Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[comox]

1) Select group of audio files
2) Add cover art via Tool\Cover Art\Add From File
3) The fields Image Width and Image Height are only updated for the first file in the list.

To force all files to update Image Width and Image Height, de-select and re-select the same group of files, then right click.

This is a problem for me because a smart list I've created to detect which cover art needs to be upgraded does not work because many of the Image Width and Image Height fields are unpopulated and I've been unable to figure out how to force MC to update all.

[HPBEME]

I assume you're trying to add a cover art image to each file of one album… Is that correct?  And presumably that would mean you want the same image applied to each file… Correct?

If that is the case, are you saying the process you follow results in different image dimensions (of the same image!) for each audio file?  If it is, that would be truly bizarre. I am unable to reproduce that outcome.  But perhaps I have misunderstood the issue.

[comox]

Correct, I am trying to add new internally stored cover art to all files of an album.

The cover art is correctly added to all, however the fields that contain the dimensions of the cover art are only updated for the first file in the list.

The dimensions of the other files are reset to null.

Until I deselect and reselect and right click, then all dimensions in all files are correct.

[HPBEME]

While it is weird you have to do anything other than "add from file", it may be that the dimension information is there, but is not updating in real-time and shown onscreen. 

• Have you tried doing a refresh view right after doing the initial "add from file" operation?
• When you say you "deselect and reselect and right-click", is that it? You just right-click, and the remaining files suddenly populate with the dimensions?
• Or do you mean you right-click and run the "add from file" a second time?
• When you say "add new internally stored cover art", are these image files stored in the designated cover art folder, or somewhere else?
• And finally, are the images being stored in the file tag (via the checkbox in the options dialog)

Sorry for all the questions - just trying to understand your situation since I cannot reproduce it on my end.

[comox]

Suggest you add the fields Image Width and Image Height to pane view so you can see what's going on.

Deselect means click away from the group. Reselect means click first file and shift click last file. Right click means right click over the selected group with no other action.

I've been fighting this for a few weeks and thought it was consistent enough to report.

Now when I try to answer your questions it starts behaving differently.

It might be intermittent because I have observed that my smartlist for finding artwork that needs to be upgraded generates different unpredictable results after a refresh.

I'll observe some more and will be back if I have any new insights.

[comox]

A fix is not a high priority because I have a work-around.

I changed the smartlist to only inspect Track #1 of albums and now I get correct results.

[HPBEME]

Suggest you add the fields Image Width and Image Height to pane view so you can see what's going on.

Hah!  I didn't have to add anything… I have a pane view dedicated just for evaluating my cover art with image height/width already set as two of the panes.  This is why I suggested refreshing the view, because that updates those dimensions (for me).

Deselect means click away from the group. Reselect means click first file and shift click last file. Right click means right click over the selected group with no other action.

I understood what you meant by deselect/reselect, it was the last part where you simply right-click that I found confusing. You've answered it - you simply right-click and nothing else.

A fix is not a high priority because I have a work-around.  I changed the smartlist to only inspect Track #1 of albums and now I get correct results.

glad you found a solution!


In the lower panel of my dedicated cover art view, I increase the thumbnail size until there are just two images side-by-side (see attached pic). This pretty much fills the entire height and width of my monitor (well actually my 65 inch TV) with just two images. That way, I can see them in all their glory and decide if I want to find a better image.

Like you (apparently), my cover art is very important to me. 85% of my music albums (~ 2000 of 2300 albums total) have a cover art image of 1000 x 1000 or larger. Any images smaller than that are simply because I was unable to find a larger one... And I don't give up easy.  For many albums I spent several hours digging anywhere/everywhere trying to find a high-res image. Of course, Album Art Exchange is the King of Kings for finding high-quality images, but obviously they don't have every single album there is (but they do have a lot).  The next choice is NOT Google images… instead try DuckDuckGo - it's image search is soooooo much better than Google's.

[comox]

Excellent tips. Thank you.

I too am very fussy. Resolution is of course not enough. You have to look at art in full screen because some hi-res images are crap.

Getting good artwork is a lot of work. I'm constantly looking for a way to save a click.

