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[thatgirl]

I've just installed the trial version of Media Center and am playing around with it. I am trying to get cover art from the internet, by using:

Right-click on file
Select Image
Select Get from Internet
[varying options]

The status window always pops up and tells me that it's getting the cover art... wait a few seconds... then the status window disappears, and there's no cover art. It doesn't tell me it couldn't find anything, or it could find anything; it just doesn't tell me anything and doesn't add any cover art.

I started off using 'Download if missing' and 'Standard' as the options, then switched to 'Loose', and then switched to 'Download always'. I've tried all variations of combinations.

I've tried about 20 or so albums, most of them pretty mainstream (or well-known, at least), like Radiohead's 'The Bends', The Offspring's 'Americana', Third Eye Blind's 'Blue', etc.

Even though I would expect that cover art should be found for most of what I've been trying to get, I could accept that maybe it's not -- but is it normal that there would be no message to the effect of, "couldn't find cover art for this album"?

(I've noticed that there is a plugin for getting cover art, and I may yet try that, but as I'm trying out the program to see if I want to buy it, I first want to get an idea of how it works - or, as the case may be, doesn't. )

Thanks,

J.

[LonWar]

For cover art, the best thing to use is KingSparta's cover art finder

www.SpartaSoftware.com

[lukecro]

Yes, I second that -- the King Sparta cover-art finder plugin for Media Center is A+++. It's free, works really well, has a variety of useful options, and is often updated/improved.

I've had limited success with the built-in Media Center Cover Art finder -- sometimes it seems to work, often it doesn't -- but the King Sparta plug-in usually does the trick, especially for mainstream albums. And the more that people use it and update the database, the better it is for everyone.

(Question: While the Sparta plug is great for finding new cover art and uploading the art that I have that is correctly associated in MC with their corresponding MP3 files, I also have a lot of album folders that have cover art files in in the folder, but the cover art is not associated in MC with the MP3 files in the folder ... does anyone know of a way to quickly associate all album-folder images with the MP3 files in the same folder -- an automated process of some sort so that MC will know that there is cover art is available already for the files being played? I know that MC looks for cover art that's embedded in the file itself, but it doesn't seem to look in the file's folder... well, it isn't doing it for me anyway, and neither does the Sparta plug-in, as far as I can tell.)

[thatgirl]

I kind of suspected I'd just get referred back to the plug-in.

But is it normal that the default method would give no message to the effect of, "couldn't find cover art for this album"? Because although whether or not it's good at finding cover art isn't of huge importance, I think not giving the user any feedback is just bad design, and doesn't bode well for the program in general.

[KingSparta]

I also have a lot of album folders that have cover art files in in the folder, but the cover art is not associated in MC with the MP3 files in the folder ... does anyone know of a way to quickly associate all album-folder images with the MP3 files in the same folder

My plug-in will do that also, as long as you have the images in the folder as folder.jpg, or named with the artist name and album.jpg and it will also look in the cover art folder. you just need to set it to look at local files first. if it does not find the files local then it will look on the server.

Because although whether or not it's good at finding cover art isn't of huge importance, I think not giving the user any feedback is just bad design, and doesn't bode well for the program in general.

My plug-in gives feedback

MC' may if you turn on logging and look in the logging report i am not sure, I don't use mc's cover art finder.

[abd4evr]

I'd love to download it, but when I go to download, page says it has been removed and to upgrade to MC12.  As it is still in beta, I think I'll wait til it is purchaseable.  But why break the plugin download for a current version?

[KingSparta]

abd4evr check your forum mail