Sure a future update will automatically tag them somehow, but in the meantime this worked out to be pretty easy way to sort them.
@Radu_Popescu,
If you do a little research / reading, you will see that Roon canât do anything about this without changes from Tidalâs end.
This isnât difficult to understate⌠Tidal does NOT share the Format information with Roon (yet)
And as a result, Roon does not KNOW the Format of an MQA / FLAC /AAC track from Tidal until it plays it
This is an issue that Tidal needs to fix⌠Not Roon⌠And that is why the complaint / feedback needs to be directed back to Tidal on this issue⌠To put pressure on them to SHARE the information with Roon
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Roon can get the contents of the Masters âtabâ in Tidal, so it can also associate it with other metadata.
It doesnât have to determine if something is a âMasterâ album by playing the file; the fact that it comes from the Masters âtabâ in Tidal is sufficient to tag it as such.
Itâs not ideal, and of course Tidal could improve it, but it beats customers having to do this by hand, week after week, does it not?
@rolski
Thank you for the link. The thing is, Roon already knows about the Masters, as Iâve said above. Have a peek in your log file and youâll see it gets them from https://metadata5.roonlabs.com/md/4/tidal/master/recommended/albums?uid=⌠so clearly the Masters are already an apart set.
All I would like, as Michael suggested, is a visual hint, and a way to filter, which I assume might come in the form of an automatically assigned tag.
@Ronnie
Something seems to be wrong with your Shift or Caps Lock mate. Also with your understanding or my âunderstatingâ 
Have you even bothered to read the links that have been postedâŚor are you going to continue to post your âguessesâ as to what you think may be easy or not
The Masters tab has only 443 MQA albums out of the approx 2,500 that are availableâŚso by that alone, your suggestion would fail
Likewise, a few of the albums listed in the Tidal Masters section are not MQAâŚwhich would again cause your suggestion to fail
As stated by Roon on several occasions and as linked aboveâŚTidalâs current API does NOT allow for easy identification of Masters / MQAâŚand your guesses / suggestions as to what may be âeasyâ are simply wrongâŚand more importantly, misleading to other readers
This is Tidalâs problem to fixâŚfor their own AppâŚas well as for their APIâŚto allow Roon and others to access the Format information
@Radu_Popescu
âŚwhat @Ronnie said⌠
Donât get us wrong - we all want the same thing 
- but, as has already been discussed (almost to death !) elsewhere - the Roon team canât really do anything effective or worthwhile at the moment, so unless Tidal either do something off their own back, or their customers pressure them, then the situation wonât improve.
Roland, Iâm afraid I donât appreciate either of Ronnieâs tone or his unfounded conclusions.
Fact: Roon shows Tidal masters. Not all of them? Sure. No dispute. But those that are shown could be tagged right? And new ones being added (by Tidal) would also receive the same treatment. I donât see what could be argued here further.
Onto the API: Iâve just done a little experimenting and will contact the Roon devs directly about it but hereâs what I found.
Iâve done this with Beyonceâs Lemonade album as it was the first one.
It exists in two versions from what I can tell, with IDs 59727856 and 59727869.
When retrieving the items for the album with ID 59727856, the JSON reply goes like this:
{âlimitâ:100,âoffsetâ:0,âtotalNumberOfItemsâ:12,âitemsâ:[{âitemâ:{âidâ:59727857,âtitleâ:âPRAY YOU CATCH MEâ,âdurationâ:196,âreplayGainâ:-4.73,âpeakâ:0.97174,âallowStreamingâ:true,âstreamReadyâ:true,âstreamStartDateâ:â2016-04-23T00:00:00.000+0000â,âpremiumStreamingOnlyâ:false,âtrackNumberâ:1,âvolumeNumberâ:1,âversionâ:null,âpopularityâ:96,âcopyrightâ:â(C) Parkwood Entertainmentâ,âurlâ:âhttp://www.tidal.com/track/59727857",âisrcâ:âUSSM11603175â,âeditableâ:false,âexplicitâ:false,âaudioQualityâ:"**HI_RES**â, [âŚ]
Note the last part says the audioQuality is HI_RES.
For the album with ID 59727869 it replies with this:
{âlimitâ:100,âoffsetâ:0,âtotalNumberOfItemsâ:12,âitemsâ:[{âitemâ:{âidâ:59727870,âtitleâ:âPRAY YOU CATCH MEâ,âdurationâ:196,âreplayGainâ:-4.73,âpeakâ:0.971771,âallowStreamingâ:true,âstreamReadyâ:true,âstreamStartDateâ:â2016-04-23T00:00:00.000+0000â,âpremiumStreamingOnlyâ:false,âtrackNumberâ:1,âvolumeNumberâ:1,âversionâ:null,âpopularityâ:82,âcopyrightâ:â(C) Parkwood Entertainmentâ,âurlâ:âhttp://www.tidal.com/track/59727870",âisrcâ:âUSSM11603175â,âeditableâ:false,âexplicitâ:false,âaudioQualityâ:"**LOSSLESS**â,
audioQuality here is LOSSLESS, and as above, it goes on in similar fashion for all the remaining 11 tracks.
