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[lalittle]

Is there any way to set MC up so that it only gets art for CD rips when I don't already have art assigned to that album?  At the moment, when I have the "Get cover art after ripping" option selected, MC will overwrite the cover art the I have already selected with whatever art is at the top of the cover art list.  This means that if I have assigned what I consider to be "better" art, MC will overwrite it.

I'd like MC to automatically get art for albums that don't already have it, so I don't want to turn off "Get art after ripping," but I don't want MC to overwrite my pre-chosen art.

Thanks,

Larry

[HTPC4ME]

Great Question!

[Alex B]

That can obviously happen if you already have one or more tracks from the same album and higher quality cover art in the defined cover art location.

When files are imported already existing cover art has priority and the the automatic downloader only tries to find cover art if the Image File field is empty after the import.

However, when files are ripped the current assumption is that the files and the album are always new to the library and therefore the download is executed without a prior check.

The fix would be easy for the developers. After ripping, run "Quick Find In File / Cover Art Directory" first and continue with download only if cover art is not found.

[HTPC4ME]

great idea Alex.

[lalittle]

Wow -- thanks for waking up this thread/question guys!  I had completely given up after 4 months with no responses.

The reason this is an issue for me is because I still re-rip CDs as time goes since my early rips were only medium bitrate mp3s.  When I do re-rip, my cover art gets overwritten by inferior art sometimes, which can be pretty frustrating when I don't notice it right away.

Note that the "Quick find in file / cover art directory" idea wouldn't work in certain situations.  I sometimes change artist/album tags AFTER ripping due to errors/typos or other reasons, which means that the file in the cover art folder might not be named the same thing as the album.  In this situation, the "quick find" process will not find the art because the name would not match the current artist/album name.

Perhaps a better solution might be for MC to check to see if art already existed in your library (in the file itself or in the cover art folder), and if it does, ASK you if you want to use the existing art or update it.  Maybe it could even go one step further and only ask you if the art was "different" from the art you were already using.  Note that this would ONLY take place in the specific circumstance where the file already existed in the library-- normal rips would never run into this, only re-rips would.

Thanks again,

Larry

[JimH]

The reason this is an issue for me is because I still re-rip CDs as time goes since my early rips were only medium bitrate mp3s.  When I do re-rip, my cover art gets overwritten by inferior art sometimes, which can be pretty frustrating when I don't notice it right away.

Your cover art shouldn't be over-written.  You should be able to find it in the cover art directory.

And, if you're concerned you can do two things to protect yourself.

1.  Copy your cover art directory.
2.  Upload your cover art to our server.  Right click on audio file(s)/Cover Art/ Submit to Internet.

[lalittle]

Your cover art shouldn't be over-written.  You should be able to find it in the cover art directory.

It's been a few months since I tested this, but I can definitely tell you that when I re-ripped an album, it absolutely DID overwrite the cover art in my cover art folder.  Getting it back was not "that" big of a deal, but I remember having to fiddle with things to get my previous cover art back since the previous file had been overwritten (I think I may have had to get it from a backup drive.)  It may have also been on the server (I can't remember at this point), so the point was not that it wasn't hard to recover, but rather that it seems like this shouldn't have happened in the first place.  That said, I can't say whether or not this has been fixed since then -- I have not tested this recently.

And, if you're concerned you can do two things to protect yourself.

1.  Copy your cover art directory.
2.  Upload your cover art to our server.  Right click on audio file(s)/Cover Art/ Submit to Internet.

I do backups to more than one drive on more than one system, so I could get it back if I noticed it before overwriting the backup.  Regarding the cover art server, does this happen automatically, or do I manually have to select my files and submit the cover art?  I know that it will "get" the art automatically, but I'm a little unclear on whether or not it uploads automatically.

Thanks,

Larry

[Alex B]

Please guys, don't make this more complicated than it is.

As I explained,

1. Ripped tracks are "new" and thus MC does not check for existing cover art that may exist in the defined cover art location.

2. The solution would be simple: change MC to first automatically run "Quick Find..." as a hidden internal task and remove the file from the lookup queue if "Quick Find..." was successful.

Anything else would be unnecessarily complex.

[lalittle]

2. The solution would be simple: change MC to first automatically run "Quick Find..." as a hidden internal task and remove the file from the lookup queue if "Quick Find..." was successful.

Anything else would be unnecessarily complex.

Alex,

I'm not trying to make it more "complicated" -- I'm simply pointing out that this method won't work in certain circumstances.  If you save the art to the files, it will be overwritten.  If you save it to a cover art folder as well, the new rip will NOT find it if you have made ANY changes or fixes to the artist or album fields after ripping the album the first time (since this is how the art gets named.)  Fixing artist/album tags after the initial rip is not all that uncommon in my experience, but the cover art does not get updated with the new name, so the check when re-ripping would not find it.  In this situation, after the re-rip You'd have to then dig into the cover art folder and try to find the art with the incorrect name, then apply it back to the files.  That's just not very elegant.

I think the solution needs to be more robust.

Larry

[Alex B]

Larry,

I am just trying think something that the developers could easily pour into the next build.

