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[trhunnicutt]

Hi all,

Long time MC user (probably over 10 years) ... enjoying getting my hands on v14.

Truly love the "play directly from memory" feature.

With this new feature, my desire has increased to catalog my physical discs and play them from MC on both my big "audiophile" rig, and my laptop.  Up till now, I've primarily used dBpoweramp for this purpose for a myriad of reasons.

Right now, when I play a physical disc within MC, everything but Cover Art is displayed in the Drives & Devices View as well as the "Display" Action Window.

Is it possible to associate an image (i.e. cover art) with the physical disc, in addition to any files that may have been ripped from that disc?  I'd love to be able to have that Cover Art displayed when playing a physical CD (or even DVD).

I know... you can just rip lossless... etc, etc.  But some of us can hear a difference with physical versus ripped files, and there's always something old-school about just popping in a disc and playing it completely through.

Lastly, is there any way to expose the information that is stored with a physical disc(s), in a "tab" like "Audio" or "Images" or "Video"?

It would be FANTASTIC to be able to enter and edit and view data for discs, before beginning the ripping process.  It would be a "Discs" or "Collection" tab.

Thanks,

TR

[JimH]

Thanks for posting, TR.  We'd like to do more in the audiophile area, and I understand old school.

I'm surprised that you don't see cover art with your CD.  We'll take a look.

[MrC]

I'm surprised that you don't see cover art with your CD.  We'll take a look.

I noticed this too.  This seems to be a recent regression.  Cover art for CDs used to be displayed after lookup/fetch.  Saved cover art for a CD used to be stored in the default MC data area.  I got tired of trying to manage two sets of artwork (1 for each of ripped, CD), so stopped storing artwork for CDs and didn't pay much attention to the lack of artwork for the CD.

Since I use views to show both the ripped (FLAC) and CD tracks alongside each other, I have just selected one of the FLAC files to see the artwork.

[Matt]

Currently cover art is only downloaded _after_ a rip.

We'll consider getting it at insert time instead.

[trhunnicutt]

Matt,

That would be great.

In addition, from a Human Interface Guideline perspective, currently MC allows you to select the tracks from an audio cd under "Drives & Devices to access all the "Get Cover Art" commands from right-clicking.

This led me to believe that I could acquire an image, either from a scanner or the internet, and associate it with those tracks and that physical cd, prior to ripping.

If that's not possible, you may want to look into disabling those menu items.

It'd be awesome, however, if you could 'grab' a cd cover and attach it to the cd record, just as you attach and edit the other textual information during "data entry/data mode" prior to rip.

Best,

TR

[Alex B]

... I'd love to be able to have that Cover Art displayed when playing a physical CD (or even DVD).

... In addition, from a Human Interface Guideline perspective, currently MC allows you to select the tracks from an audio cd under "Drives & Devices to access all the "Get Cover Art" commands from right-clicking.

It can be used with Audio CDs that are never intended to be ripped. MC is capable of storing an offline database of inserted discs and playing them directly from an optical drive.

You can create views that show only the CD/DVD database and tag the offfline discs and tracks similarly like any other files. (Here is an old thread: How-to: add All Media & CD database to the tree - some interface details have changed, but the basics are still the same.)

Naturally you would need to set the cover art location to be a dedicated folder instead of the audio file's location (it is not possible to store files on an audio CD). If you also rip the discs MC can find the same cover art files from the set location.

The database works fine also with data and DVD discs.

[trhunnicutt]

Alex,

Thanks for the heads-up re: customizing views.  I'll have to play around with that this weekend.

Thanks, also, for identifying the issue with downloading and associating cover art with physical cd's.

It looks as if the problem resides with where you have elected to have images stored.

TEST RESULTS:

- MC does NOT store or update cover art if the image location is specified to be either of the two "In the same folder as the file".

- MC DOES store or update cover art pre-rip if the image location is specified to be "In a specified folder".

CHALLENGE:

I, like probably most other users, elect to have images stored in the same folder as the file as "folder.jpg".

RECOMMENDATION:

MC could provide a conditional toggle/trigger, to store cover art in a specified folder if tracks from a physical cd have been selected prior to executing the Get Cover Art command.

Another option would be to create the specified folder based upon the folder/filename rules and create the "folder.jpg" if "In the same folder as the file" is the identified choice.

Otherwise, I would recommend greying out the Get Cover Art commands if "In the same folder as the file" is the identified choice and the Get Cover Art feature is being executed pre-rip.

TR