I've heard about Album Artwork Exchange but multiple attempts to create an account have failed. They are supposed to send an email to confirm account creation but I never get one. Do you have any tips for getting in?

I mostly rely on Spotify. Its art is 640x640 and almost always as good or better quality than you'll find anywhere else. Only problem is they're very light on the jpg compression so I recompress to 85% quality and save about 50% bytes with no loss of quality that my old eyes can see, even when full screen. Tidal uses a more reasonable compression than Spotify but their catalog is smaller so its hit and miss.

I sure do wish JRiver provided a way for users to customize the source of Get From Internet. Perhaps there are some legal issues but if they allowed users to enter the URL ourselves, maybe those could be sidestepped?

[HPBEME]

I agree that higher resolution doesn't always = better image, but it does most of the time. I think you will be blown away by the image quality on AAX. I've had an account for several years now, and I don't remember what the process was, but I don't think it was onerous.  I know one thing for sure, they don't like VPNs. You'll either have to turn it off, or white list their site to get through.

So as I'm typing this, I figured I would check their site right now to see if I could register for another account. After clicking the register button, it goes to a page that says "creating a new account is not currently possible". Well that sucks!  I guess they're limiting new memberships?  I then searched Reddit and the first post I read https://www.reddit.com/r/musichoarder/comments/lph9pb/an_update_to_the_rules_regarding_album_art/, a user claims the site owner sometimes ban entire countries... Wow.  I have been using the site blissfully for at least four years now while apparently there is a major drama going on behind the scenes!

It would be nice if JRiver had the option to select a minimum resolution to show when using their cover art retrieval tool, but I don't think they keep every image uploaded. As I understand it, the images that are kept are based on which ones users download the most. So if you have a bunch of users who only want 300×300 images, that's what you're gonna get as options to choose from.

And finally, for image compression I use online software that does a phenomenal job, https://resizing.app/.  If the album image is a photo (versus an illustration), this site will reduce the file size from ~ 2mb to below 300 kB (for JPEG files anyway) without reducing the image dimensions. And does that without any visual difference between the images (at least the vast majority the time).  If the album art is an illustration, I try and find the largest size possible… Which is usually 1500x1500, run it through the application and reduce the image dimensions to 1200x1200 or 1000x1000 if I have to, in order to reduce the file size below my threshold. My goal is to end up with a very large image but is still < 300 kB, but still looks very sharp and crisp.

If JRiver could be convinced to store all images uploaded, I would re-upload all my high-res images. Every time I check an image for an album cover I know I've uploaded, the majority the time it does not show up as an option a few months later. Presumably this is because users have opted to download lower resolution with smaller file size versions.  I'm not sure I understand that, since file storage is so cheap, why wouldn't everyone choose the best quality image you could?

Oh well… Not much I can do about that. In any event, I hope all the blathering above as provided you some useful information.

[JimH]

It's true that we drop images that users don't choose.  There is an elegant system of voting that should ensure that the best images float to the top.  I don't think you have to worry about 300x300 fans. 

If you want the best, do one at a time, not the batch method.  That way, you can choose what you think is the best.

[comox]

I gave DuckDuckGo a test drive for a few hours and agree it is superior to Google. Thanks for the excellent tip!

So as I'm typing this, I figured I would check their site right now to see if I could register for another account. After clicking the register button, it goes to a page that says "creating a new account is not currently possible". Well that sucks!  I guess they're limiting new memberships?  I then searched Reddit and the first post I read https://www.reddit.com/r/musichoarder/comments/lph9pb/an_update_to_the_rules_regarding_album_art/, a user claims the site owner sometimes ban entire countries... Wow.  I have been using the site blissfully for at least four years now while apparently there is a major drama going on behind the scenes!

Thanks for trying. I'll try to create account every few months in the hope they open up memberships again.  Perhaps they have an invite system like the premium torrent sites? Maybe you have a spare invite?

It would be nice if JRiver had the option to select a minimum resolution to show when using their cover art retrieval tool, but I don't think they keep every image uploaded. As I understand it, the images that are kept are based on which ones users download the most. So if you have a bunch of users who only want 300×300 images, that's what you're gonna get as options to choose from.

