to remember the genre of every audiobook I have. Especially if the titles don't give you much to go on like "Blue" for example. Then if I want info to make my selection select I have usually already put a synopsis in the comment field. If I have neglected to I will look on Goodreads or something, and once I have bothered to do that will usually copy what I find into the comment tag at that time. It's the system that best works for me that I have arrived at so far anyhow. I haven't ran into any audio catalogue management software that is particularly useful for audiobooks as yet.
Last edited by The.Great.ESCape on Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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