Media Center Album Art Not Right Art for Album

[dealsdyker]

I have Sage 6.19. I added all my MP3s to my HTPC and told Sage where to find them. When I go into Media Center/ Music 80%+ OF THE 265 Albums represented have the same wrong album cover.

Also the artists/albums didn't really group how they should have. Is this based on the name of the MP3?

What am I missing and how can I fix it? TIA

[Opus4]

Album art is covered in the PDF manual, starting on p. 83 for v6.0.

You can browse the music by folders, but the other browser views use the tags in the MP3 files to mark the album, artist, genre, year, and so on. SageTV reads the tags when the music is first imported, so if you change the tags, you should remove that music import dir, refresh the lib, the add the import dir & refresh again.

- Andy

[dealsdyker]

Hi Andy, so what you are saying is that the properties of the MP3 itself have the wrong album name?

[Opus4]

I don't know if the tags are wrong. For some songs that are listed incorrectly, check the ID3 tags on the MP3.

SageTV uses the Album Artist tag to group albums together so it can tell them apart when the album titles are the same. Example: "Greatest Hits" albums by two different artists should have their songs use the Album Artist tag. If that tag is missing, you may end up with a single "Greatest Hits" album with songs from both artists listed.

- Andy

[nielm]

bear in mind that very few ID3 taggers know about the 'Album Artist' field...

2 that I have been working with are:
Tag&Rename (payware, very good, supports batch tagging)
Mp3Tag (freeware, less fully featured, need to add the 'BAND' tag to the 'tag panel' to be edit the Album Artist field)
Windows media player can also edit tags, but only one file at a time. It can also fix tags by getting album/artist info/album art from somewhere online...

I am also working on a program which can automatically set the Album Artist tag to a batch of files.

[Opus4]

I didn't notice that issue for a long time because I ripped my CDs using Windows Media Player & it must have automatically filled in the Album Artist field. Right click on a song or a multiple song selection -> Advanced Tag Editor -> Artist Info tab -> Album Artist. Of course, that info probably doesn't do anything if you want to retag lots of files with the Album Artist field...

- Andy

[nielm]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I didn't notice that issue for a long time because I ripped my CDs using Windows Media Player & it must have automatically filled in the Album Artist field. Right click -> Advanced Tag Editor -> Artist Info tab -> Album Artist.

yes, WMP does tag AlbumArtist on MP3's, and can be used to edit tags on individual (edited above post)

OT:
I started use EAC and CDEX as rippers because WMP could not rip to MP3 (WMP only included MP3 ripping support in v10, and then only at certain CBR bitrates -- I preferred LAME's VBR).

Also, i prefer to know how well my rip has done: both EAC and CDEX list the ripping errors so that you can check to see if your ripped file is OK or not -- they also try very hard to get some good quality out of scratched CD's: often a CD that is so damaged it does not play back on a normal CD player can be ripped with no *noticable* audio defects with CDEX...


Back on topic: perhaps your problem is that the albums are not in their own directory?

[willemse]

I use Cedex as well for ripping and use The Godfather (both freeware) for tagging. The Godfather needs initially some time to learn how to use but once you are in it is very handy. It does also Album artist.

[nielm]

I have just found a neat little tool ArtFixer that works in conjunction with WMP's media library to find 'problematic' files:

1. Files missing Album Artist
2. Files missing Album Art
3. album tracks are not in the same folder

When it finds these problems, it prompts you to fix them by:

1. Auto-Setting Album Artist
2. Find Album Art (semi-automatically using Google Image search)
3. Move album tracks into the same folder (artist/Album/Trackname.mp3)

And, it's donationware!
This may help you sort out your music lib.

Note, once retagged, you may need to remove your music import dir from sage's config, refresh, wait for the music lib to be emptied, then re-add the music import dir. The reason for this is that Sage does not re-read music tags for files it already knows about. (this will be fixed in a future v6.1 beta)

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by nielm

I started use EAC and CDEX as rippers .... I preferred LAME's VBR).

I wouldn't mind checking these out... am I right from a quick glance at their sites that you would need to install lame separately to get mp3 capability?

Originally Posted by nielm

I have just found a neat little tool ArtFixer

That's an intersting one to try out too...

- Andy

[perf]

I have found that MediaMonkey is a very good all-round solution for ripping/tagging/music file management.

/Per

[sleonard]

[QUOTE=nielm]...
Windows media player can also edit tags, but only one file at a time.
...
QUOTE]

I use WMP 10 to edit all my tags and it most certainly can update multiple files at the same time. Either ctrl-Select or shift-select the files you want to change, right-click in the appropriate tag column on one of them and choose Edit. Whatever you type will be applied to all the selected files.

Scott

[nielm]

Originally Posted by sleonard

I use WMP 10 to edit all my tags and it most certainly can update multiple files at the same time. Either ctrl-Select or shift-select the files you want to change, right-click in the appropriate tag column on one of them and choose Edit. Whatever you type will be applied to all the selected files.

Nice trick! I only knew about the 'Advanced Tag Editor' (but I hardly ever use WMP for music management... I was not impressed with V9 and earlier versions)

Opus: CDEX includes LAME
EAC (which hasn't been updated for ages (and BSOD's my USB DVD drive) needs a separate install of Lame (I used RazorLame with preset-standard VBR encoding).

Both can use other encoders (CDEX includes several)

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by nielm

Nice trick! I only knew about the 'Advanced Tag Editor' (but I hardly ever use WMP for music management... I was not impressed with V9 and earlier versions)

And, I updated my post earlier to mention that you can use the Advanced Tag Editor on multiple songs at once also.

Oh, and I ran ArtFixer on a few albums & managed to quickly add album art for a few that were missing it. So far, not many other tag issues, though.

Opus: CDEX includes LAME
EAC (which hasn't been updated for ages (and BSOD's my USB DVD drive) needs a separate install of Lame (I used RazorLame with preset-standard VBR encoding).

Thanks -- I downloaded CDEX earlier, so now I just need time to try it out... and a new CD.

- Andy

[dflachbart]

Originally Posted by nielm

OT:
I started use EAC and CDEX as rippers because WMP could not rip to MP3 (WMP only included MP3 ripping support in v10, and then only at certain CBR bitrates -- I preferred LAME's VBR).

Hi Niel,

I also use EAC to rip my CDs to FLAC files, and since it seems to me that both CDEX and EAC do the same thing, what is the reason for you to use both (unless I misunderstood) ?

Dirk

[nielm]

EAC does not work at all on my living room Sage server (I have a USB DVD drive that EAC does not like, and EAC BSOD's my system!) so I use CDEX for the majority of my ripping...

However, on my office system, I use EAC in secure mode -- it seems to be better at extracting reasonable data from badly damaged CD's, and the built in player to allow you to hear + edit the damaged sections is useful...