Topic: Artist's Image in Artists View (Read 24451 times)

ASenna1 · « **on:** February 29, 2016, 02:17:17 am »

I am totally baffled on how to display an artist's image in Artists view and the individual album covers for that artist in Albums view.

ferday · « **Reply #1 on:** February 29, 2016, 03:13:21 am »

where you've told JRiver to store cover art (default C:/users/username/appdata/roaming/JRiver/Media Center 21/Cover Art)

make a folder called:

Artists

inside that folder, paste an image with the exact artist name as it is inside MC

so, for Nirvana, you'd have c:/cover art folder/artists/Nirvana.jpg

now, it should work. i hope i'm not missing a step..

tls62dk · « **Reply #2 on:** February 29, 2016, 06:40:04 am »

Or, right click an Artist in Artist view and select "Get Artist Images From Last.fm..." under the Cover Art menu.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 29, 2016, 12:43:43 pm »

I understand the artist download method and I have the correct folders in place with artist artwork .jpgs named exactly like the artist's tag name.

What I think happens is if the album art is embedded in the file itself, in my case a .flac file, then MC does not know where to find the artist's image. Is this possible?

blgentry · « **Reply #4 on:** February 29, 2016, 03:46:09 pm »

FLAC files can hold Album art, for sure. But not Artist art. Artist art is a JRiver MC concept. You might not have your Artists folder in the right place. Check:

Tools > Options > File Location > Cover Art > Folder

Artists (plural) should be a subdirectory of the folder listed above. Have you tried downloading images from LastFM via the context menu? (Cover Art > Get Artist images from Lastfm) That should automatically create the files in the proper location. Though there was a bug with that in slightly older versions: The JPG files were getting created with random extensions. Like "Jethro Tull.A3G" or "Pink Floyd.4U6". That bug was fixed something like 2 or 3 months ago.

Brian.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #5 on:** February 29, 2016, 08:43:11 pm »

I don't know if "Artist art is a JRiver MC concept" or not, but I have a folder labeled "Artists" located in C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Cover Art, along with a folder labeled "Albums". Inside the "Artists" folder are a few artist jpegs, all properly labeled to match specific JRiver Artist tags, but none of these images appear in the Artists view.

My question is, when the Image File Tag reads "Inside File", does MC know where to look for Artist artwork?

ASenna1 · « **Reply #6 on:** February 29, 2016, 10:16:03 pm »

I've updated three albums so that they all point to C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Cover Art\Albums and all three still show cover artwork only in Artists view. Baffled. ?

blgentry · « **Reply #7 on:** February 29, 2016, 10:32:07 pm »

Quote from: ASenna1 on February 29, 2016, 10:16:03 pm

I've updated three albums so that they all point to C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 21\Cover Art\Albums and all three still show cover artwork only in Artists view. Baffled. ?

I'm not sure what you're trying to do. The Albums directory doesn't have anything to do with Artist art.

Are you using the Artists view when trying to view the Artist art?

Are the Artists you're trying to show art for individual artists, or are they on compilation albums? Finally, do the names of your artists (that you are trying to show art for) have anything other than regular English letters in them? Periods, commas, colons, accented characters, etc ?

It might be time to show a specific example, along with relevant screen shots.

Brian.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 29, 2016, 10:44:22 pm »

"I'm not sure what you're trying to do."
My question above was, "when the Image File Tag reads "Inside File", does MC know where to look for Artist artwork?" The answer seems to be that the Image File Tag relative location has no effect.

The Albums directory doesn't have anything to do with Artist art.
I understand that.

Are the Artists you're trying to show art for individual artists, or are they on compilation albums?
Individual artists. I already stated I have matched the .jpg names to the Artists tag name.

Finally, do the names of your artists (that you are trying to show art for) have anything other than regular English letters in them? Periods, commas, colons, accented characters, etc
One includes "&" (Andy Summers & John Ethridge) but two are letters-only (Anat Fort and Anat Fort Trio). (If "," and "&" symbols are a problem, then I'd say something needs to be looked at in MC.)

