Topic: [REQ] Please make automatic cover art download optional... (Read 7143 times)

kstuart · « **on:** July 13, 2016, 04:45:31 pm »

Quote from: Matt on July 13, 2016, 10:51:20 am

8. NEW: When playing a file that has no cover art, the cover art will be automatically downloaded from the internet.

In the previous thread, Mr. James also asked for this.

If you do not want to add a new option, then you can simply make it obey existing settings.

For example, it could not download the cover art, if the following options is NOT checked:

Options->General->Online Metadata->Allow automatic CD lookup/submission

When I am playing audio files, I do not have a "monitor" (TV screen) turned on, so the cover art is pointless for me. And it is shown by repeated Double-Blind studies that computer processes during playback decrease sound quality, hence I do not want anything occurring at the same time.

Thanks !

~OHM~ · « **Reply #1 on:** July 13, 2016, 09:44:32 pm »

daveg · « **Reply #2 on:** July 14, 2016, 04:27:51 am »

+1

I have no need for cover art

lepa · « **Reply #3 on:** July 14, 2016, 05:36:55 am »

I just spent couple of hours removing/replacing wrong cover art. So please, could you make this an option. Now all the wrong cover art will just reappear for separate songs which have no album data

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** July 14, 2016, 06:29:34 am »

Please explain why it is a problem for you.

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** July 14, 2016, 06:57:07 am »

Quote from: lepa on July 14, 2016, 05:36:55 am

I just spent couple of hours removing/replacing wrong cover art. So please, could you make this an option. Now all the wrong cover art will just reappear for separate songs which have no album data

It shouldn't affect any audio for which you already have cover art. It only gets art when there is none available locally.

audioriver · « **Reply #6 on:** July 14, 2016, 07:13:34 am »

+1 for optional. Haven't used it yet but I suspect it's impossible for an automatic operation to always get correct art files. If a user's library has missing art, the user knows it and will take care of it at some later point. If an automatic operation adds unwanted or wrong art, things will soon get out of control.

I see how this feature can be useful for small libraries or new users but for large, existing libraries and users who like to customize their library it's likely to cause unnecessary problems.

mwillems · « **Reply #7 on:** July 14, 2016, 07:59:39 am »

Quote from: JimH on July 14, 2016, 06:29:34 am

Please explain why it is a problem for you.

I haven't been able to test the feature yet, but I can offer some places where it might be unwelcome for me.

I have a significant number of albums that were recorded by local bands, they never broke out and got famous, but they put out a few CDs. There is no "correct" cover art available for many of those albums online, and I've been too lazy to scan the CD sleeves, so I've left the art blank on the albums. In the past when I tried to look up cover art for those albums, the internet does find cover art, but it finds the wrong cover art! Either another band had a similarly named album, or someone has posted the cover art for the wrong album by that artist under the wrong album name. So a search to, say, google or freedb, will return cover art, but it's wrong. In those cases I'd rather have no cover art than wrong cover art, so I'd also like a way to deal with that case.

There are a few different solutions:

1) One way to deal with it would be an option to disable like folks are asking for above;
2) Another, maybe more useful, way to address it would be to prompt users and allow them to accept or reject the art (maybe with a check box "don't ask me again for these files")
3) A workaround for folks in the meanwhile is to make "dummy" empty cover art and put it in your empty files. That would stop the lookup. With a smartlist that would take ten minutes.

Hendrik · « **Reply #8 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:02:57 am »

We have options for all sorts of automatic art retrieval, I don't see why this one should not also have one, or get tied into one of the existing ones. I'm sure Matt will get on this.

I can fully understand when people only want to see their own carefully curated artwork instead of random art from the internet, even if that means having a blank for some titles.

lepa · « **Reply #9 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:03:36 am »

Quote from: JimH on July 14, 2016, 06:57:07 am

It shouldn't affect any audio for which you already have cover art. It only gets art when there is none available locally.

I don't want any ALBUM art for single songs which don't have album field filled, most of the times MC just imports some "random" art because it doesn't have album data as a search criteria.

Also especially for compilations wrong art seems to be happen quite often. Found this out when build a new machine and paths were changed at first and MC was too quick to start looking the art from web until I realised that the art folder path was different. Then I think that I make a mistake to change the path from MC which caused MC to copy all those wrong cover arts to my old art folder replacing all the correct art...
I guess I should have copied the my real art folder first to the MC's default cover art folder in order to replace all bad pictures. Fortunately I had almost current backup of the album art folder.