I've never understood until now that JRiver had their own database of images. I thought they were pulling from some public data source.

And finally, for image compression I use online software that does a phenomenal job, https://resizing.app/.  If the album image is a photo (versus an illustration), this site will reduce the file size from ~ 2mb to below 300 kB (for JPEG files anyway) without reducing the image dimensions. And does that without any visual difference between the images (at least the vast majority the time).  If the album art is an illustration, I try and find the largest size possible… Which is usually 1500x1500, run it through the application and reduce the image dimensions to 1200x1200 or 1000x1000 if I have to, in order to reduce the file size below my threshold. My goal is to end up with a very large image but is still < 300 kB, but still looks very sharp and crisp.

I'll check out resizing.app.  I use a popular image viewing app called IrfanView which I access from MC via Send To (external).

[HPBEME]

If you want the best, do one at a time, not the batch method.  That way, you can choose what you think is the best.

Thanks for confirming Jim.  I actually never batch retrieve cover art - I only do it one at a time so I can examine closely the available images.  I even maximize the dialog with the available images to make them as big as possible for evaluation.

There is an elegant system of voting that should ensure that the best images float to the top.

While the voting system works and I understand the rationale, it does not necessarily surface the "best" image to the top, but rather the most downloaded, which often (most?) times is not same thing. Based on the quality of images I see offered, it seems to me the majority of people are happy enough with a decent quality image that has a small file size.

If that were not the case, then all the super high quality images I have uploaded over the years (which are still < 300 kB) would remain among the options… But they're not.

Here's an idea: to avoid having to store every image that every person uploads (which would reach overwhelming size quickly I imagine), perhaps create a two-tiered voting system with a dividing resolution line of say 800×800? That way you still limit the number of images stored on jriver servers, but service users with different desires for their cover art image quality.

[comox]

HPBEME, I've asked this before but never got an answer. Perhaps you know since you have a large library like me.

My thumbnail cache is getting pretty big (5.3GB) and I've been making a LOT of changes to artwork meaning many thumbnails have been replaced. I'm wondering if there are any fragmentation or garbage collection issues with the thumbnail cache?

Is there any reason to delete and rebuild the cache from time to time?

I really rather not because it will take a long time and I'm cautious about doing something that might break my library.

[HPBEME]

Thanks for trying. I'll try to create account every few months in the hope they open up memberships again.  Perhaps they have an invite system like the premium torrent sites? Maybe you have a spare invite?

I've never invited anybody, so I don't know anything about that.  But your question prompted me to log into AAX to see if I could find something regarding that. Turns out they have a forum, which I've never posted on ever, but more importantly an FAQ. In the FAQ I found this:

Why can’t I register?
It is possible a board administrator has disabled registration to prevent new visitors from signing up. A board administrator could have also banned your IP address or disallowed the username you are attempting to register. Contact a board administrator for assistance.

So that seems to be what has happened and why you're not able to register.  I also searched the FAQ for "invites" and it returned 0 results.  Your plan of trying to create an account on a periodic basis seems to be the only option available at the moment.

[comox]

Your plan of trying to create an account on a periodic basis seems to be the only option available at the moment.

Thank you.

[HPBEME]

HPBEME, I've asked this before but never got an answer. Perhaps you know since you have a large library like me.

I don't think that my 2,300 albums/26,000 files qualifies as large around here .  I've seen a number of posts with users claiming libraries of 1 million to 3 million files! I can only dream of having that many album.  Assuming an average of 10 songs per album, that's 100,000 to 300,000 albums… Wow!

My thumbnail cache is getting pretty big (5.3GB) and I've been making a LOT of changes to artwork meaning many thumbnails have been replaced. I'm wondering if there are any fragmentation or garbage collection issues with the thumbnail cache?

Where are you getting that thumbnail cache number from? From the J River appdata folder here: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 30\Thumbnails?  If so, and if you have a similar number of albums as I do, then that 5.3 gig does sound huge - that folder size for me is only 320 MB.

Either way, I assume there is fragmentation of the hard drive anytime you make file changes regardless of the program.  But if it's worse for a thumbnail cache, I have no idea - that is outside my wheelhouse.  Maybe Jim would know.

