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[Matt]

Tonight's build introduces changes in the way cover art is handled, especially for video files.

I'll try to describe how things work, hopefully rolling the text into a wiki at some point.

Edit: It's now in the wiki, merged with the old cover art article.

Here's the link:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

It still needs a little cleanup, but at least it's written down somewhere.

[Matt]

I expect a coming build to nicely move and delete sidecar images for videos when doing those operations from inside Media Center.

Getting the rename tools to work nicely for DVD, Bluray, and other aggregate types would be extra credit.  Whether this happens depends on how many Christmas cookies we give John tomorrow.

[vagskal]

== How Images Are Stored ==
For audio, there are three ways that cover art can be stored:
In the cover art folder
Next to the file as Artist - Album.jpg
Next to the file as Folder.jpg

You can also store cover art in the file's tag, which is recommended.

Would it be possible to add an option to store cover art only in the file tag?

Currently I am adding a lot of singles cover art for compilation albums. For those albums I have a folder.jpg representing the compilation album as such in the folder containing the music files of the album and then embed singles cover art in each file in the album (with an additional dummy track # 0 file with the cover art for the compilation album embedded to get that displayed in album views, which works in standard views but not always in theatre view). As it is now I have to set the store cover art to a special location where the image file gets overwritten each time I embed singles cover art to a file in an album and then just delete all cover art in that folder to clean up. (This is not a big deal, but since you are looking at cover art handling...)

[gvanbrunt]

I expect a coming build to nicely move and delete sidecar images for videos when doing those operations from inside Media Center.

Sob. <dabs eyes> I'm so happy I could burst.

Now if only it had been able to do that a week ago when I moved a few hundred movies over to another drive...

Edit:
It would also be good if it could do this with subs...

[JustinChase]

Very cursory initial testing indicates this is working better, thanks

I did notice one thing that I don't understand yet.  I just got data for Alias, for the first 3 shows of season 1, and the tooltips are showing the right image for all of them.  Good.  I deleted the existing Series art from the Cover art\Series folder, and grabbing individual episodes didn't get a Season image, not surprisingly.  Okay, no problem, I r-clicked and got an image from the internet.  I then went into TheaterView to see what I get for images there, and the main 'Shows' screen took about 5-8 seconds to load, appearing 'hung', then opened fine and showed the newly grabbed Series art for Alias.  I clicked it and it shows the Seasons, but this seems weird still, showing the same image for 4 of 5 seasons, and one different image.  (upload images is still not working so I can't quickly upload a screenie; and it locks me out of making further changes to my thread until I re-start a new reply).

After further testing, I replaced all episode thumbs on one season, and that season how shows one of the images from that season.  The other season that was showing the different-than-the-rest image had not had any of the episodes run thru the old system, so after more looking, I guess it's not so weird after all.

I just have a couple hours of re-grabbing the art, and I think I'll be all fixed up.

Thanks for the quick fix Matt et al.  As I said in another thread, I prefer a good fix quick to a long wait for a perfect fix.  Great job.

Maybe someday the other options glynor presented can be added, but there's bigger fish to fry right now, so no worries

[park]

One minor problem I foresee is that our image views are going to fill up with cover art unless our import settings are carefully controlled. Did you investigate the possibility of directly embedding the artwork into mp4s and mkvs? Is it impossible to do without remuxing the files?

[Matt]

One minor problem I foresee is that our image views are going to fill up with cover art unless our import settings are carefully controlled. Did you investigate the possibility of directly embedding the artwork into mp4s and mkvs? Is it impossible to do without remuxing the files?

Good point.  We need to make sure sidecar cover art doesn't get imported.

[JustinChase]

I just used the 'Rename, Move & Copy...' function to move a video, and it did not move the accompanying .jpg from the old location.

I moved it myself before I thought to try to use the new "clean cover art", so I didn't try that, whoops.

Still, MC should probably move the images also when we use MC to move files.

[glynor]

Good point.  We need to make sure sidecar cover art doesn't get imported.

Or imported and hidden from most views.

[rick.ca]

Good point.  We need to make sure sidecar cover art doesn't get imported.

