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[RobOK]

It seems there are three ways to store cover art images:

1.  In the files themselves (i have overwhelmingly high quality MP3 as the format)

2.  As a Folder.JPG in each album cover (and then what for mixed single songs that are not in seperate folders?)

3.  Or in one central location with Artist_album.jpg naming.


Does one method have a strong advantage over the others?  I use 3.  So I don't get folder covers in Win XP, but that is okay.  Every once in a while I get a nagging feeling that I should try 1 or 2, but don't see the obvious need at this point.

Any thoughts?

[Deivit]

I don't recall a single post reporting a problem with the cover art stored in the files themselves... they never get lost, don't need to take extra precaution when renaming files or folders, they don't necessarily add too much space to your file, mainly if you're talking about high compression mp3s...

... but I've read hundreds of reports of problems with cover art using the other 2 methods, just do a search here in the forum. Thumbnails that are not created, covers lost, unsynch'ed, etc.

Unless you're forced to have them separate from the files for any purpose, such as filetypes not supporting embedded cover art or problems with your portable player, I'd say store them inside the files and forget about them.
But you will read well argumented opinions against that, for sure.

[BullishDad]

I recenty switched from method #3 to #1, and I'm glad I did.  Much easier to keep cover art with the song, and works nicely with my iPod Nano.

One tip that I learned recently was to use Copy/Paste.  You can copy the image from say, Amazon, then paste it into the Action Window in MC.  It will automatically name it correctly.  Previously, I would rename the file and save it to the central location, then use "Add from file" to associate.  Using method #1, with copy/paste is so much easier.

Below is a link to a thread which was very helpful, especially Alex B's post (4th down). http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32323.0

[Two Wire]

My vote goes for method number 1. If I want to transfer my files to another computer, everything is transferred in one easy step. Just for the heck of it, I copied all of my files (over 6000) to another directry and imported them into a new library in MC. I then deleated all images, bios info, comments, etc. from each file. The amount of savings, If I remember right, was just over 100 meg. Insignificiant, IMO.

[thomaspf]

I am sold.

But is there an automated way to get the images included into the files if you have them stored in a central location?

Cheers

    Thomas

[hit_ny]

i use 2 but they are not named folder.jpg, instead have the album name with either front, back, cover appended in the file name.

This method is the simplest i found, no dependency on the player to understand where the cover art is and ultimately cross platform. On discussing this subject earlier, Matt pointed out that mp3, ape & wma have well defined rules for storing art in the media file itself and MC does not resort to any proprietary method. So requiring the player to be able to read the art-in-the-media-file is less of an issue.

Of course other players may not be as well behaved too and there are many players out there.

I still stick with the simple tenet, don't commingle stuff in one file.

A media file is a media file, jpeg is a jpeg file.

[modelmaker]

jpegs are also media!

I store cover art in the music file and in the album folder and has the album name.

It works perfectly with MC. I have no reason to use another player and haven't in a couple of years now.

[hit_ny]

I have no reason to use another player and haven't in a couple of years now.

Ever consider, if JRiver continues to get better at what they do, they might look very tasty to some one else who then makes them an equally tasty offer.

But JimH already told us about the mexican deal, why buy a software company when you can get JRiver to build exactly what you want.

There goes my JRiver-bought-out-and-MC-withering-away theory.

[wilfredjg]

I save album covers art  in same folder with files. When I do a back up everything gets saved together.

[RobOK]

But is there an automated way to get the images included into the files if you have them stored in a central location?

Any takers on this question?

[Deivit]

Any takers on this question?

I Think that, if you check the "store image in tags also" check-box (under image location in tools->options), select your files and perform an update tags from library, the image will automatically get stored inside the files. Try first with a few files, but I think this is the way to do it.

[Magic_Randy]

I Think that, if you check the "store image in tags also" check-box (under image location in tools->options), select your files and perform an update tags from library, the image will automatically get stored inside the files. Try first with a few files, but I think this is the way to do it.

I just went through this myself.  I basically did it in 3 steps:

1) Change option to "store images in tags also" (this only impacts things done after the option is changed)
2) Cleared tag for all tracks - Image File
3) Looked up Images to load cover art in tags - Quick find in file/ cover art directory

From here I had to do some manual clean-up.  Mostly for situations where I changed the album name in my library but the cover art was stored under the old album name.

If you try to follow this - please test it first.  I don't want to create problems for anyone.  This did work for me.

Randy

[benn600]

I like the Folder.jpg method because the directory structure kind of has the images forced and inherently held into it vs. the other folder method which means that the files are truly separated.