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[ghadlock]

Quick question on Cover Art...

I have a large mp3 collection and I have the cover art embedded in the mp3s themselves.  I'm now using Cinemar, however, which requires the cover art to be located in an external directory.  I managed to export the cover art images to an external directory using mp3tag, so now I have all of the cover art located in an external directory as well.  To get Cinemar to work correctly, however, I need J River to use / link to the external cover art and NOT the embedded cover art.  As I do not want to remove the embedded images, is there a way that I can tell J River to use the external cover art and ignore the embedded images?  I did a test run, selecting "use external images" and unchecking "embed in file tag as well", and imported a test directory and J River still references the embedded image instead of the image in the external directory.

Essentially, I want to force J River to use external images and completely ignore embedded images- is this possible?


Thanks!

[thurston]

If you click Tools>Options and select File Locations,there are options you can choose under Cover Art to tell MC where to locate the coverart (.  Set this up correctly and then right click on all the media files and select CoverArt>Quick find in File/ Coverart directory.

Give this a shot and see if you can get it to do what you want (try on some sample files before applying to all). 

[ghadlock]

I greatly appreciate the response!  Unfortunately, I gave it a try with no success.  I DO have the right directory specified for the cover art, and all images are there, BUT, the "Quick Find" is to "quick find" either the embedded image in the file (which J River finds first) or the external art.  Still not able to force J River to reference the external cover art   

[JimH]

Select some tracks and do Quick Find.  It will look in the directory where you have cover art and match up art to the selected tracks IF the names match.

For example,
Artist name: Thelonious Monk
Album name: Solo Monk

will find:
 
Cover art named: Thelonious Monk - Solo Monk.jpg

You should see the art when you look at Tag Info for the tracks in MC.

What MusicLobby does after that, I can't help you with.

[ghadlock]

Jim-

Again, appreciate the help.  I wanted to clarify- J River DOES show the cover art for all albums, but when I add the "Image File" column into the Smartlist view, all tracks show "Inside File" as the image location.  Now, if I "remove cover art" from some tracks (removing the embedded images) and select NO to the "Remove from hard drive" question, leaving the images in the external directory, then the Quick Find will find and use the external image file.  The problem with this is that it deletes the embedded cover art, which is required for my mp3 players and my Upnp Server / Clients. 

If I simply use the "Quick Find in File / Cover Art Directory" then J River just finds and references the embedded cover art and doesn't even seem to search the external image directory.

Unfortunately, Cinemar requires that J River explicitly reference the external cover art to show the album images.  Granted, I could fix this by removing embedded cover art from all mp3s, but I think that would put me in a worse situation.  Ideally, I'd like to be able to "override" the J River setting of preferring embedded cover art so that all cover art would link to the external files, and do so without removing the embedded images. 

Greg Hadlock

[JimH]

What version of MC are you using?  Did you try updating?  MC12.0.451 is at the top of this board.

MC has an option to "Store cover art in file" (or similar).  Is it checked?

[ghadlock]

I'm using 12.0.441- I'll upgrade to 12.0.451 to see if that helps.  Oh, and I DO have all of the images stored in external files, and MC does that just fine.  But, if I have an mp3, and for that mp3 I have a cover art image embedded in the mp3 AND I have the image in an external file, J River ALWAYS uses the image embedded in the mp3, and NEVER uses the external image which is what I'd like for it to do.  I know this because in my Smartlist I added "Image File" as a column and for all files it says "Inside File".

I'm not sure the I'm being clear enough on my question..but I'll try the upgrade and see what happens.

[JimH]

Try Tools/Options/File Location/Cover art.  What is your setting for "Also store image in the file's tag" ?

[ghadlock]

Jim-

OK, I upgraded to v12.0.451 and the interface and options are identical.  I've linked a screenshot below to help describe the issue, and to try again to summarize the request, here's what I'm trying to do.

Every single mp3 that I have as cover art images that show up in J River Media Center 12.  In fact, every single MP3 has the cover art image embedded into the mp3 file.    Cinemar requires that 1)  the image be an external directory (external images) and 2) J River be referencing the external image because the image that J River is using is what it "sends" to Cinemar.

I have exported all of the images to an external directory, so they are there now.  In fact, if I remove the embedded image from an mp3 then J River will find and reference the external image file without problem if I use the "Quick Find" function.  Unfortunately, I want to keep all of the embedded images because some of my other players require them, but have J River reference / use the external image instead of the embedded image.  As you can see in the screenshot, MC says that is using the image "inside file" for each mp3 instead of the exact same image in a directory (e.g. C:\mp3s\impages\artist - album.jpg).

I'm just looking to tell MC to always use the external image, if it exists, and NOT use the embedded image (which also exists) so that the external image is what is "sent" to Cinemar, and do so without deleting the existing embedded images in all of the mp3s.  Hopefully I explained a bit better this time, and again, thanks for your time and patience.

[JimH]

I don't think there is a way to do that.

MC can keep two or more libraries.  You might be able to make that work.  File/Library Manager is the starting point.

MC can also add cover art when synching with some devices.  Tools/Options/Handhelds

You might also be able to use Media Jukebox for the non-Cinemar tasks.  www.mediajukebox.com

[Alex B]

ghadlock,

You can disable tag writing before adding linked cover art. The embedded images will stay intact.

1. Tools > Options > General > Update tags when file info changes (untick)
2. Right-click > Cover art > Remove Cover art
3. Right-click > Cover art > Quick Find...
4. Tools > Options > General > Update tags when file info changes (tick)

In order to make the Quick Find tool work when the cover art files are in a single common folder
the filenames must follow the [Album Artist (auto)] - [Album].jpg rule.

[ghadlock]

That's awesome, Alex- I appreciate your response on this!  I'll make a backup of some files and give this a try but it sounds like exactly what I'm looking for.  Much appreciated!!!

[ghadlock]

Alex-

As an update, that worked PERFECTLY and did just what I wanted- thanks so much for your help!

Greg Hadlock