I don't understand what the issue is here. If Auto-Import is configured to import only video files from the video directory, it's not going to import cover art, is it? Conversely, if I want to import cover art, configuring Auto-Import to do so should work. What is it, exactly, that needs to be prevented?

[glynor]

Or imported and hidden from most views.

I think this might be a better plan.  If you could rely on the fact that all of the Cover Art MC is using will be in the database, then it would seem like you could more easily link the records behind the scenes, and use the file management tools you already have to handle problems like the Rename, Move, and Copy tool, file moves, and orphaned cover art deletion.

You just need a way to hide them from the users most of the time.

[JustinChase]

You just need a way to hide them from the users most of the time.

Tools > Options > File Location > Cover Art > Visible in Media Center views  yes/no  ??

[JustinChase]

You can clean up your cover art folder so that it uses the naming above by using Options > File Location > Cover Art > Clean cover art folder...

I just ran this.  I had 4724 files in my P:\Cover art folder when it started.

I now have a new Videos subfolder with 130 files and an Albums subfolder with 1538 files.  I assume that means it cleaned 3000ish cover art files I wasn't using, and didn't have an easy way to eliminate before.

Very nice!!

*It left 4 jpgs in the original Cover art folder, not sure why, but not a problem for me, just a curious thing really.  The 3 albums do exist in the library, as does the one video file "DVDVideo - Elegy.jpg"; which is also shown as "Elegy.jpg" in the Videos subfolder.

Running it a second time took under a second, and did remove the 3 album covers, but still left the video cover.

[gappie]

im not totally understanding this.

4. Changed: Cover art assigned to video or data files is always stored next to the file

and:

Inside the cover art folder, Media Center will attempt to use human readable naming.  It will look like:
[Cover Art]\Albums\[Artist] - [Album].jpg
[Cover Art]\Series\[Series name].jpg
[Cover Art]\Artists\[Artist].jpg
[Cover Art]\Videos\[Name].jpg
[Cover Art]\Files\[File Key].jpg

so not always next to the file?

ps: did a cleanup of the coverart folder.. i stored in in a special folder, and in the files them selfs.. in the folder all my covers disappeared. there was a new folder called 'albums' though.. empty nonthe less.

 
gab

[gappie]

ps: did a cleanup of the coverart folder.. i stored in in a special folder, and in the files them selfs.. in the folder all my covers disappeared. there was a new folder called 'albums' though.. empty nonthe less.

im not getting this change... a cleanup means removing all my album art from the external folder?  i just did a coverart>save coverart to external location specified in options... and it copied a cover (just did 1 album) to the right place. then a cleanup removed him again...  ?

[Matt]

im not totally understanding this.

and:
so not always next to the file?

Maybe I didn't explain that well.  From the first post:

Sometimes a need arises to save cover art for a file that can not support artwork next to it.  Imagine setting an image for a file on an optical disk.  In these cases, the cover art is placed in the cover art folder.

[Matt]

im not getting this change... a cleanup means removing all my album art from the external folder?  i just did a coverart>save coverart to external location specified in options... and it copied a cover (just did 1 album) to the right place. then a cleanup removed him again...  ?

It removes cover art that is not referenced by the library.  If the artwork is in your file tags, there's no real need to keep a second copy in the cover art folder.

[gappie]

ok   . maybe it should be clear in the options then?  and why is it called audio mode? it works for video apparently the same.


 
gab

[Matt]

and why is it called audio mode? it works for video apparently the same.

At the top of this thread I describe how audio and video is stored.  The option is only used for audio.

[Alex B]

OMG, I was requesting a baby step (mainly to protect cover art from unintended deletion in the future), but now we got this. It is a brave step and I am sure that the end result will be good. Since these changes impact many things it seems obvious that the new system is not yet quite finished and bug free.

I have been busy with other things, but I tested the new build very briefly and already noticed a few oddities and bugs. I guess there is more to come. I can do more testing over the coming weekend and post a proper report.

