export itunes ratings to mt-daapd

[jingo_man]

hi,
i have a somewhat confusing setup, but i’ll try to explain as simply as possibly!

i have a windows itunes library, which is used for editing tracks (taggings/ratings/etc). the files for this are stored on a samba share provided by a NSLU2 device as drive M:

in turn, the NSLU2 runs a mt-daapd server, from the same files (/opt/music/). it picks up all the tagging that i do from the windows machine, and i share this out to my LAN, so that the device connected to my hifi can pick it up and play my tunes through proper speakers.

the only thing is that the NSLU2 mt-daapd does not pick up the iTunes ratings, as this is something maintained in the iTunes database and not applied to the tags – from what i believe. can this be achieved?

how are ratings applied to the mt-daapd server?
how can i simply export the itunes ratings from the db? or get the mt-daapd to scan for it?

i have a scheduled job at 3am to stop and restart the mt-daapd server, so it picks up the smart playlists i have put together (only able to do this on start of the server, i.e. it doesnt refresh) and could use this if need be…

many thanks in advance.

jingo_man

[rpedde]

@jingo_man wrote:

hi,
i have a somewhat confusing setup, but i’ll try to explain as simply as possibly!

i have a windows itunes library, which is used for editing tracks (taggings/ratings/etc). the files for this are stored on a samba share provided by a NSLU2 device as drive M:

in turn, the NSLU2 runs a mt-daapd server, from the same files (/opt/music/). it picks up all the tagging that i do from the windows machine, and i share this out to my LAN, so that the device connected to my hifi can pick it up and play my tunes through proper speakers.

the only thing is that the NSLU2 mt-daapd does not pick up the iTunes ratings, as this is something maintained in the iTunes database and not applied to the tags – from what i believe. can this be achieved?

how are ratings applied to the mt-daapd server?
how can i simply export the itunes ratings from the db? or get the mt-daapd to scan for it?

i have a scheduled job at 3am to stop and restart the mt-daapd server, so it picks up the smart playlists i have put together (only able to do this on start of the server, i.e. it doesnt refresh) and could use this if need be…

many thanks in advance.

jingo_man

You must be running nightlies, not 0.2.4. Once you have upgraded to nightlies, then you can just copy the iTunes Music Library.xml into the root of the M drive, and it shoudl pick it all up.

— Ron

[jingo_man]

hi,

many thanks for your help with this issue.

i was on the “stable” release, as you correctly stated. reading the install wiki for the nslu2, i upgraded (dont actually know if this is an updated version or simply a different version altogether) to the “nightlies” version, by adding the “firefly.conf” file in the /etc/ipkg/ directory and reinstalling mt-daapd

i then had to work to get the proper configuration to have it working as intended. this seemed to work for me:
in the mt-daapd.conf file, i enabled the “playlists file”, “m3u” and “mp3_data” options accordingly, among others. the mt-daapd.playlist is the original one i had written for the stable version.
i uploaded BOTH the “itunes library.itl” AND “itunes music library.xml” files from windows machine (local profile – my docsmy musicitunes) to the M: (which is also /opt/music from the NSLU2’s point of view). restarted the mt-daapd application. this took much longer to restart and scan fully. there were also numerous entries in the log file, but so long as the daemon started, it seemed to cause no particular issues.

opened the windows itunes client and connected to the shared library. it took a long time to display all the files, but eventually they appeared along with my star ratings! woohoo!
i then worked on a temporary solution to have the 2 required files copied across on shutdown of windows, so that the library gets updated. a more permanent solution is still required…

many thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

regards,

jingo_man

[rpedde]

@jingo_man wrote:

h
i uploaded BOTH the “itunes library.itl” AND “itunes music library.xml” files

Actually, just the xml files is needed, but the itl won’t hurt. Appeciate your feedback.

— Ron

[fizze]

I recently made some tests with ratings, which is new ground for me.
Since I dont use iTunes, and always liked winamp, I though, wth, lets try winamp ML’s ratings.
Bugger though, as Winamp (just as iTunes) does not save its ratings in the track metadata.

There is support for iTunes xml however, so I guess that would work.

As I also use a rockbox’d DAP, I’d really like to have the ratings in the track metadata.

Question:
1.) Does mt-daapd read and use the ratings from track metadata, or is iTunes xml the only source?
2.) What happens when track metadata with rating is present, AND iTunes XML ratings as well?
3.) Is there a way to export the iTunes XML ratings into track metadata?

4.) Does anyone know a half-decent application to set and maintain track metadata, especially ratings?

[blamm]

mp3tag

[fizze]

mp3tag doesnt do ratings 😉

[blamm]

mp3tag has a great implementation of the “popularimeter” tag (ID3v2.3 POPM). Asterisks entered in a POPULARIMETER column are translated to corresponding numeric value. Of course it only works for MP3s.

[fizze]

Well, maybe my version of mp3tag is outdated then.

The problem is rather to get the ratings in the id3v2 tags, in the first place, and then, also in a format that mt-daapd supports properly.

[blamm]

Hi.

It works here. I have just used v2.38 of Mp3tag to add a rating (using popularimeter) to a mp3 file and it can be seen in iTunes though Firefly.

Try it..

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