These requests have been captured via my browser, and they were both made upon entering the respective albumâs page, as I selected it from the results of the search in Tidal. Of course, these requests were also made before playing anything.
Now Iâm not 100% sure of this because I donât know what lossless and hi-res mean respectively, but unless Tidal means by either of these âcompressed, lossy streamâ then it appears these are the MQA FLAC and the plain FLAC respectively.
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So any file tagged with HI_RES or LOSSLESS (streamed from Tidal in this particular case) should be reported by Roon as MQA ?
What happens if Tidal releases (or has already released) some HI_RES / LOSSLESS files that arenât MQA ?
(What happens to my local HI_RES / LOSSLESS files ?) Etc.
There are undoubtedly several other usage-case clashes, and as @brian @danny have stated before, better to implement a quality solution once, rather than an edge-case solution that has to be constantly revisited & potentially causes problems to other non-Tidal non-MQA users.
But, by all means, take it up with them though - good luck !
Perhaps not the case here as I canât speak for Ronnie, but I would guess that his occasional frustration - which I very often share - comes from people not bothering to do any significant reading and research - which also includes trying to really understand the topic - before posting, and thinking theyâre entitled to personal attention.
As a sweeping generalisation which is not aimed at anyone in particular, but as this is a largely User-driven forum, where people give their help & advice & time freely, sometimes trying to help people (repeatedly) can lead to a degree of desk-butting that leads to significant bruising !
Again, back on-topic, I think itâs clear that our (Users and Roon devâs) dissatisfaction lays at the door of Tidal, so itâs them who need to get their house in order - just the onceâŚ
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OK, let me try once more. You clearly are too busy telling me how I donât understand nor do I research, in place of reading what I wrote.
Did I say Roon should report it as MQA? No I didnât. I said, look, Tidal does this and that, and itâs quite unlikely that either of those streams is the lossy one, so surely one of them is plain FLAC while the other is MQA FLAC, at least at this point in time. I can only hope Tidal themselves can explain to their partners what these tags mean, and they arenât mad enough to reuse the meaning later.
What happens to your âlocal HI_RES / LOSSLESSâ files? Absolutely nothing. I donât even understand how you could ask that question, it obviously doesnât make sense, as this information comes as an HTTP reply from Tidal when querying the items in an album on Tidal. What would have have to do with your local files? How can you even ask that with a straight face?
As a software developer, I wholeheartedly agree that one solid solution is better than shoddy patches. All for it. This was the result of 10 minutes of my time to investigate what Tidal actually sends, in response to someoneâs claims that Tidal doesnât quite differentiate.
The part I find difficult to unserstand is that you act like youâre the only one who has thought to look at the Roon logsâŚas well as using other tools to investigate the Tidal streams and the information contained within them
Would it not be logical to assume that the people who built the product you use [Roon] would have carried out the same [and indeed far more detailed analysis] and have arrived at the conclusion that there is insufficient data to mark ALL the MQA Albums available within Tidalâs catalog of about 700,000 albums
The Roon guys have taken the time to post here that what we are requesting is not easyâŚif it was âeasyâ then they would have spent their time coding it, rather than posting hereâŚand the feature would already be available
I would never assume or proclaim to know more about someone elseâs product than the people who work with it 100 hours a week [probably understating it]âŚand then proclaim something to be âeasyâ when the people who truly âknowâ have already said that it isnât easyâŚwithout more information forthcoming from Tidal
And would it not be polite to treat someone whoâs going to the effort with a little respect?
Seriously, your tone is just way off. Iâm used to audiophilia turning people nuts, but is there a need to be so rude too?
Now back to enjoying my Japanese military anthems and MQA.
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I have read the topic where Brian explains their findings.
Please note that Iâm talking about something slightly different, which is to find a way to determine whether an album is a Tidal Master. Now itâs quite clear that Tidal has different IDs for the albums and further more it tags the audioQuality differently between the versions. Youâre essentially telling me that this means nothing, and seem quite certain of it.
Iâm simply asking whether that is indeed the case, as it seem unlikely.
@Bill_Lise was that addressed to me? I apologise if my tone seems off or I have failed to be polite. One tries, but not always manages.
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Not aimed at you in the least. My apologies for the lack of clarity.
[quote=âRadu_Popescu, post:29, topic:22228, full:trueâ]âŚYou clearly are too busy telling me how I donât understand nor do I research, in place of reading what I wrote.[/quote]You seem quite sure of yourself ?