For now, I wouldn't recommend releasing this cover art system publicly. If you would like to release a public build before the next week, it could be the build 54 or if you have promised some changes that are only in the build 55 or later, you could publicly release 56 with the old cover art system, and perhaps 57 with the new system for beta testing.

[Matt]

but I tested the new build very briefly and already noticed a few oddities and bugs.

Could you give a brief summary?

I'd like to iron out any issues today.

Thanks.

[MrHaugen]

I've not been able to check out the new build yet. It's good that we now have a reliable system to separate the art from the media it self. I like that. Well done. Looking forward to checking it out.

I also hope the system will have some flexibility as to where this folders is placed. At least in the future. Editing sidecar files to point MC to the right location for art is not the best way. Editing sidecar files at all, to get correct metadata is not great.

[JustinChase]

I've not been able to check out the new build yet. It's good that we now have a reliable system to separate the art from the media it self.

Not for video files (yet?).  The episode images sit next to the videos currently.  Only Audio allows cover art to be put in another folder.

I also hope the system will have some flexibility as to where this folders is placed.

For Audio and Season cover art, this is currently possible, and works well in my testing so far.

[gappie]

At the top of this thread I describe how audio and video is stored.  The option is only used for audio.

well then call me dumb.. how i read it...:

audio covers are stored as set in the coverart options: audio mode.
video covers are always stored next to the file.
except those that are for some reason stored in the coverart directory you set by setting the audio mode to : 'in specific folder'
and when set 'also store image in files tag', the only files stored in the option set in audio mode are the video covers, in a folder coverart/video.

 ?

and i know my english is not that good but. i tried to get a new cover for a movie and it stored in the specific folder and not next to the file. (while typing this after changing the audio mode settings it does seems to work).



btw... i think it is a bad idea to just remove the covers when the image is also in the file. reripping all or one file will make quick find in coverart directory useless. i scanned all my albumart and that folder was a backup at least.

and i really dont like the idea that i can not say where i store my video jpgs.. they were just fine where they are.. and im not sure where i need a coverart folder for then, it will end up empty except for empty folders that are named video and audio

[JustinChase]

i tried to get a new cover for a movie and it stored in the specific folder and not next to the file.

the Series artwork is considered cover art, and goes into that folder.  the Episodic art that is obtained from the 'Get Movie & TV info...' is what sits next to the video files, and isn't optional

btw... i think it is a bad idea to just remove the covers when the image is also in the file. reripping all or one file will make quick find in coverart directory useless. i scanned all my albumart and that folder was a backup at least.

and i really dont like the idea that i can not say where i store my video jpgs..

I agree

I'm also curious if the same quality/resolution is retained by storing them in the files, or will people lose high quality scans with this tool, if they also keep them in the actual files?

[Alex B]

Could you give a brief summary?

I'd like to iron out any issues today.

Thanks.

Here is a preliminary list that I wrote after my brief test. It is incomplete, unfinished and unsorted. I wrote the notes mainly for my future testing.

- The "automatic moving" sounds a bit dangerous. Does it happen immediately when just the path string is changed in the options? I'd like to be able to run the process at a preferred time.
(Did this already change in your above description? I can't find it anymore.)

- I also would like to keep my audio cover art in the album folders, but be able to store other cover art that cannot not go to the album folder in my preferred location (for instance the artist images).

- Regarding video cover art will the automatic renaming apply also to them. For example, I have a TV series that has one common cover art image and 22 video files in each "season" folder (5 different cover art images for five seasons). I would not like to duplicate the cover art file 22 times.

- Have you considered duplicate name handling? For example, "setting: album cover art in single folder" and more than one "(Multiple Artists) - Best Of" albums. The old system overwrote the duplicates.

- After importing a bunch of audio files to a new library and specifying a certain old cover art folder, the Quick Find tool does not work. Does it check only the non-existent "Albums" subfolder or is it totally broken?

- Will this system preserve cover art, if it is stored in the default location (still in appdata?) when the user "fully" uninstalls MC17 after installing a future version?

- Does this work correctly with a portable install?

