Roku Media Player Blues

[Judge]

Don't get me wrong, it works great. However it's taken me a very long time to understand what it takes for it to produce information pertinent to audio tracks and album cover thumbnails that correspond to the correct song or album in question.

In essence, for all those tracks to show exactly what you want to see, you have to be 100% accurate in properly spelling out the name of an artist, the exact album pertinent to a particular track, and the track itself. Otherwise it won't visually show an album thumbnail, but instead just a musical note icon.

With major music artists it just required to search for each track and the artist to match the proper album. But where it gets weird is when you're dealing with artists using the Internet without a formal music publisher. When you can find the artist, even an album graphic, but that Roku's Media Player database simply doesn't recognize it. Something I found in trying to connect a Celtic music artist to a specific piece of work.

Another problem that left me with the Media Player showing only those red musical note icon instead of an album thumbnail are music collections of classical music which are about major composers (Mozart,Beethoven, Bach...etc.) but may not be clear on the symphony or musicians involved. Which apparently "confuses" Roku's database and can't match them to a particular album, even if it existed as a vinyl record.

Though from Roku's perspective, they may simply lament, "Who cares?" I guess for most folks they will just deal with those red musical note icons and call it a day...lol. The short answer? It sucks to have OCD and actually be obsessed over the appearance and consistency of such things.

At least I managed to eventually find all the right database info required to make those album thumbnails show up. Except for my Celtic and Classical music categories which I chose to deliberately alter to make all of the show the red musical note icon just to be consistent. Oh well...

 

[Outdated]

Have a play with Grip, it's in your standard repository.

It's primarily a CD ripper but can also be used to convert other formats to MP3 and it allows you to edit the exif information in MP3s. It will attempt to get album information from IMDB but if it can't find any it will ask you to fill in the information by hand. Sometimes it will find several similar entries in IMDB and present all of them to you and ask which is correct.

 

[Aspychata]

This is a great post. I need learn more about Roku.

 

[Judge]

Have a play with Grip, it's in your standard repository.

It's primarily a CD ripper but can also be used to convert other formats to MP3 and it allows you to edit the exif information in MP3s. It will attempt to get album information from IMDB but if it can't find any it will ask you to fill in the information by hand. Sometimes it will find several similar entries in IMDB and present all of them to you and ask which is correct.

Interesting, though in my experience I found the Roku Media Player's database not necessarily uniformly correlating to any one particular source like IMDB. That I had multiple titles where I had to hunt, peck and most of all hold my breath to see if Roku would acknowledge what I input on a file's metatag.

I also have encountered similar issues with Mazda's"Gracenote" system, which interfaces with whatever is on my USB drive plugged into my Bose car audio system. It's real picky as well.

But it's all academic now, given I've pretty much got my entire music collection accounted for in such a way, except for classical and Celtic titles. And of course I've archived it all on multiple flash drives so I never lose it. I'm just glad that this project has come to an end. Something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

 

[Judge]

This is a great post. I need learn more about Roku.

I love it...but then sometimes my OCD gets the best of me in trying to perfect things. But I love the idea that their MP3 media player connects directly into my TV (HDMI) , and that I can output it from there (Optical/Toslink) to both my 37-year old 2-channel stereo receiver, and my 15-year old 5.1 home theater system.

(I bought a nifty adapter I got from Amazon that converts Toslink digital to RCA analog jacks for my older receiver.)

The beauty of it all is the convenience. Being able to make a few clicks with a remote and voila! You have access to an entire music collection showing on your tv screen. Much faster than I can fetch an optical disk and put into my DVD/CD player.

(With the Roku Ultra or Roku Ultra Lite it not only has an Ethernet port, but also a USB port for all my MP3 files on a flash drive. Other Roku devices won't have USB or Ethernet ports because the device itself is USB.)

Plus the Roku remote has it's own 3.5mm headphone jack. Though I prefer to use the one on my 2-channel receiver as it doesn't eat up batteries, plus I can make critical use of the receiver's built-in graphic equalizer.

Another really cool thing about Roku is that can interface with my cable company, so I don't even need to turn on my old cable box any more. I just go through Roku to get to my cable tv lineup. In some cases some cable systems even offer streaming services, but with commercials at no additional charge. Works for me.