It might be time to show a specific example, along with relevant screen shots.
Let me see what I can detail.

glynor · « **Reply #9 on:** March 01, 2016, 07:15:07 pm »

The [image file] field is (generally) for Album Art (for audio files) and thumbnails for video. Each file uses that image to display its thumbnail when viewed in MC.

They can be either embedded in the files (inside file), or on disk (with a full or relative path).

But, that's for per-file images, not artist artwork. To use custom artist images, you don't have to alter the tags of the files at all. You simply drop a properly named file into the correct folder on disk, and MC dynamically looks it up based on the [Artist] property of the file.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 01, 2016, 10:40:25 pm »

Let's try this one step at a time.

First, I've created a NEW library called TEST and have imported four albums, two with embedded album art, two without.
Note both the Albums and Artists views are showing the same artwork for the two embedded albums, which is clearly Album Cover artwork.

Next, here's the current location of the Artists artwork folder. Please confirm this correct.

glynor · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2016, 12:04:31 am »

Watch this:
https://vimeo.com/157394599

Each file has an individual image file that is used to generate a thumbnail, when the file itself is viewed in a list. This is the individual file's thumbnail. The [Image File] field in MC points to where this file is located on disk. It can be either embedded in the file's tags (for file types where MC can read embedded artwork), or point to an image file on disk somewhere.

By default, when a category is viewed in MC (grouped by Artist or Genre, for example) and all of the files contained within a category contain the same image, then the thumbnail is displayed normally (refer to Chvurches in my screencast above). If all of them do not contain the same Image, then it displays a rotating "fanned stack" of the images. If you point at them and pause, they rotate (illustrated with all of the other artists in the screencast).

If you want to add images and override the normal behavior when showing a group of Artists, then you add a folder called Artists to your current Cover Art directory. You can check which directory is assigned, and change it if you want, in Tools > Options > File Locations. Then, if you add a file to that folder whose filename matches an [Artist] field value, MC will show that file instead of the fanned stack when showing a grouping of those files.

If that doesn't explain, then try to ask a little more clearly (overexplain) because I'm not getting it.

AlanDistro · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2016, 12:41:37 am »

That's a really cool feature and I had no idea it existed, thanks for sharing that video.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2016, 12:50:18 am »

glynor, from the screenshots I provided above, I simply asked that the location of the Artists folder be confirmed. I will provide additional screenshots once the folder location is confirmed as correct.

glynor · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2016, 01:17:43 am »

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 02, 2016, 12:50:18 am

glynor, from the screenshots I provided above, I simply asked that the location of the Artists folder be confirmed. I will provide additional screenshots once the folder location is confirmed as correct.

Read my post and watch my video. I covered that, right at the beginning of the video, and above:

Quote from: glynor on March 02, 2016, 12:04:31 am

You can check which directory is assigned, and change it if you want, in Tools > Options > File Locations.

I don't know where you have it set to look.

Incidentally, I've also uploaded a new version of the screencast now that adds how last.fm Artist Images can be added automatically (the beginning didn't change other than to add a title card).

AndyU · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2016, 01:21:58 am »

Could I get an image for Genres and Composers in a similar fashion?

glynor · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2016, 01:24:40 am »

Quote from: AndyU on March 02, 2016, 01:21:58 am

Could I get an image for Genres and Composers in a similar fashion?

People have asked for it before. I don't really use it much, except to "cover up" otherwise ugly top-of-the-stack files (because of sorting, sometimes ugly things come up first).

MC handles [Series] and [Season] in a similar fashion, but I don't know of other fields that work that way.

AndyU · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2016, 02:34:24 am »

Quote from: glynor on March 02, 2016, 01:24:40 am

People have asked for it before. I don't really use it much, except to "cover up" otherwise ugly top-of-the-stack files (because of sorting, sometimes ugly things come up first).

MC handles [Series] and [Season] in a similar fashion, but I don't know of other fields that work that way.

I might use it if it were there, but it certainly not a big deal. I like the fan with changing artwork, it brings stuff to my attention that I might otherwise forget.

ferday · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2016, 03:19:52 am »

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 02, 2016, 12:50:18 am

glynor, from the screenshots I provided above, I simply asked that the location of the Artists folder be confirmed. I will provide additional screenshots once the folder location is confirmed as correct.