[gappie]

the Series artwork is considered cover art, and goes into that folder.  the Episodic art that is obtained from the 'Get Movie & TV info...' is what sits next to the video files, and isn't optional

i have not the faintest idea what series artwork is and how, and especialy why it should be different from episodic art  ? i just want the cover from my movies, and at the place where i store them for ages.

 
gab

[Matt]

Thanks Alex.  That list looks like mostly clarification (which I'm happy to provide a little later), but you said we should hold release because there appear to be scary bugs.  I'm particularly interested in what these might be, because I haven't seen them myself.

Thanks.

[JustinChase]

i have not the faintest idea what series artwork is and how, and especialy why it should be different from episodic art  ? i just want the cover from my movies, and at the place where i store them for ages.

I understand.  They are both for TV Shows.  Series atrwork is the cover art for a TV Show, often taken from the DVD, and is shown in TheaterView when browsing "Shows".  Episode art is a thumbnail from each individual TV show.  It's downloaded when you use the new 'Get Movie & TV info' tool, and is always stored next to the individual shows.

Cover art for Movies is basically the same as Series artwork, but downloaded/scraped from different locatons/databases, but effectively the same.  These covers are what gets put in the "Cover art" folder, which you can customize/change the location of.

[JustinChase]

...there appear to be scary bugs.  I'm particularly interested in what these might be, because I haven't seen them myself.

I'm also curious if the same quality/resolution is retained by storing them in the files, or will people lose high quality scans with this tool, if they also keep them in the actual files?

Also, it is a pretty big change, and has barely been tested.  I'm also not so sure turning this loose on the general public before the weekend is a great idea.  It might lead to issues that thorough testing might otherwise prevent.

I "lost" 3000 covers when using it.  I suspect this is fine/correct for what I intended it to do, but others might not agree.

[gappie]

I understand.  They are both for TV Shows.  Series atrwork is the cover art for a TV Show, often taken from the DVD, and is shown in TheaterView when browsing "Shows".  Episode art is a thumbnail from each individual TV show.  It's downloaded when you use the new 'Get Movie & TV info' tool, and is always stored next to the individual shows.

Cover art for Movies is basically the same as Series artwork, but downloaded/scraped from different locatons/databases, but effectively the same.  These covers are what gets put in the "Cover art" folder, which you can customize/change the location of.

thank you...

well one of the several reasons i stored the covers in an external folder is that i have my movies on external disks.. they are off, except when i need them. when i look for a movie the popup also gave me the cover.. now i have to turn on all the external hd's to see those.. they are not part of the thumbs folder of mc.

[Alex B]

Thanks Alex.  That list looks like mostly clarification (which I'm happy to provide a little later), but you said we should hold release because there appear to be scary bugs.  I'm particularly interested in what these might be, because I haven't seen them myself.

Automatic moving when just a new path is written in the box would have been scary. (Was this in your original description or where did I get it from?)

Consider a potential new user who has folder.jpg images and inconsistent file tags running the MC trial and experimenting with the cover art options.

Have you actually tested if this works correctly when an MC16 (or earlier) user is testing MC17, but does not want to make the move yet.

[MrHaugen]

Not for video files (yet?).  The episode images sit next to the videos currently.  Only Audio allows cover art to be put in another folder.

Oh. Bummer. I hopes we could have everything in this directory.

Well... It's a great start at least. This Cover art folder will be able to contain any new Art files that MC introduces later on. Like season, banner and manual backdrops. That is good. I would however also be very happy if there is also a way of moving the episode screen shots to this cover folder.

Structure could be:
[Cover Art]\Series\Season\[Series name] - [Season]E[Episode].jpg

[gappie]

Consider a potential new user that has folder.jpg images and inconsistent file tags running the MC trial and experimenting with the cover art options.

guess they will feel WMP'd. i would.

and actually... i do, and im a user.

[gappie]

my wife, i just explained her, thought it was funny... a cover art folder where you can not store the coverart. i wonder how much wiki is needed to explain that.

i think you are trying to do two things at the same time. there is coverart and this other art, and both deserve their own setting.