Seems to be a very real trend that cable tv systems who want to survive must migrate towards streaming media. Where I find way better programming in general.

 

[Aspychata]

Thank you for that breakdown, that's what l need to understand the nuts and bolts.

 

[Judge]

Thank you for that breakdown, that's what l need to understand the nuts and bolts.

I'll take a picture of my tv screen so you can see what I'm talking about.

All precise text definitions required about a track or album for the album thumbnail to show. Also anything misspelled in the metadata can keep the albums from showing up. Sounds simple enough, but it just hasn't worked out that way.

Insufficient meta tags for each track/album so only a red musical note shows:

Here's an example of the metadata you need to input (depending on what program you use). And how picky the Roku Media Player can be that either produces an album thumbnail- or not:

LOL....yeah, I'm that picky. But once you get it all set up it's quite convenient to use through a remote control in your hand.

 

[Crabcore]

My option isn't ideal, but after having ABCDE pretty much drop the ball repeatedly when trying to aggregate rips, I've settled for "Track 01.wav", "Track 02", etc. It sort of reminds me of just sticking a CD into the player and not really worrying about it like in the olden days, but I don't really recommend this. I'm just that lazy when I want to hear some obscure jams I've only got on physical media

 

[Judge]

My option isn't ideal, but after having ABCDE pretty much drop the ball repeatedly when trying to aggregate rips, I've settled for "Track 01.wav", "Track 02", etc. It sort of reminds me of just sticking a CD into the player and not really worrying about it like in the olden days, but I don't really recommend this. I'm just that lazy when I want to hear some obscure jams I've only got on physical media

I know what you mean. Initially that's how I started out, not giving it much thought. Keeping it simple. But eventually I realized how sophisticated it all can be visually, and I couldn't help myself.

Much like customizing my OS interface. But this turned out to be far more frustrating given different programs don't necessarily parse metadata exactly the same way. And a few sources of music don't involve mainstream publishers which probably drive Roku's database and make it so damn picky.

I also had to make a decision between players, as I also had the option of using my Samsung TV's media player which is visually quite different. Decisions, decisions....lol.

Sometimes I think most of my posts about my doings are really just my way of demonstrating how my OCD can and does effect me. Unlike my autism, my OCD follows me wherever I go.

 

[Aspychata]

I have ripped tracks just using Track 01, Track 02, the lazy way.

 

[Judge]

I should probably reiterate that the problems of getting such "music menus" to properly display is not likely going to be a problem if you enjoy and archive mainstream music of genres like pop and rock music. When the information of what artist (properly spelled), what song (properly named) and what album they pertain to is likely to be well-known where all sources of information point to objective facts.

Yet with other more obscure kinds of music, such considerations may not be so clear or if they exist at all. Particularly artists who simply upload their own work online, without any legal support of a publisher. When specific song tracks or album names aren't so apparent, such as in the case of Celtic music found online. Or generic classical music like "The Best of" such and such composer even if a specific publisher's name is involved.

That Roku (and others) may have a simple database based on the premise of "garbage in, garbage out". That for their database to properly parse your input, it must absolutely match what the database exclusively recognizes.

And when it fails, your music menu is provided with a red musical note icon, rather than a thumbnail of an album. Worse still when databases like "Gracenote" do something similar for my car audio system, like indicate an artist or album as being "unknown". Even more frustrating.

 

[Raggamuffin]

I rip CD's into WAV format via Windows Media Player on Windows 11.

I then import it to Music Bee, which is my preferred media player. It takes a long time to sort, edit and categorise music though.

Backlog of unheard songs is still over 10,000.

Ed

 

[Judge]

I have ripped tracks just using Track 01, Track 02, the lazy way.

I suspect most people do, whether they are aware of all the metadata one can attach to each MP3 file. Even when it goes well, it's still a lot of work. I have a relative small music collection, but imagine having to type individual metadata for some 2200 pieces of music.

Though I've been able to cull some of that work by adding multiple tracks to a single MP3 file using Audacity. Then completing the metadata in Audacious, my Linux media player. Done particularly for my car audio MP3 player, so I don't have to fumble around looking at so many individual titles while driving.

LOL....and I haven't even gotten around to mentioning how I make paper titles for all my skinny CD jewel cases. Stupid time consuming OCD-related chores....