[quote]âŚTidal does this and that, and itâs quite unlikely that either of those streams is the lossy one, so surely one of them is plain FLAC while the other is MQA FLAC, at least at this point in time.[/quote]Quite unlikely ? Surely ? At least at this point in time ? Not so sure now it seemsâŚ
Arenât there cases where a couple of files identified as Master by Tidal (perhaps by the tags youâre referring to, or perhaps not) actually arenât MQA ?
[quote]I can only hope Tidal themselves can explain to their partners what these tags mean, and they arenât mad enough to reuse the meaning later.[/quote]Again, positing, speculating. I think as a software developer, youâve probably seen madder things - but thatâs only a guess on my part !
[quote]What happens to your âlocal HI_RES / LOSSLESSâ files? Absolutely nothing. I donât even understand how you could ask that question, it obviously doesnât make sense, as this information comes as an HTTP reply from Tidal when querying the items in an album on Tidal. What would have have to do with your local files? How can you even ask that with a straight face?[/quote]Firstly, note that that particular comment was in brackets - or are you too busy telling me how I donât understandâŚohâŚwaitâŚ
Do you know how the queries / codingâs written in Roon ? Perhaps their queries are one-time & complex, rather than spread through the code. I think I linked to a reply from Brian where he said it was difficultâŚfor reasons that neither I nor you know.
[quote]As a software developer, I wholeheartedly agree that one solid solution is better than shoddy patches. All for it. This was the result of 10 minutes of my time to investigate what Tidal actually sends, in response to someoneâs claims that Tidal doesnât quite differentiate.[/quote]But youâre suggesting that Roon code & roll-out a patch to cope with todayâs situation, knowing that - if Tidal fix this mess - Roon will have to apply another patch later ?
I think I may have mentioned, canât remember where, that weâre all wanting the same thing - a robust fix to this problem. Probably once, rather than often.
Anyway, I think thatâs what we all want, so I hope thatâs what weâll get, somehow, somewhen.
Genuinely - good luck on trying to convince the Roon devâs to introduce a patch - all I have to do is sit back & wait for an update or ten - looking forward to it already !
Are italics a hipster version of ALLCAPS?
This level of hostility makes Japanese military anthems sounds like AKB48.
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Yes Roland that is what the Roon guys have said and on several occasions nowâŚbut I feel sure that weâll see a new solution within 15 minutes of these new ârevelationsâ being communicated to Roon 
@Bill_Lise
Eh ?
Italics are a form of emphasis, or a method of adding âtoneâ to text-based communication. Google it.
Hostility ?! It seems that most are being unfailingly polite and patient, however, your opinion may be different. Everyoneâs entitled to theirs, just not their own facts.
Right, time to get off this computer & enjoy the music (as the weatherâs too sh*tty to go out in) !
Happy Sunday everyone !
Roland,
It might be just me, but yes, LOSSLESS is âquite unlikelyâ to be used to refer to a lossy compressed format.
I might also venture as far as to say that HI_RES is just about as unlikely to be used to deceive the API user.
Is my folly already showing through?
As to your other comments⌠I donât know how the queries are written in Roon, and yes, you have linked it, and for the 3rd time, I have carefully read what heâs saying there. You might want to read it again yourself, and note heâs open to ideas and help - he specifically asks us to let them know if we see a Masters filter appearing within a genre, as it would indicate an API change on Tidalâs side.
Iâm afraid that despite being polite enough for me, Roland, you come across as dead set on telling me off. That might not be your intention though. Iâm just trying here.
I wonât even bother to dignify Ronnieâs latest reply.
Thank you @Bill_Lise for taking the trouble of being supportive.
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Also unless Iâm missing something it seems like thereâs no way to search only the Masters list? Searches appear to be global even when youâre in the Masters section. So youâre forced to scroll from screen to screen to find a title, not ideal.
There are a few dimensions involved in determining that something âis MQAâ:
- Whether an MQA version is available at all
- Your locationânot all tracks play in same quality in all places
- Your account type
- Whether itâs streamable as MQA today, since streaming rights change day to day.
Weâre not going to tag files based on less than all of the information. Then all weâd be providing is a âcould be MQAâ indicator that was sometimes wrong in both directions.
I donât see a way to tag files as MQA precisely without having a way to go from the rights data we have access to, to a decision-making procedure that would determine whether, in a given region, for a given user account, on a given day, this track is going to play as MQA or not.
We have a mechanism for figuring out which content we are allowed to display and which content we are allowed to offer for playbackâbut we donât have a mechanism for determining quality prior to the moment of playback. This is the thing TIDAL would need to improve.
We are not very interested in a partial/imprecise solution to this. Itâs not a good product for us to be buildingâit will create confusion and support load, as people will be pointing to all of the situations where the imprecise solution gets it wrong (false positives and false negatives) and expecting us to take responsibility for fixing it.
Weâre happy to do this right with TIDALâs cooperation, but doing something desperate to get it sort of right some of the time doesnât seem like a good path forward.
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