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Author Topic: Cover art  (Read 2615 times)

benn600

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Cover art
« on: October 10, 2008, 01:11:12 pm »

Whatever changes were made in the new cover art engine are wreaking havoc on my sanity.  It looks like MC is ultra-aggressive with finding internet cover art.  It appears to have gotten all the cover art from online sources.  I didn't spend hundreds of hours scanning my cover art to settle for this.  Sure, this is great for the average user who didn't spend hundreds of hours scanning.  I did the work.

Please tell me, step by step, how to disable every last piece of the auto-download-cover-art feature.  Every piece of media (100%!) I have including DVDs & CDs has a folder.jpg file.  If one didn't have a file, then I don't want cover art pulled from somewhere.  I have changed it to finding cover art in folder.jpg and that doesn't fix the problem.

If I redo a quick find, I have to be careful because last time I did, MC spent 24 hours saving tag changes to my 16,460 FLAC files.
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JimH

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Cover art
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2008, 01:16:27 pm »

It's in the options if you would take the trouble to look.

folder.jpg is a bad system.  If you're having trouble, that's the first place to start.

You had problems a few months ago.  Maybe you could go back and re-read that thread.

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benn600

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2008, 01:29:50 pm »

Why is folder.jpg a bad system?
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JimH

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2008, 01:32:45 pm »

Try a google search.

More on cover art is in our wiki:
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Cover_Art
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benn600

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2008, 01:38:59 pm »

Years ago when I started ripping my music collection, I decided folder.jpg is the best way to go.

1) Windows browsing of folders picks it up.
2) Any program can obviously see the image in the Album folder goes with the album.
3) If the image is in a central folder and you rename the album/artist/etc., then the file will be orphaned.  MC can move the folder.jpg file along with renamed files (possibly).
4) Storing in tags is horribly space wasteful.  It would take me about 21GB extra if I switched to storing my cover art in the files.  Not to mention clients having to download about 20 MB per album in cover art, which could be condensed to a single 1.2MB file.

Just seemed like the best all around solution, which is why I chose it.


Addition: I read the information.  Having multiple folder.jpg files does not concern me in the least.  If files somehow get mixed up then you've got serious file table corruption.  Or MC is acting strangely.  I have backups...of all and cover art alone (in folder structure).
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JimH

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2008, 02:03:41 pm »

Problems with folder.jpg?

1.  Any program can write a folder.jpg, but it's apparently an MC problem if it's the wrong art...

2.  folder.jpg gets used for whatever is in the directory.  Store all your audio files in a single directory with one Patsy Cline cover art folder.jpg file, and, voila, all your tracks are Patsy Kline.

3.  WMP writes folder.jpg with its own art unless you tell it not to.

4.  There is no way to re-associate a single folder.jpg with the music which it was once supposed to accompany.  Move a few tracks in Explorer and, bam, your cover art is wonky.
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benn600

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #6 on: October 11, 2008, 09:18:30 am »

Well, here's the rebuttal.

Remember that 100% of my music is FLAC?  Name one other program that will even touch it.  WMP will puke and, therefore, not find any media files so how could it mess with folder.jpg?  I can't.  Back when I started ripping, I did some tests and checks to make sure it wouldn't cause problems.  It never did, even on a full library scan.

Store all my audio files in a single directory?  Yikes!  Loading my music directory with just artists takes quite a while!  It's better with my new server but a good 3 seconds and years ago when I had a piece of junk MP3 (many downloaded) and nothing tagged right, I had folders like crazy and loading the directory would take for ever.  Loading 18,000 file names in one directory...I don't think so.

Don't ever move files in Explorer!  Obviously I'm not that stupid.  Oh, gee, I've spent thousands of hours building my collection ... I think I'll move files around because I didn't do it RIGHT the first time.  YES, I did it right the first time.  I verified tags and I see no reason to move from my /Artist/Album system.  It is without a doubt perfect in every way I can see.

WMP not touching FLAC and me being pretty sure I don't have a single other program that even plays FLAC & manages files (VLC plays only), it absolutely, positively is a MC phenomena.

Now a question: it appears that the short while MC13 was configured to its default allowed it to write images to the tags.  How do I remove images from the tags?  None should be in the tags.  (not just a file name but an image)  The reason I'm asking is ever since my experimentation with MC13, I'm now seeing the same BAD cover art on MC12 theater view client machines in theater view.  So I'm afraid its adding cover art.
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JimH

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #7 on: October 11, 2008, 09:34:49 am »

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benn600

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2008, 07:47:42 am »

It really comes down to me developing (or continuing) a strategy that works for me.  In the past, I have created a registry file that sets MC to my specific settings, so with a few clicks I can update MC settings completely.  I would always run such a file before even telling MC I have media files (on a fresh computer).  Then, MC wouldn't do anything bad to my files because it would be correctly configured--for my setup.

The padded FLAC files makes a lot of sense.  It took about 24 hours to remove the internal cover art MC13 had gotten and then, adding "folder.jpg" was easily able to fit in the padded tags.

I don't even want to think about how the server is doing with 16K files being rewritten with a tiny image added.  I bet it is fragmented to now end.  I'm down to a dangerous 485GB of free space :(
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JimH

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Re: Cover art
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2008, 07:53:46 am »

In the past, I have created a registry file that sets MC to my specific settings, so with a few clicks I can update MC settings completely.  I would always run such a file before even telling MC I have media files (on a fresh computer). 

If you're making your own registry changes, you are definitely on your own.  Please don't make any more self-confident statements about MC's mis-behavior.
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