Is there any reason to delete and rebuild the cache from time to time?  I really rather not because it will take a long time and I'm cautious about doing something that might break my library.

I assume you are referring to the MC function (under options/tree &view) Build Missing Thumbnails? I don't think that will reduce the cache size because it's building missing thumbnails, which would be all those thumbnails other than track number one that don't have cover art image associated with them.  If anything, my intuition is that it would probably make your cache bigger.  As for taking a long time, well I suppose so if you just sit there watch it . But for my library running that tool takes a half-hour to an hour. Just run it while you're doing something else, or before you go to bed.

But again, this might be a question better answered by JimH/JRiver, or someone else who is completely confident regarding how that tool works.

You never did say whether you embed the image in the file tags or not, and where you store your cover art?  I assume you have specified a preferred location (via MC options/file location, cover art)… Right?

[comox]

Where are you getting that thumbnail cache number from? From the J River appdata folder here: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\J River\Media Center 30\Thumbnails?

Yes, I am referring to the file "Thumbnails (large).jmd". I have 512K files in my library.

I am not talking about file system fragmentation. I am wondering if the structure of Thumbnails (large).jmd becomes less efficiently organized over time as thumbnails are replaced.

I am not talking about building missing thumbnails, I have none. I am talking about deleting the cache and rebuilding it from scratch.

I imbed artwork in audio files and also save all artwork to an external location that I backup every day.

[HPBEME]

Yes, I am referring to the file "Thumbnails (large).jmd". I have 512K files in my library.

half a million files… wow!  Dividing your 512k files by my 26k is ~ 20.  My thumbnail cache size is 320mb, so 20x320 ~ 6.4gb.  Obviously the thumbnail cache size is dependent upon the size/quality of the actual image files, and certainly our respective image files are not going to be identical, but nevertheless, based on my crude calculation I think your 5.3 GB thumbnail folder size is not unreasonable. 

I am not talking about file system fragmentation. I am wondering if the structure of Thumbnails (large).jmd becomes less efficiently organized over time as thumbnails are replaced.

The thumbnail file is still a file, so I presume it still fragments. Unlikely that fragmentation would result in a bunch of extra gigs though.  That said, I am hardly an expert on any of that.
 

I am not talking about building missing thumbnails, I have none. I am talking about deleting the cache and rebuilding it from scratch.

yeah… Sorry about that, I misread that part of your post.  And again, I really have no idea whether deleting/rebuilding the cache is beneficial for performance or reducing the overall file size.  Really need an expert to weigh in on that.

I imbed artwork in audio files and also save all artwork to an external location that I backup every day.

glad to hear that… I do the same. I am embarrassed to admit how many hours I have spent building up my library with high quality cover art.  If I ever lost that, I think I would rather kill myself than try to create it again .

Using that same crude calculation from above, I am guessing it would take 12 to 24 hours for MC to generate a new thumbnail cache from scratch should you decide to.  But that is only a guess from a non-expert.

[comox]

45K of my files are video and I remember from 10+ years ago when I last rebuilt my cache that they can be problematic which is why I'd prefer not to do it unless there is a benefit.

Maybe Matt or someone else from JRiver might advise if there is any value in rebuilding the cache.

Or maybe I should just back up the cache and try rebuilding it. If I run into a problem I could simply restore the original cache.

Thanks again you for your help.

[thecrow]

I've heard about Album Artwork Exchange but multiple attempts to create an account have failed. They are supposed to send an email to confirm account creation but I never get one. Do you have any tips for getting in?

You may find this frustrating, but I just Googled "Album Artwork Exchange" and had no issue registering for an account.
I received an activation email as described, maybe it has gone to a spam folder or is being block by your email service?
P.S. I am using a Microsoft email address from the UK.

[comox]

You may find this frustrating, but I just Googled "Album Artwork Exchange" and had no issue registering for an account.
I received an activation email as described, maybe it has gone to a spam folder or is being block by your email service?
P.S. I am using a Microsoft email address from the UK.

Thanks! I was able to create an account using a different email address.

[JimH]

Please start a new thread if you need to.