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[dcpete]

This is getting frustrating.  I have cover art for all my movies located in an external folder named CoverArt in MC15.  When I import my movies in MC17, I lose the link to the CoverArt directory in the Sidecar.  In other words, the Image tag becomes blank.  I do have  Options/File Location/Cover Art set to the CoverArt directory in MC17.  When I import my movies in MC17, this directory is included, and I enable images and video. If I try to  do a Quickfind/Cover Art Directory, it always finds the wrong cover art and always the same cover art no matter what movie I try to select.  I'm at a loss of what to do next.  This basic functionality seems broken.  Hopefully I'm doing something really obvious wrong.  Thanks in advance for any tips on this.

Chris

[Matt]

You might just backup your library in MC 15 and restore in MC 17.

There should be no need to do a fresh import.

[dcpete]

Ok, that did work.  It was fast and easy.  I appreciate the work-around.  I still think something is broken here.  Import should work with cover art, but doesn't.

Chris

[Matt]

I'm not sure if the sidecar tag stores a link to the external cover art.

However, there were some changes to how video cover art is stored in v17.  There are some (long) threads here and technical details here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

[dcpete]

As far as I can tell the sidecar file does contain a link to the external cover art file/directory.  But it is not an editable field.  IMO. there is something broken here (or probably never worked since version 15).  The problem is importing an existing library with a new release.  The image tag is not maintained correctly.  Maybe there's something under the covers I don't understand.  But this is something for the developers to figure out.  I've read the threads and don't see anyone complaining about this problem.

Chris

[Alex B]

For some reason the Image File field is not included in the sidecar file. I noticed this immediately when the sidecar system was introduced and this is one of the reasons why I usually have sidecar creation disabled. I always export MPL playlist files to my root video folders. They contain all library fields.

For example, my Babylon 5 TV series folder contains five subfolders, one for each season and I have an MPL file in the root Babylon 5 folder that includes all about 100 episodes. I exported it with the "relative path" option enabled so that the file paths contain only the first directory level aka the season folders. Whenever I want import the series to a new library I just import the MPL file and it will also create the correct Image File field values (which are non-standard in this case). If I want to copy this series folder to a laptop to watch the episodes outside home, a different drive letter and/or root folder will not be a problem because they are not included in the MPL file. I can simply drag & drop the MPL file to a new MC library to import the complete series with all library data.

However restoring an MC15 library backup file should work as well and the old Image File values should show up. Did you actually create a library backup file in MC15 and restore it in MC17 by using the File > Library > Back Up / Restore Library... feature?

Or did the restore work and you are speaking only about importing? One thing that MC17 simply does not support is the old cover art location and naming convention. You can't force MC to check a certain folder for video cover art and even if you move the cover art files to the video folders the old default names are wrong.

[dcpete]

Yes, backup/restore worked from MC15 to MC17.  And it seems to have restored all my views and cover art as well.  Very nice.    I am just trying to understand why import doesn't work properly for cover art as it applies to sidecars.  I have other machines that get updated externally.  Therein lies the problem.  Looking at the raw xml file now for a sidecar file,  I see the image tag is not in the xml file as you say?  Huh?  This makes no sense.  It means it must be maintained internally and external changes to the database are going to cause problems (as I am discovering).

I'm trying to digest your playlist solution.  Not sure it would work well for me.  I playback my movies using a PS3 and DNLA server of MC.

Chris

[Matt]

Images for videos should be saved next to the file, just like the sidecar.  If you do this (MC can help), any program including Media Center will find the images.

[dcpete]

Really?  I didn't do this on purpose because I didn't want to clutter up my content directories.  What is the purpose of having a configuration option to store cover art in an external directory if links are not maintained?  Sorry, seems like a bug.  I do appreciate the tip and may consider doing that.  I have read the thread on how to do this automatically.

Thanks, Chris

[Alex B]

...MC can help...

Chris,

When your old cover art filenames (& paths if the files are in a separate location) show up correctly in the Image File field you can select all video files in Standard View and do: "right-click > Cover Art > Save cover art to external location specified in options..." to create new cover art images that follow the new naming convention. After that other MC17 instances can find the cover art images automatically during import.

...What is the purpose of having a configuration option to store cover art in an external directory if links are not maintained?...

Actually, the cover art location option is now called "Audio mode: ...". For better or worse, the video cover art location is not configurable anymore.

You can still link any image file as cover art by hand (this hasn't changed), but now a "sidecar" image file is needed for the automatic discovery.

[dcpete]

Ok, just did that.  It was relatively easy to move all my cover art into the appropriate directories my movies are in, with that approach.  Thanks for the tip.

In case of audio, I embed the cover art, so it was never an issue.  I understand the pros and cons, but decided a long time ago embedding cover art in audio files was the safest way to go in terms of moving things around.  I don't care about the extra space taken up.  I just wish we could embed cover art into more types of video files.

Chris