[MrHaugen]

my wife, i just explained her, thought it was funny... a cover art folder where you can not store the coverart. i wonder how much wiki is needed to explain that.

i think you are trying to do two things at the same time. there is coverart and this other art, and both deserve their own setting.

I suppose it could be intuitive if the user was allowed to add art in the Cover Art directory. The user would have to be very careful with the naming for MC to pick it up though. I doubt however, that MC does this in it's current state..

[Matt]

Next build:
Changed: Cleaning the cover art folder will only delete album images for artist / album values that aren't in the library (even if no files reference the artwork).

[Matt]

Automatic moving when just a new path is written in the box would have been scary. (Was this in your original description or where did I get it from?)

Consider a potential new user who has folder.jpg images and inconsistent file tags running the MC trial and experimenting with the cover art options.

Import would find their folder.jpg files and their inconsistent file tag images.

Auto-import might get some cover art for them, and this would be stored in the cover art folder (which by default is a private JRiver folder).

I don't think there's anything scary.

[JustinChase]

Next build:
Changed: Cleaning the cover art folder will only delete album images for artist / album values that aren't in the library (even if no files reference the artwork).

I take this to mean that "as long as the album is in the library, the corresponding cover art will be left alone, even if you're not 'using' it currently", which I think is a great change, thanks.

[Alex B]

Good point.  We need to make sure sidecar cover art doesn't get imported.

... unless preferred. I have imported and tagged my cover art files so that I can move them together with the other files. I have explained this 1001 times.

Actually, this reminds me about the most requested thing. The users want to move their unimported sidecar cover art files together with the imported media files.

Personally I have a lot of additional stuff in the file folders, other cover images (back, CD, booklet), documents (reviews, liner notes, rip logs), etc. I have imported them and I use a custom view for organizing them.

[Matt]

- The "automatic moving" sounds a bit dangerous. Does it happen immediately when just the path string is changed in the options? I'd like to be able to run the process at a preferred time.
(Did this already change in your above description? I can't find it anymore.)

Like I mentioned above, I'm not sure what you mean by this.

- I also would like to keep my audio cover art in the album folders, but be able to store other cover art that cannot not go to the album folder in my preferred location (for instance the artist images).

I believe you've always been able to do this, and that hasn't changed.

- Regarding video cover art will the automatic renaming apply also to them. For example, I have a TV series that has one common cover art image and 22 video files in each "season" folder (5 different cover art images for five seasons). I would not like to duplicate the cover art file 22 times.

You can pick any number of files and use Cover Art > Add From File...  If you say "yes, copy the file to the spot in options", it should create a sidecar image for each video.  This is required to support per-episode artwork.

- Have you considered duplicate name handling? For example, "setting: album cover art in single folder" and more than one "(Multiple Artists) - Best Of" albums. The old system overwrote the duplicates.

There are no changes here.

- After importing a bunch of audio files to a new library and specifying a certain old cover art folder, the Quick Find tool does not work. Does it check only the non-existent "Albums" subfolder or is it totally broken?

It only checks in the 'Albums' subfolder.

- Will this system preserve cover art, if it is stored in the default location (still in appdata?) when the user "fully" uninstalls MC17 after installing a future version?

There have been no changes to this.  We might move to 'My Documents' as you suggested, but first we had to write a move tool (which is in the build).

[Matt]

... unless preferred. I have imported and tagged my cover art files so that I can move them together with the other files. I have explained this 1001 times.

I know.  We won't do anything to limit you on this.

Actually, this reminds me about the most requested thing. The users want to move their unimported sidecar cover art files together with the imported media files.

Personally I have a lot of additional stuff in the file folders, other cover images (back, CD, booklet), documents (reviews, liner notes, rip logs), etc. I have imported them and I use a custom view for organizing them.

Sidecar images will move nicely in today's build.  The "lots of additional stuff" will have to wait.

[jgreen]

If I understand this (and I make no guarrantees), this is a great development that both streamlines and empowers (I copied that from one of JimH's press releases).

Like Alex, I want to import my cover- and artist-art, but like the others I don't want it cluttering up image views, unless I'm looking for cover art.

