Album Cover Art

[darrenkarp]

Hi All,

Unlike MCE 2005 which automatically grabs my album art for my music collection it appears STV 5.0 doesn't. Does anyone know of a plug in which can do this or another simple alternative.

Cheers
Darren

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

Hi All,

Unlike MCE 2005 which automatically grabs my album art for my music collection it appears STV 5.0 doesn't. Does anyone know of a plug in which can do this or another simple alternative.

Cheers
Darren

I use this utility. Not a plug in, but it's easy and does the job ...

Dirk

[darrenkarp]

Why on earth doesn't STV do this automatically like MCE does?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

Unlike MCE 2005 which automatically grabs my album art for my music collection it appears STV 5.0 doesn't.

How is your art associated with your music files?

There is some info starting on p. 77 of the v5 PDF manual that tells the 3 ways SageTV finds album art.

- Andy

[darrenkarp]

Not sure I understand your question on how my art is associated with my music. MCE 2005 simply does it.

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by Opus4

How is your art associated with your music files?

There is some info starting on p. 77 of the v5 PDF manual that tells the 3 ways SageTV finds album art.

- Andy

I think he is actually referring to the fact that MCE also automatically finds and downloads the album art. Although Sage can automatically associate it, you still have to download it yourself ...

Dirk

[darrenkarp]

Hi All,

Tried the Album Cover Art program and it seems very buggy for me, giving me access denied errors when trying to save the cover art its found.

As I understand it (and please tell me if I'm wrong) STV requires a seperate folder for each album and a folder.jpg (.png, etc.) in order to display the album art. What happens, if like me, you have 900 MP3's, a great percentage of which are simply singles? Also, my MP3 folder is simply that, no further sub folders as MCE 2005 doesn't need to have seperate folders for each album, it simply knows it forms part of an album I'm assuming from its MP3 tag.

Is there any way round this?

Darren

[Polypro]

There's a couple ways around this:

1. Have WMP do as much for you as it can. You can set up WMP to organize music into folders with art. Then just delete the extra .jpg's.

2. "The Godfather" is a great tagger and organizer too.

3. You can put art right in the tag, you don't need folders.

P

[darrenkarp]

Originally Posted by Polypro

There's a couple ways around this:

1. Have WMP do as much for you as it can. You can set up WMP to organize music into folders with art. Then just delete the extra .jpg's.

2. "The Godfather" is a great tagger and organizer too.

3. You can put art right in the tag, you don't need folders.

P

Now that sounds a lot easier. Can you offer me any step-by-step guides?

Darren

[lovingHDTV]

I use "The Godfather" to imbed the pictures in my MP3 tags. Sage works well with these.

google "godfather mp3"

[Polypro]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

Now that sounds a lot easier. Can you offer me any step-by-step guides?

Darren

How about general guidelines

Go into WMP10 and set your current "mega-mp3" folder as WMP's RIP folder. Set the naming option to "Artist - Album - Song". Then Set that folder as a monitored folder also. Go into WMP's online options and set either Add info for all files, or new files and those without info. There's also an option in there somewhere to organize according to rip music settings...you want that. Try a small test sample first to make sure you have the settings right, delete the WMP library *NOT FROM COMPUTER* ... and then "Search For Media". It should read the tag's and then organize. Then use XP's Search, and search for *.jpg in your main music folder...delete the extra folder.jpg's, leaving only one in each folder.

*NOW*....

If your music is poorly tagged, WMP will have to guess, and sometimes it doesn't do too well. If that's the case, "The Godfather" can be used on the rest, to properly tag the remaining files. It's pretty powerful and can use the freedb. It also has a good folder organization algorhythm...read the help file. Another awesome tool is MP3Tag 2.36a http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ I use this for tagging .wma files I make out of .wav files that have zero info in the tag.

Bottom line is you can automate a lot of this, but you'll still have to dig in a little bit. Every album needs to have a unique name...if you have a bunch of "Greatest Hits" albums, they'll show up under "Various"...so you need to make them unique, like "*Van Halen* Greatest Hits", etc...

P

[bobrap]

I use this for for my album art download. I find it very easy to use...that's because I'm kinda old and senile . http://team.thenexusnet.com/nexus/AAA/#download

[darrenkarp]

This seems excellent, thank you.

Is it okay to leave it set to cover.jpg ? or does STV need it named a specific way?

[Polypro]

Not sure, but mine are folder.jpg

WMP will download 5 .jpg's per album..2 @ 75x75 pixels, and 2 @ 200x200, plus a folder.jpg


P

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by darrenkarp

Is it okay to leave it set to cover.jpg ? or does STV need it named a specific way?

Did you check the reference that I gave you above:

Originally Posted by Opus4

There is some info starting on p. 77 of the v5 PDF manual that tells the 3 ways SageTV finds album art.

- Andy

[darrenkarp]

Originally Posted by Polypro

Not sure, but mine are folder.jpg

WMP will download 5 .jpg's per album..2 @ 75x75 pixels, and 2 @ 200x200, plus a folder.jpg


P

What's weird is that WMP will sort the MP3's into folders for me but I cannot see ANY .jpg files whatsoever. Even when I do a search for them.

Any ideas?

[bobrap]

The files have a hidden attribute maybe?

[darrenkarp]

Originally Posted by bobrap

The files have a hidden attribute maybe?

Yup,

They were hidden!

Although WMP has handled about 50% of my MP3's there are loads which it hasn't organised into their own folder. They all do have tags (probably not correct though). Do I need to manually alter these tags?

Cheers
Darren

[Polypro]

Yes. See programs listed above.

P