It would do the most important thing, avoid overwriting existing cover art with the same filename. Some users have carefully scanned high resolution cover art images and data loss is possible if the set cover art location is not checked before the online lookup. If an exiting image is occasionally not found for a reason or another it wouldn't be too hard to link it afterwards. Everything can't be fully automatic, but it would be important to avoid data loss when possible.

Regarding embedded images, by default MC always creates a backup copy of the cover art image when MC stores it in the file tag. If you are actually replacing old audio files that have embedded art by re-ripping in the same format the "Quick Find" feature should still normally find the copy from the cover art location and attach it.

If the default options are not suitable for you, you could do like I do, disable all cover art automation and run cover art tools selectively. I always prefer the manual cover art lookup tool because then I can select the best available image. As Jim said, the available selection includes the old cover art images if they have been uploaded prior the lookup. As a whole, CD ripping is a time consuming task. The few additional mouse clicks that are needed for running the cover art lookup tool can be done about as fast as packing the disc back to the jewel box.

However, as I have said a few times, I'd welcome an intelligent re-ripping wizard that would automatize the needed steps so that you could simply select your old album files and invoke a re-rip command that would replace the old audio files and preserve all metadata (including statistics) and existing cover art (if set in the wizard's options).

[HTPC4ME]

I always prefer the manual cover art lookup tool because then I can select the best available image

Media center has this option? where please

[Alex B]

Select the files > right-click > Cover Art > Get From Internet...

The tool is available also in the "Tools > Cover Art..." menu on the top.

[HTPC4ME]

yeah that i knew.. but ive never seen it show me options of which cover i want to choose? will have to look at it again. ty

[Alex B]

It changed radically almost two years ago. A user interface with previews was added.

[lalittle]

Alex,

You're correct that not overwriting the existing art is a top priority -- it was the comments saying "the solution is simple" and "anything else is unnecessarily complicated" that I was responding to.  Those comments make it sound like there is "no" reason to make it more robust, which I obviously don't agree with (and which I now believe is not what you were trying to say.)  I'd certainly take your suggestion over the current situation, but I'd still LIKE a more robust solution that was able to consider the art INSIDE the current music file -- as well as the OTHER tags of those files -- before overwriting it.  The problem I run into all the time with re-rips is that all the updates to the song tags that have taken place over the years (corrections, typo fixes, additions, etc.) are potentially lost when I re-rip.  I have to be careful to copy ALL tag changes over to the CD BEFORE the rip to prevent this from happening.

On that note, if I update the art for the songs on the actual CD before doing the rip, will this have effect of making the rip grab "my" art?  It seems like this would update the art in my cover art folder (using the CURRENT name structure), as well as re-sending the art to the server.  Could this be an alternative to turning off the auto function, or could the auto function STILL grab different art off the server?  Would I get the option to use the art on "my system" in this situation?  I can't remember the actual process flow at this moment -- do you get the cover art "choices" popup when you rip, or does this only come up when you manually add art?

Thanks,

Larry

[Alex B]

You're correct that not overwriting the existing art is a top priority -- it was the comments saying "the solution is simple" and "anything else is unnecessarily complicated" that I was responding to.  Those comments make it sound like there is "no" reason to make it more robust, which I obviously don't agree with (and which I now believe is not what you were trying to say.)

I think there are usually two possible approaches when making a feature request.

One could be called "by baby steps". If you request a baby step and the request seems to be good, perhaps even a necessity, and it gains popularity you have good changes to get it implemented quickly. After the first step is in you can continue with the next.

The other approach is to request a complete redesign. You may have a very well grounded proposal and it may lead to a lively discussion, but probably it will take a long time before the redesigned feature is actually available. We have seen this happening several times. The cover art lookup tool is a good example.

I'd certainly take your suggestion over the current situation, but I'd still LIKE a more robust solution that was able to consider the art INSIDE the current music file -- as well as the OTHER tags of those files -- before overwriting it.  The problem I run into all the time with re-rips is that all the updates to the song tags that have taken place over the years (corrections, typo fixes, additions, etc.) are potentially lost when I re-rip.  I have to be careful to copy ALL tag changes over to the CD BEFORE the rip to prevent this from happening.

On that note, if I update the art for the songs on the actual CD before doing the rip, will this have effect of making the rip grab "my" art?  It seems like this would update the art in my cover art folder (using the CURRENT name structure), as well as re-sending the art to the server.  Could this be an alternative to turning off the auto function, or could the auto function STILL grab different art off the server?  Would I get the option to use the art on "my system" in this situation?  I can't remember the actual process flow at this moment -- do you get the cover art "choices" popup when you rip, or does this only come up when you manually add art?

I don't think the ripper is clever enough to check if the actual disc has linked cover art and use that if available. Possibly no one has though or requested that before.

The automatic options do not display the selection window. The downloader grabs the most popular version if the server has more than one. The automatic choice can be quite arbitrary unless several users have actually hand-picked a certain image file and thus voted it.

Since I have only external cover art I don't need to worry about the embedded images when I re-rip. If someone has only embedded images it is possible to create a backup repository by running the "Save Cover Art To External Location Specified In Options" tool.

Regarding re-ripping in general, we had a nice discussion in last January: Topic: What is best way to Re-Rip Albums while preserving old library info?.