Meta Tags

Meta Tags

In order for the USDB Syncer to automatically create usable song folders, more information than what is usually available on USDB is required. To this purpose it introduces the concept of meta tags. Txt files on USDB can include these tags to specify which online resources, like sound and image files, are needed and how they should be processed to make a complete song folder. Meta tags can also encode other information that would normally be stripped when uploading to USDB.

Creation

Under Tools > Create Meta Tags there is a dialog to help with the writing of meta tags. It will guide you through all possible tag values as well as handle URL escaping.

Format

Meta tags are stored inside the #VIDEO tag of a txt file and are a comma-separated list of key=value pairs. If the value part has multiple components, they are separated by -. The table below contains the currently recognized tags and their allowed values.

Tag	Key	Allowed Values	Examples
Audio resource	a	11-char YouTube ID (preferred), 9-digit Vimeo ID, or URL (use audio from this source)	a=1k8craCGpgs
Audio/Video resource	v	11-char YouTube ID (preferred), 9-digit Vimeo ID, or URL (if a is not present, use audio+video from this source, otherwise use video from this source)	v=yCC_b5WHLX0, v=163118371
Cover resource	co	fanart.tv id (preferred) or full URL (Apple Music via decoupled.app -> 5000 URL preferred)	co=dont-stop-believin-60c8e39272ab9.jpg
Cover rotation	co-rotate	Decimal number (angle in degrees, counterclockwise)	co-rotate=-0.3
Cover cropping	co-crop	Integers (Pixels): left-top-width-height	co-crop=0-200-1000-1000 (e.g. crop 200 px from the top and 800 px from the bottom of a 1000 x 2000 px image)
Cover resizing	co-resize	Integers (Pixels): width-height (one number is sufficient for square dimensions)	co-resize=1920
Cover contrast	co-contrast	auto or a decimal number (> 1 for increase)	co-contrast=1.2
Background resource	bg	fanart.tv id (preferred) or full URL	bg=journey-510f62efe4879.jpg
Background cropping	bg-crop	Integers (Pixels): left-top-width-height	bg-crop=10-10-1920-1080
Background resizing	bg-resize	Integers (Pixels): width-height	bg-resize=1920-1080
Preview start	preview	Decimal number (seconds)	preview=12.3
Medley	medley	Integers (beats): start-end	medley=1512-2789
Tags	tags	List of tags, separated by %2C(comma replacement)	tags=explicit%2Cduet
Name of 1. singer (duets)	p1	Name or e.g. P1	p1=Elton John
Name of 2. singer (duets)	p2	Name or e.g. P2	p2=Kiki Dee

There are some conventions regarding the meta tags:

1. Links to videos from YouTube or Vimeo and images from https://fanart.tv only require an id. E.g. if the video URL is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ, v=dQw4w9WgXcQ is sufficient (and recommended) as a tag.
2. As the comma character (,) is used to separate meta tags, it must be escaped with %2C if it occurs in URLs.

Examples

Almost all songs on USDB already have meta tags. You can look at these for example, to see how they work in practice (requires login).