AFAIK that is the correct location

do you have any videos in your library? if so, just tag a couple with a series name (for a test) and make a series folder in the same place as your artist, and see if that works?

ASenna1 · « **Reply #19 on:** March 02, 2016, 03:32:25 am »

Quote from: glynor on March 02, 2016, 01:17:43 am

I don't know where you have it set to look.

It's set to the default location.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #20 on:** March 02, 2016, 02:22:23 pm »

Since I have the correct folders with MC pointed in correct direction, it's on to the NEXT step...

Here, I've ask to download what should be the Artist Artwork for Anat Fort...

Is THIS step correct?

glynor · « **Reply #21 on:** March 02, 2016, 06:31:31 pm »

That looks right. I did add the last.fm lookup to my video above, though, so you could confirm that yourself.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 02, 2016, 09:19:37 pm »

And here's the contents of my Artists folder...

Note that 3 of the 4 artists in my test library have images files downloaded and that none of those images appear.

glynor · « **Reply #23 on:** March 02, 2016, 09:31:55 pm »

That second-to-last screenshot was key. You need to update to the latest version of MC21, which is 21.0.50 as of tonight. The latest build is always a "sticky" thread pinned to the top of this board.

Your issue was fixed way back in November:

Quote from: Matt on November 30, 2015, 12:58:01 pm

21.0.24 (11/24/2015)

11. Fixed: The filenames when getting artist images for Last.fm would be a series of random numbers instead of jpg.

blgentry · « **Reply #24 on:** March 02, 2016, 09:36:51 pm »

Didn't I already say that?

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=103495.msg719175#msg719175

Brian.

glynor · « **Reply #25 on:** March 02, 2016, 11:25:49 pm »

ASenna1 · « **Reply #26 on:** March 03, 2016, 12:08:54 am »

This explains why renaming files "Artist Name.jpg", as I did with "Andy Summers & John Etheridge.jpg" doesn't work either?

And what was posted was "Though there was a bug with that in slightly older versions: The JPG files were getting created with random extensions. Like "Jethro Tull.A3G" or "Pink Floyd.4U6". That bug was fixed something like 2 or 3 months ago."

I appreciate the help, but...

glynor · « **Reply #27 on:** March 03, 2016, 08:49:30 am »

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 03, 2016, 12:08:54 am

This explains why renaming files "Artist Name.jpg", as I did with "Andy Summers & John Etheridge.jpg" doesn't work either?

I don't know if the broken ones are valid JPGs. In any case, update your build. We can't help you with an old one. It does work with the current builds, as my screencast shows. If you have trouble with 21.0.50 then let us know.

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 03, 2016, 12:08:54 am

And what was posted was "Though there was a bug with that in slightly older versions: The JPG files were getting created with random extensions. Like "Jethro Tull.A3G" or "Pink Floyd.4U6". That bug was fixed something like 2 or 3 months ago."

Which is exactly what is happening in your case.

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 03, 2016, 12:08:54 am

I appreciate the help, but...

Please stop being mildly passive-aggressive. Neither Brian nor I are getting anything from helping you other than appreciation, because we don't work for JRiver. They do monitor these threads, and will probably chime in if we find something that needs to be fixed, but that hasn't happened here yet.

Step one in troubleshooting all issues is always to recreate with the current build. There is no point in troubleshooting an issue that was already fixed in November.

blgentry · « **Reply #28 on:** March 03, 2016, 09:15:43 am »

Quote from: ASenna1 on March 03, 2016, 12:08:54 am

This explains why renaming files "Artist Name.jpg", as I did with "Andy Summers & John Etheridge.jpg" doesn't work either?

No, it doesn't. A few notes:

1. I've personally had trouble with Artist images where the Artist names have special characters in them. Like & for example. But I run the Mac version of MC21 and it *might* be specific to the Mac version. I'm not 100% sure, so I'm mentioning it.
2. The file name must be exactly the same as the artist name. It's unclear from the screen shots if there are spaces between the & and the letters and whether there's one space or two. It has to be exactly the same. You'd want to check the Artist name in the tags and maybe cut and paste that name into the file name to be sure.
3. The view you've shown with album covers is in the Albums view. Artist images only show in the Artists view (or another view with a Category of Artist). (You probably realize this, but I'm mentioning it because you're having trouble.)

