Win7 Attributes vs Mezzmo Attributes and Searching

[larrymcg]

Using Mezzmo v4.1.3.0 on Win7 64bit. I am trying to figure out the relationship of Win7 file attributes and Mezzmo's interpretation of them and how all of that interacts with searching. I'll start with one example involving Windows attributes Contributing Artists and Album Artists for mp3 files.

I have a folder named "ABBA - Momma Mia! Soundtrack" with the soundtrack of Momma Mia! Contributing Artists fields have all kinds of names in them and some are blank. Album Artist fields are all ABBA.

What I find in Mezzmo is: A search for media files with "ABBA" turns up nothing. I'm doing the search by entering ABBA in the search box near the top of the screen. The name ABBA does show up in the left pane under Album Artist. The name ABBA does not show up in the left pane under Artist. The folder name shows up under Folders in the left pane.

If you display the folder in Mezzmo it shows all the names under "Artist/Actors" that were display as Contributing Artists in Windows. The only place that ABBA shows up in the Mezzmo listing is under the Folder Name field.

Since a search for ABBA turns up empty, it seems that Mezzmo is ignoring the Windows Album Artist field and the Windows Folder Name.

Why is Mezzmo ignoring the Windows Album Artist field?
Why doesn't Mezzmo see ABBA as part of the folder name it displays?

-- Larry

[Paul]

Hi Larry,

The current version of Mezzmo (v4.1.3.0) gets the music metadata that is embedded in your music files. It does this for all popular music formats. Right-click on the music file in Mezzmo and click 'Get FFmpeg Information' Post that here.

[larrymcg]

Paul,
Here is the FFmpeg info from one of the files:

ffmpeg version N-66094-gbb8b752 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Sep 4 2014 16:23:51 with gcc 4.8.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86_64 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl64 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc32/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc64/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis
libavutil 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
libavcodec 56. 1.100 / 56. 1.100
libavformat 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavdevice 56. 0.100 / 56. 0.100
libavfilter 5. 0.103 / 5. 0.103
libswscale 3. 0.100 / 3. 0.100
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
[mp3 @ 000000000039ec60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, mp3, from 'C:\Users\Owner\Music\MP3 Lib\ABBA - Mamma Mia! Soundtrack\01 Prologue.mp3':
Metadata:
track : 1
publisher : Polydor
TLEN : 176133
title : Prologue
genre : Soundtrack
album : Mama Mia!
album_artist : ABBA
composer : Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus
artist : Lisa Stokke
date : 2000
Duration: 00:02:56.01, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 191 kb/s
Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p, 192 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

<MEZZMO>: Child process ended with code: 109, ExitCode=1


---> DB Level Info: 0, -99
---> Frame rate:
---> Aspect ratio:
---> Duration: 00:02:56

[Paul]

Thanks. Now if you right-click on this music file in Mezzmo and click Properties, then on the Properties dialog you should see this metadata displayed on the General tab. For example, Album Artist is 'ABBA', Artist is 'Lisa Stokke', Title is 'Prologue', etc. Mezzmo will use this for organizing your music file in the Genre, Artist, Album, etc. playlists.

[larrymcg]

Paul, Yes - all of that is true. My original post did not claim that any of the meta-data that Mezzmo has is incorrect. And I agree that Mezzmo has listed the album in the various places it should.

The issue is that a search for ABBA comes back empty! I don't think that is correct. Clearly there is an album with multiple songs and ABBA appears as the Album Artist and is contained in the filename.

Since a search for ABBA does not find anything then the more general question is: What does a search look for?

-- Larry

PS: This is a bit of a problem for me because I have been using WMP for a long time and have ensured that the Windows property "Album Artist" contains the correct name (about 4600 songs). This makes all the songs of a particular artist sort together. And a search for XXXX will find XXXX in the title, album artist, album name, file name, contributing artist, etc.

[Paul]

OK - understand now. We'll reproduce the problem here and fix it. The fix will be included in the next Mezzmo release. You can email us now at support [at] conceiva [dot] com and we'll provide a patch for you to get up and running.

