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[suffolk tony]

Hi, I've just installed JRiver and imported my existing library which is held on a separate HD. Unfortunately only about 30% of the album artwork's made it across from the iTunes installation. As there're rather a lot of albums I'm not really keen on going through each one individually & pasting the artwork in.

I've tried unsuccessfully to locate and import the existing artwork - it appears to be held in some form on the main computer's HD under Music/itunes/album artwork/cache, but when I try to access this nothing happens, there are just a lot of folders within folders with strings of numbers. I can't understand why only some of the artwork has been imported.

Help and advice would be much appreciated!

[JimH]

Welcome.  Select a few and try a right click, Cover Art, Get from Internet.

It means that your cover art wasn't in the files.

[Fred1]

Embed your artwork into the files.

Look here: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=embedart

[suffolk tony]

Thank you for your help folks. I've been right-clicking a small selection of files, then selecting Album Artwork, Download From Internet. This works but it's very slow ( three hours & I'm up to C...), and for a few albums the artwork isn't available.

What I can't understand is that, somewhere on my 'puter, the artwork from my iTunes installation's intact. Is there really no way to find this? Sorry, my computer skills are distinctly rusty (comes from being an Apple user for a few years)

[JimH]

MC will do this automatically, without asking you to choose, if you select all the files.  Just run it overnight.

[suffolk tony]

Thanks Jim. Errr... What is MC please?

[JohnT]

Media Center

[suffolk tony]

  oh... So, if I select all the files without artwork & leave JRiver running, it will automatically download the album artwork from the internet? Without me doing anything else?

[suffolk tony]

I've put MC on the back burner for a few days but though I'd persist with it for a bit longer.

Has anyone an answer to my previous query please?

[MrC]

if you select all the files and run Get from Internet, MC will appropriately queue the cover art lookups so as not to overwhelm your system or the remove cover art server with requests.  That's what JimH was indicating in his message to Select all and Get from Internet (and the rest is automatic).  Automatic might be better stated as "will proceed in the background over time until done".

[Fred1]

Personally i would recommend to first get album art from the iTunes store.
The reason is quality.

Therefore i clear cover art within iTunes (by means of an Apple Script).
This is necessary because iTunes imports art with lower quality (300 ppi) when there is cover art already in the file.
After clearing out the cover art, i import the pictures with iTunes again (this time with 600 ppi) in really good quality (sharpness and color).
Finally you have to "embed" the cover art with another Apple Script to get the new pictures into the music files.

This sounds like much work - and that it is.
But the quality is really good.
Much of the cover art i need can be found in the iTunes store.
The rest i get from Goole or MC.

[suffolk tony]

OK, thanks for the help folks. Fred, I'd be reluctant to do as you suggest - I'm still using iTunes whilst evaluating MC (the jury's out...), and many of the album covers' artwork aren't available through the iTunes store, I've had to cut & paste them from elsewhere.

I'll do as MrC suggests & leave it running overnight.

[BartMan01]

What I can't understand is that, somewhere on my 'puter, the artwork from my iTunes installation's intact. Is there really no way to find this? Sorry, my computer skills are distinctly rusty (comes from being an Apple user for a few years)

You are running in to one of the major issues with iTunes.  Apple doesn't store much back in the actual file tags from your iTunes library, it is most all all just stored in the library itself.  If you want to use your media outside of the Apple ecosystem, other programs rely on the data in the tags and if it is not there then there is nothing for them to use.

[Fred1]

As stated in reply #2 in this thread, it is possible to store your artwork from the iTunes library into your files by using an AppleScript.
Please read the link provided.

[Ian M]

OK, thanks for the help folks. Fred, I'd be reluctant to do as you suggest - I'm still using iTunes whilst evaluating MC (the jury's out...), and many of the album covers' artwork aren't available through the iTunes store, I've had to cut & paste them from elsewhere.

I'll do as MrC suggests & leave it running overnight.

I'm evaluating jriver same as you. I have jriver library set to auto import from my iTunes location. On ally existing albums in iTunes I have run the re-embed script, missing artwork will then automatically show up in jriver. This is still laborious though as the script will only do one album at a time. I think it's the quickest way though. The Doug's script site explains how to use the scripts.

[Fred1]

... This is still laborious though as the script will only do one album at a time.

In most cases i can run the script with a bunch of albums without trouble.
But you shouldn't play a song from the marked titles when re-embedding the artwork.