Brian.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #29 on:** March 03, 2016, 08:05:35 pm »

The previous screenshot is split view, albums on the left, artists on the right and the .jpg was a copy of the tag, so spacing and all other details were an exact copy.

I've update to 21.0.50 and I'm now able to load artists images, but I'm quite underwhelmed how MC handles artists pics, never mind the fact that last.fm seems to be a pretty limited source.

The longer story is that I've moved my library to MC from Helium Music Manager and I did this primarily because of MC's superior audio quality (I want to drive a NAD C390DD) and much faster and superior remote playback capability. But HMM is vastly superior to MC in handling artist images, along with artist information and it has surprised my how primitive and awkward MC is with all this. I'll post a few screenshots from HMM and you can see for yourself.

ASenna1 · « **Reply #30 on:** March 03, 2016, 09:17:20 pm »

And this is only one aspect of Helium Music Manager's use and handling of Artists images and information. Judge for yourself.

http://i.imgur.com/zG6dlnQ.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ae4ykVl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/t4k5RKA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PyB1FPB.jpg

Castius · « **Reply #31 on:** March 10, 2016, 11:40:50 pm »

I'm not having much luck with this either.

I really want to be able to see individual people's portrait. (Artists/Actors/Directors/Composers)
http://mediabrowser.tv/community/uploads/inline/2/528a23ba45a0c_mbt2.png

It feels like JRiver is so close to having this.
What can we do about this?

Thanks

Matt · « **Reply #32 on:** March 11, 2016, 07:20:22 am »

Does somebody think something is broken? And if so, what (in detail please)?

Thanks.

ferday · « **Reply #33 on:** March 11, 2016, 09:22:50 am »

FWIW i just tested, putting an artist image in an Artists folder in the correct location (in my case the stock appdata...) works fine for the 5 i've tried, getting out of the view then back in again now the artist image is there instead of a stack.

Castius · « **Reply #34 on:** March 11, 2016, 11:14:31 am »

The good news this worked.

Steps:
I made a New library and put a mp3 in it
imported that mp3
Added the artist name to artists field.
In standard view I went to Artists view and it worked.

Now the bad news.
Theater view artists did not work.
All other places JRiver could have showed something. Only showed the default music note icon.

I could make theater view work. By putting that mp3 called 01 blaa.mp3. in a folder called album.

Hoss · « **Reply #35 on:** August 29, 2019, 02:13:38 pm »

Quote from: Castius on March 10, 2016, 11:40:50 pm

I'm not having much luck with this either.

I really want to be able to see individual people's portrait. (Artists/Actors/Directors/Composers)
http://mediabrowser.tv/community/uploads/inline/2/528a23ba45a0c_mbt2.png

It feels like JRiver is so close to having this.
What can we do about this?

Thanks

Having same issues after updating last night to 25.0.95. I'm trying to change/update existing artist images (thru both internet searches and thru Last.FM) and on some of them (about 20%), after replacing the EXISTING files (new images, same filenames) that were working fine, the artist image now will not show up, only the fanned stack of albums for that artist.

I understand the issue with filenames matching between MC and the Artist art folder, but I am re-saving new images under existing filenames that JR was recognizing yesterday.

What changed?

I've stripped tags and file properties from both audio and image files, nothing works.

Hoss · « **Reply #36 on:** August 29, 2019, 05:45:54 pm »

FWIW, the guy above was/is correct. It has something to do with embedded images in audio files. Doesn't seem to matter which format. Some of the images cannot be deleted. Well, if they can be, I haven't found a "free" tag editor that will erase the embedded images I have on about 300 various audio file types (admittedly, most of these ~300 are from the torrent/napster days, so... ). Some editors will remove some image types, other editors will erase other types, but some of these images are either hard embedded or in some odd format and won't come off... and those files somehow mess with the Artist Images in MC.

I determined this by deleting an old Kenny Rogers album that would not conform due to embedded images that could not be erased, purchased the same album, new and in same format. Imported it and it works as it should.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Artist's Image in Artists View (Read 24451 times)