[larrymcg]

Paul, Thanks for the attention and feedback. A fix so that a search includes the Album Artist would be a good improvement.

But it still leaves the unanswered question of what a search does look for and what it should look for.

Cheers,
Larry

[Paul]

Understand, Larry. We'll fix the issue and then post here the fields that Mezzmo searches for with doing a Quick Search in Mezzmo (Windows) app.

[Paul]

Hi Larry,

We've fixed the issue and the fix will be included in the next Mezzmo release. We have emailed you with a patch to try.

Quick Search searches the following fields: Title, Artist, Album Artist, Keywords, Album, File path, Tag line, Description, Keywords.

[larrymcg]

I tried out the patch. My test case works now. Thanks!

Now I'll try some of the other fields the search is supposed to include. I have a question: When you say "File Path" does that include file name too? I ask because Mezzmo displays two fields -- Folder and Name where Name is just the filename and Folder is the path leading to the filename.

Cheers,
Larry

[Paul]

Hi Larry,

Glad that works better now :).

Yes - file path is the full file path (= drive + folders + file name + ext).

[larrymcg]

I think I have a case (that I manufactured for this test) that shows that a Mezzmo search does not include the filename. Here's the evidence:

There is one song whose filename is "12 Solar.mp3". I changed the file's Windows properties so that the Title is Solax. There are no other files with that title. I then maintained the library so Mezzmo would see the changed attributes.

A search for Solar fails (filename should be found). A search for Solax succeeds (as it should).

Here is the FFmpeg info from the file:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ffmpeg version N-66094-gbb8b752 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
built on Sep 4 2014 16:23:51 with gcc 4.8.2 (GCC)
configuration: --enable-memalign-hack --arch=x86_64 --target-os=mingw32 --cross-prefix=x86_64-w64-mingw32- --enable-static --disable-shared --enable-zlib --disable-postproc --prefix=/home/peter/ffmpeg/build/gpl64 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --extra-libs='-lx264 -lpthread' --enable-runtime-cpudetect --extra-cflags=-I/home/peter/cc32/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/peter/cc64/lib --pkg-config=pkg-config --disable-w32threads --enable-libvpx --enable-libvorbis
libavutil 54. 7.100 / 54. 7.100
libavcodec 56. 1.100 / 56. 1.100
libavformat 56. 4.100 / 56. 4.100
libavdevice 56. 0.100 / 56. 0.100
libavfilter 5. 0.103 / 5. 0.103
libswscale 3. 0.100 / 3. 0.100
libswresample 1. 1.100 / 1. 1.100
[mp3 @ 000000000033ec60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, mp3, from 'C:\Users\Owner\Music\MP3 Lib\Classical\Movies Go to the Opera\12 Solar.mp3':
Metadata:
TLEN : 307933
publisher : EMI Music Distribution
genre : Soundtrack
album : Movies Go to the Opera
album_artist : Opera Symphonies
track : 12
title : Solax
composer : Giacomo Puccini
artist : Opera Symphonies
date : 1988
Duration: 00:05:07.72, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 256 kb/s
Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p, 256 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

<MEZZMO>: Child process ended with code: 109, ExitCode=1


---> DB Level Info: 0, -99
---> Frame rate:
---> Aspect ratio:
---> Duration: 00:05:07
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've also noticed that a search for "mp3" does not find the many, many files with the mp3 extension. Similarly a search for jpg does not find the many files with the jpg extension.

So, I'm not convinced that a search includes the filename and extension.

-- Larry

[Paul]

Hi Larry,

You are right - file path is not included in Quick Search.

[larrymcg]

Thanks for the correction about file path. I was testing it because of info provided in an earlier post:


Hi Larry,

Quick Search searches the following fields: Title, Artist, Album Artist, Keywords, Album, File path, Tag line, Description, Keywords.

When I did a quick search for "mp3" it turned up 3 files which did not have an "mp3" in the obvious places. But I discovered the Description field and each of these had an "mp3" in them. I have never used the Description field as far as I know. These 3 files happen to be sample music provided as part of Windows.

Hmmmm.... Now I'm curious about the Tag Line property. I'll go investigate!

Cheers,
Larry