I wish I could test this out, but all my covert art is on my new computer, which is back revisiting the factory.  For once the issue was not a misunderstanding with the finance company (after all, the first paymant hadn't even gone past due yet).  Rather, due to a defect in the--wait for it--display.

[rick.ca]

Like Alex, I want to import my cover- and artist-art, but like the others I don't want it cluttering up image views, unless I'm looking for cover art.

Like any view, your Rules for file display will determine which files are included, and which are excluded.

[Alex B]

Two names that do not work when the "Save Cover Art To External Location Specified In Options" tool is used for moving folder.jpg to the specified single folder.

Album Artist (auto): The Doors
Album: The Doors: 40th Anniversary Mixes
The expected filename: The Doors - The Doors_ 40th Anniversary Mixes.jpg
The resulting filename: The Doors - The Doors  without a filename extension, the resulting file size is zero
The resulting Image File field value: ...\The Doors - The Doors: 40th Anniversary Mixes.jpg

Album Artist (auto): Yngwie Malmsteen
Album: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Yngwie Malmsteen
The expected filename: Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection_ The Best of Yngwie Malmsteen.jpg
The resulting filename: Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection  without a filename extension, the resulting file size is zero
The resulting Image File field value: ...\Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection.jpg

Edit: the expected yngwie was wrong

[Matt]

Two names that do not work when the "Save Cover Art To External Location Specified In the Options" tool is used for moving folder.jpg to the specified single folder.

Album Artist (auto): The Doors
Album: The Doors: 40th Anniversary Mixes
The expected filename: The Doors - The Doors_ 40th Anniversary Mixes.jpg
The resulting name: The Doors - The Doors  without a filename extension, the resulting file size is zero
The resulting Image File field value: ...\The Doors - The Doors: 40th Anniversary Mixes.jpg

Album Artist (auto): Yngwie Malmsteen
Album: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Yngwie Malmsteen
The expected name: : Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters_ The Millennium Collection.jpg
The resulting name: Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection  without a filename extension, the resulting file size is zero
The resulting Image File field value: ...\Yngwie Malmsteen - 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection.jpg

Next build:
Fixed: The updated cover art system wasn't properly handling characters in the artist and album that weren't possible file system characters.

[Alex B]

Import would find their folder.jpg files and their inconsistent file tag images.

Auto-import might get some cover art for them, and this would be stored in the cover art folder (which by default is a private JRiver folder).

I don't think there's anything scary.

I was afraid that changing the cover art path would trigger a library wide cover art move and delete all folder.jpg or other linked cover art files from the old locations. Apparently it moves only the files that are linked from the previous specified cover art folder. This is one of the things that I had not actually tested earlier.

Regarding inconsistent tagging, I meant inconsistent or missing Artist and Album tags (or untagged wave files with only the Name tag inside the library.) An accidental library wide move from folder.jpg to a single folder could have destroyed most of the user's cover art collection or at least made it unusable with other programs.

[Alex B]

Build 56,

I intended to test the fixed illegal characters handling, but "Save Cover Art To External Location Specified In Options" didn't work at all when I tried to copy folder.jpg audio cover art to the specified location (W:\_pMCmedia\art\). Nothing appeared in the the Albums subfolder and the Image File field continued to show "Folder.jpg".

The tool worked with video cover art as described. It correctly created 22 "episode" sidecar images from the old single "series" image (I had 22 video files and one cover art file in the test folder).

[JimH]

I wish I could test this out, but all my covert art is on my new computer, which is back revisiting the factory.  For once the issue was not a misunderstanding with the finance company (after all, the first paymant hadn't even gone past due yet).  Rather, due to a defect in the--wait for it--display.

A long time ago, I sent a Sony VAIO back because it had problems with the front facing camera.  It came back with a picture of the guy who had repaired it.

[JimH]

OMG, I was requesting a baby step ...

I think this is the first time I've ever seen you sit up straight and utter a near-profanity.   Matt and John deserve a lot of credit for getting your compleat attention.

Hyvää Joulua

And thanks for ten years of helping us walk straight!