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[michel]

As my mp3 player crash on ogg file with embedded cover art (and since JRiver don't want to add an option to remove cover art when transferring files to handheld ) I have to store my cover art outside the files (in a specific folder).

I checked the related option so it si fine for now albums.

But how to copy thousand of existing embbeded cover art onto this specific folder before to remove them from the files ?

Thanks for any idea.

[Alex B]

This is a tough question.

Unfortunately the Vorbis comments standard does not have a field for storing binary image files.

JRiver stores the image file in a custom tag as mime encoded plain text. This is a proprietary workaround that is not supported outside MC. Some player programs and devices cannot handle these large Vorbis comment fields.

For MP3 files you could use an external application for mass extracting the embedded image files, but I don't know how to mass extract these mime encoded Vorbis comments as separate image files.

IMHO, JRiver should add options for mass embedding and extracting the cover art images. These are requested frequently.

[michel]

It would be nice to have an option to set all cover art (of a selection) in a way it is configured in options setting.

[Alex B]

I found a workaround for you. You'll need an external tool named Mp3tag besides MC. (Download the latest Mp3tag from here: http://www.anytag.de/download/mp3tagv236hsetup.exe)

Here's a step by step:

1. Make a smartlist that uses No Duplicates for Album so that the list contains only one ogg file from each album.

2. Select all files in this list and convert them to MP3. Use the fastest and smallest option (i.e. custom command line: gogo.exe -b 32). Configure it to convert the files to a new temporary folder and don't let it update the database.

3. You can mass extract the cover art files with Mp3tag. For this you need to define a new "action" in Mp3tag:
- top menu: Tools > Options > Actions
- make a new Action Group (press the star button)
- give the new action a name
- now in "Action" dialog window, press the star button
- select the action type: "Export cover to file"
- the next dialog window asks for the filename format string. Type this string: %artist% - %album%
- Enable also the "Show selection dialog" option. This allows you to select which actions are used when running the Action command.

Open the temporary mp3 folder in Mp3tag, select all files and run this action (top menu: Convert > Actions). It will extract the images in the same folder. If you have multiple artist albums you may want modify the MC smartlist rule and handle them separately. For multiple artists albums the correct filename format string in Mp3tag is (Multiple Artists) - %album%

EDIT

An album name like "Best of" is also a special case if you have many of them. Perhaps you can make a smartlist that takes this into account by using the "Filename (path)" field instead of the "Album" field.

[michel]

Thanks a lot , I will try it.

But it is a pity to have to do it when MC has so much powerfull features

[Alex B]

Thanks a lot , I will try it.

But it is a pity to have to do it when MC has so much powerfull features

I agree.

However, my workaround is not very difficult. You just need to create a couple of smartlists or use the search and sort the files into a few standard playlists. During the format conversion MC can correctly place the embedded image in the "APIC" frame which is used with MP3 files. Extracting the images is easy with Mp3tag. Mp3tag is a very capable free tagging program that can handle all common file formats. I use it for special tasks. I actually like to use a few specialized tools besides MC.

In general, I don't think MC should include each and every possible feature, but this should be added to the cover art functions. It is not uncommon that the user needs to change the cover art strategy because of a new device.

[Alex B]

2. Select all files in this list and convert them to MP3. Use the fastest and smallest option (i.e. custom command line: gogo.exe -b 32).

Out of curiosity I tried a few Go-Go settings. The following setting seems to be incredibly fast on my 2.8 GHz P4.
The source file was a 91 min, 924 MB, 16-bit/44.1 kHz stereo wave file, which contains audio from 25 separate tracks of various genres.

From the command prompt:

E:\X\GoGo>gogo -b 32 -q 9 -m m "Test Album.wav" d:\1.mp3
encode Test Album.wav to d:\1.mp3
GOGO-no-coda ver. 3.13 ( May. 20 2004 ) is a mp3 encoder based on lame 3.88,
which is distributed under LGPL on http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/ .
See http://member.nifty.ne.jp/~pen/ ,
    http://homepage1.nifty.com/herumi/gogo_e.html .
family 6:vendor Intel
extended instruction - MMX EMMX CMOV SSE SSE2 CLFLUSH
enabled extended instruction - MMX EMMX CMOV SSE SSE2 CLFLUSH
MPEG 1 layer III mono
inp sampling-freq=44.1kHz out sampling-freq=44.1kHz bitrate=32kbps
input  file `Test Album.wav'
output file `d:\1.mp3'
{ 210310/ 210310} 100.0% (296.71x)  re:[00:00:00.00] to:[00:00:18.51]

Go-Go encoded it in 18.5 seconds at 296.71x speed!

Besides the speed I expect also the audio quality to be extremely high. 

The command line for MC is: gogo.exe -b 32 -q 9 -m m
(you can use it in:  Encoder Type & Quality: MP3 > Advanced > Custom Command Line Switches)

[michel]

So I will need "only" about 5 or 6 hours to "gogoize" my ogg files 

[Alex B]

I guess the Vorbis decoding speed is the limiting factor in this case.

To test this I converted my test file first to ogg -q5. Then I tried conversion from ogg to MP3 with MC11.1 (using Go-Go @ -b 32 -q 9 -m m). The combined decoding and encoding speed was 76x on my PC.

You said you have 1000 albums. That makes 1000 files to convert (1 per album).

Assuming:  average track duration = 4 minutes,  1000 tracks => 4000 minutes

If the real conversion speed on individual track files including tagging is for example 50x the conversion of 1000 files would take 80 minutes. At 32 kbps the resulting files would need about 915 MB of disk space.


You asked for any idea. This is an idea. 

BTW, did someone say that it is a good idea to embed images in ogg files and not keep backup copies of the image files?

[michel]

You are right, I forgot that I need to use only one file per album. The situation is much better 

[michel]

BTW, did someone say that it is a good idea to embed images in ogg files and not keep backup copies of the image files?

I became aware of this problem a few months ago and then I changed my cover strategy (both cover inside file and into a folder). But I have a lot of files imported before this good decision...

A suggestion to JRiver: beside the wishes described in this thread, it would be useful to can set different cover strategies according the file type.

Alex, thanks again for the help.

[michel]

Finally I used the KingSparta plugin MoveFolder.jpg to save my cover art as folder.jpg file and then I removed them from files and then I made an image 'quick find' to reattach them to the files (but not inside this time).

It would be nice to can set the cover art storage strategy according the file type.