Matt · « **Reply #10 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:15:58 am »

Quote from: Hendrik on July 14, 2016, 08:02:57 am

I'm sure Matt will get on this.

Alright, I give!

Matt · « **Reply #11 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:21:06 am »

Coming next build:
Changed: Added the option "Lookup cover art for files that have no cover art at playback time" so that you can disable cover art lookup if that bothers you.

RD James · « **Reply #12 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:23:21 am »

+1

Quote from: JimH on July 14, 2016, 06:29:34 am

Please explain why it is a problem for you.

1. This is writing tags to my files. If it was only downloading to JRiver's local artwork cache, I'd have less of a problem with it.
2. Automatically found cover-art can often be wrong or low quality.
3. I want to manage what is added to my library manually.
4. I already hate that "Get Movie & TV Info" pollutes my keyword tags with junk data from TMDB/TVDB.
5. I don't want an application to do an automatic internet lookup for any file that is played on my system. This is a privacy issue. (albeit a minor one)

Leave this enabled by default, but it must be optional.

Edit: well it seems I'm seven minutes late on this, as it's being implemented in the next build. Thanks!

JimH · « **Reply #13 on:** July 14, 2016, 08:40:43 am »

It should not affect your audio files or change any tags.

RD James · « **Reply #14 on:** July 14, 2016, 09:24:21 am »

Quote from: JimH on July 14, 2016, 08:40:43 am

It should not affect your audio files or change any tags.

I made a test by copying some files to a new folder and removing their cover art, then playing them in JRiver. It's writing new cover art to the file tags.

JimH · « **Reply #15 on:** July 14, 2016, 09:47:04 am »

It shouldn't do that. We'll fix it.

hoyt · « **Reply #16 on:** July 14, 2016, 10:20:45 am »

Quote from: Matt on July 14, 2016, 08:21:06 am

Coming next build:
Changed: Added the option "Lookup cover art for files that have no cover art at playback time" so that you can disable cover art lookup if that bothers you.

Is this at a global level? I have the same concerns as mwillems. I have about 4,000 live recordings (which are grouped into albums for convenience sake). I'd be pretty upset if MC decided to try to figure out what "album" these were and downloaded 4,000 images that I then had to remove. However, would be nice for a different view, one that isn't live recordings.

Hendrik · « **Reply #17 on:** July 14, 2016, 10:21:51 am »

Quote from: hoyt on July 14, 2016, 10:20:45 am

Is this at a global level? I have the same concerns as mwillems. I have about 4,000 live recordings (which are grouped into albums for convenience sake). I'd be pretty upset if MC decided to try to figure out what "album" these were and downloaded 4,000 images that I then had to remove. However, would be nice for a different view, one that isn't live recordings.

This whole feature is only for downloading covers to show in Playing Now, not to modify any files, and the option is global for all files.

jgreen · « **Reply #18 on:** July 14, 2016, 01:46:07 pm »

I agree it is worrisome. Having an option to ENABLE automatic seeking and download of additional items is a great feature. Having an option to DISABLE it is a workable compromise. But there must be a playback mode where the customer gets to do what he wants.

RD James · « **Reply #19 on:** July 14, 2016, 09:40:28 pm »

I'm fine with it being enabled by default so long as it's only saving to a local artwork cache and not writing artwork to file tags, with an option to disable the feature for those of us that don't want to use it.
If anything I think it should be enabled by default.

jgreen · « **Reply #20 on:** July 15, 2016, 04:46:33 pm »

While my preference is that it should be disabled by default, I also think the feature should go beyond strict cover art, to include artist art and "related" artist art. I also agree that it should not write to the tags by default, but should go to a new bin and/or sidecar where the user could enable writing it to tags if he wishes.

I can sense Matt cringing here, half a continent away.

defenz0r · « **Reply #21 on:** July 19, 2016, 11:12:26 am »

+1
JRiver Cover Art finder isn't accurate enough.
If the program is forcing me to remove unwanted cover arts, its just a pain.
The same thing goes for the Tagging. How in the World does it find Death metal while i wanted to tag Instrumental Music?

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Author Topic: [REQ] Please make automatic cover art download optional... (Read 7143 times)

defenz0r