Booklet view failures on classical albums

[twieatminim]

On 10/11/23, twieatminim wrote to Bubblesoft:

I cannot view locally existing booklets (PDF files) if classical audio files have GROUP tags set in their metadata. Is there any workaroud to avoid this booklet problem?

What is happen?
BubbleDS v.3.11 lists in its 'Playlist' register in column #3 mostly the album names (#1: cover image, #2: song title). This items will also be used to look for the related and locally stored booklets. This works fine as long as no GROUP tag is stored as metadata in in the played music files. Many classical albums have set GROUP tags. :-(

If you play audio including GROUP tags then BubbleDS displays in 'Playlist' the Group values instead of the album title. This causes the access to local booklets because the app search uses the GROUP value for the local search and not the album name. That means, all booklet searches for those audio fails. That nervs!!!

Is there any way to avoid the booklet view failures of classical albums?
____
my BubbleDS app version: 3.11

[twieatminim]

On 11.10.23, Bubblesoft <bubblesoftproducts@gmail.com> wrote:

RE: Booklet view failures on classical albums

I tried this (adding a group tag to an album) and understand what you mean.
The problem is that for tracks part of a group, MinimServer set their album UPnP metadata it sends to the app to the
group name, which breaks the booklet filenames (which expect a real album name, constant for the whole album).
I'm not sure why MinimServer override the proper album name with the group name, but I suggest to ask Simon
about it in the MinimServer forum (https://forum.minimserver.com/) and if there is a workaround so it does not do this
while still preserving the grouping ability.

[twieatminim]

On 10/23/23, twieatminim wrote to Bubblesoft:

RE: RE: Booklet view failures on classical albums

To your answer ...
> The problem is that for tracks part of a group, MinimServer set their album UPnP metadata it sends to the app to the group name, ...

I tried to understand it and I've checked it with the foobar v2.0 player and the extession "UPnP/DLNA Renderer, Server, Control Point" (foo_upnp) v0.99.49 developed by Michael Pujos (aka bubbleguuum).
This extension lists all the metadata tags I received via UPnP from my Minim-based music server.

When I check the "ALBUM" tag of the faulty listed classical music files (gotten by foobar2000 via the extended UPnP Browser), then all ALBUM tags still show the correct album title, not as assumed the "group name". In this case, they are not be "overwritten" by Minim Server as you've assumed.

So, now there're the questions:
- Why did the UPnP Browser extension of foobar2000 get the correct album names via UPnP and ...
- why did the BubbleDS app got different ones? Both were read via UPnP?!? :-(

I can't find an explanation for it. I also don't know which component (Minim Server, foobar200, BubbleDS) fails on preparing the album titles.

Could you please give me a hint on how I can identify which component could be responsible for that fault?

[twieatminim]

On 25 Oct 2023, Bubblesoft <bubblesoftproducts@gmail.com> wrote:

RE: RE: RE: Booklet view failures on classical albums

foobar2000 metadata dialog display tag values extracted from the http stream exposed by MinimServer.
That's why you see the real album name.

BubbleUPnP does not do that and rely on the XML metadata sent by MinimServer to BubbleUPnP when you browse an album
Usually this metadata matches the file tags metadata, but with MinimServer complex rules (it can rewrite titles and more)
not always.
When a track is part of a group, MinimServer set the group name as the album name for the tracks, identified as the XML <upnp:album>
element in the XML returned.
This can be visualized in BubbleUPnP if you use 3 dot menu on a track in a Group > Show Metadata: it will show the group name
for the "Album" field. The original album name is lost.
That grouping feature is non compatible with expected naming of booklet filenames in BubbleUPnP which requires
that the album name to be constant across all tracks of an album. I'm even surprised MinimServer mess with the album name
sent for implementing that grouping feature.

Maybe if you contact Simon about it on MinimServer forum, he we'll have an alternate solution.

[simoncn]

A MinimServer Group is sent to the control point as an album because many control points have special treatment for how albums are presented as well as providing an option to play all tracks of an album with a single action.

The tracks in the group have upnp:album set to the group name because this is the sub-album (as described in the UPnP specification) to which these tracks belong. This is the "album name" that should be shown by the control point when each track in the group is playing. This is important for classical music where tracks are movements of a work and the track is titled (for example) '2: Allemande' with a group title of 'Handel: Suite No 1 in A major.'

This "group album" has an upnp:album tag which is currently set to the same value as the dc:title tag for this "group album." I think this is wrong and should instead be set to the top-level album containing the group. Making this change should enable the control point to get the top-level album name (if needed) by following a chain from track item to group container to album container.

Would this change to MinimServer enable BubbleUPnP to find the correct local booklet filename in this situation? I understand that a change to BubbleUPnP would be needed because the top-level album name would still not appear directly on the track item.

[twieatminim]

(01-12-2023 13:18)simoncn Wrote:  This "group album" has an upnp:album tag which is currently set to the same value as the dc:title tag for this "group album." I think this is wrong and should instead be set to the top-level album containing the group. ...

Do you know any workaround to access "the top-level album containing the group"?
There may be an option to set the final album tag back to "the top-level album that contains the group".

[simoncn]

I have looked at how these names are produced and it is not possible for the user to do as you suggest without causing the group name to be lost completely. This would make every group in an album be shown with the name of the top-level album, which would be very confusing.

[twieatminim]

(01-12-2023 17:18)simoncn Wrote:  I have looked at how these names are produced and it is not possible for the user to do as you suggest without causing the group name to be lost completely. This would make every group in an album be shown with the name of the top-level album, which would be very confusing.

Is there an option to set in my private MinimServer properties an additional (private) tag with a different name and assign the "the top-level album that contains the group" to it?

This additional private tag could appear in the index as alternative to the album tag.

[bubbleguuum]

@twieatminim

What about storing your PDFs on the MinimServer side, instead of your Android device with BubbleDS's filenaming rules that require the album title to be constant accross all tracks of an album ?
It can probably still work if you duplicate your album PDF to as many group you have and give the PDFs the group names. But it feels clunky and a lot more work than to store the PDFs on the MinimServer side and let it handle them.
Then you can access the PDF with a link in the metadata dialog of tracks and albums (3 dot menu on track / album > Show metadata).

[twieatminim]

(01-12-2023 18:48)bubbleguuum Wrote:  What about storing your PDFs on the MinimServer side, instead of your Android device ...

... to store the PDFs on the MinimServer side and let it handle them.
Then you can access the PDF with a link in the metadata dialog of tracks and albums (3 dot menu on track / album > Show metadata).

@bubbleguuum

I had always disliked the BubbleDS practiced storing of booklets on external mobile devices.

I think I understand the suggested handling on BubbleDS. It seams identically to the booklet viewing when streaming music from Qobuz.
But I didn't know until now, how to practice it via the MinimServer functionality instead.

It would be great if you could give me some more hints.   Is it necessary to change my MinimServer properties? Great would be a booklet file naming as "booklet.pdf" as well.