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[gottwavo]

I have a new setup: My music files are now all on a server in the basement and I play the music from a client in the living room. When I recognize having too small cover art for example and I download better one from the internet to paste and save it into the mp3 file I do not see that this change is ending up on the server. I have not checked how changing some mp3 tags is handled.

Can someone explain how to do this best?

(Yes I could go down to server an do all changes there, and yes I have enabled Library Sync in the Options)

[JimH]

Are you using authentication on the server?  It's required for sync.

[gottwavo]

Are you using authentication on the server?  It's required for sync.

Yes I do.

[gottwavo]

I have done some changes in the tags of media files and they are synchronized with the server, when I do this via "Sync Changes with the Library Server". However, when I add a new/modified cover to the file on the client side, it seems the changes are not accepted. Nor do I see them on the client and not on the server. It even seems the initial cover disappeared on the server.

Can anyone explain how to do this the correct way? Or is not possible what I'm trying to do?

[Hendrik]

Sadly cover art cannot be changed on a client at this time. Its something I would really like to have though, so maybe it'll happen.

[Arindelle]

I have done some changes in the tags of media files and they are synchronized with the server, when I do this via "Sync Changes with the Library Server". However, when I add a new/modified cover to the file on the client side, it seems the changes are not accepted. Nor do I see them on the client and not on the server. It even seems the initial cover disappeared on the server.

Can anyone explain how to do this the correct way? Or is not possible what I'm trying to do?

Basically if you have the autosync option on, this happens "periodically" to not swamp the network probably. If you are doing a lot of tagging, you should manually sync pretty often. I have found the server could even overwrite your tags in process (sometimes I turn the autosync off btw). Auto-sync is not done in real time in any case.

There are a few things you can't do from a client: rip; backup and restore; rename, move files from library tools (well that depends, but on my set-up I can't),  importing new media and ... which effects what you are doing ... modify or add cover art. The best way I have found is to install Teamviewer  on both client and server PCs -- its incredibly easy to use out of the box (and its free for personal use). and just remotely do these operations like your artwork from the client PC but working directly on the server PC.

If you have Windows Pro or enterprise you can use Remote Desktop but I find this really slow and not as easy to set up if you aren't use to it.

I hardly do any admin on the server PC anymore except if I have a lot of ripping to do. You can even rip on your client and use the file transfer option, then import without leaving teamviewer -- its seems faster than copying over the network in windows, but not sure how it could be.

[gottwavo]

Arindelle,
Thanks for this explanation. I use VNC for remote access to the server. This works perfectly. I thought I could do the cover art changes on the client, but obviously I can't. And the server is not too far away ... one floor only ... has a monitor and keyboard connected ... this keeps me moving ...

[gottwavo]

Just an addition to the above:

If MC had a better way of a) finding good cover art (800 px and more) and b) displaying the size of cover art and be able to sort by width or height it would be much easier to exchange not so good cover art with good one. I have a database with 485,000 files. This is too big to do this manually. In the last three years I always tried to capture larger files, however years ago large files where simply not available, but now they are mostly.

I have requested these features several times over years and it seems that not too many people want it and like it, specially not the developers of any new release.

A few years ago I had used a method as described here: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=67871.0. But this seems far too complicated. Somehow it should be possible to identify the dimensions of coverart. When you go to "Cover Art --> get from Internet" the system somehow knows the size of my coverart. So why isn't it captured in some tags and I can sort by it?

Also MC is not good in finding good coverart. I currently have configured my system via "send to --> external" to open Album Art Downloader and copy and paste the coverart from there into MC. Why can't MC directly connect to Album Art Downloader an do this for me?

If anyone from MC reads this: may be think about it in MC20 and look at this as a feature request. I hope I'm not the only one with this request.

[astromo]

Just an addition to the above:

If MC had a better way of a) finding good cover art (800 px and more) and b) displaying the size of cover art and be able to sort by width or height it would be much easier to exchange not so good cover art with good one. I have a database with 485,000 files. This is too big to do this manually. In the last three years I always tried to capture larger files, however years ago large files where simply not available, but now they are mostly.

...

If anyone from MC reads this: may be think about it in MC20 and look at this as a feature request. I hope I'm not the only one with this request.

Maybe you were but I'll add my vote.. 

[JimH]

If MC had a better way of a) finding good cover art (800 px and more) and b) displaying the size of cover art and be able to sort by width or height it would be much easier to exchange not so good cover art with good one. I have a database with 485,000 files. This is too big to do this manually. In the last three years I always tried to capture larger files, however years ago large files where simply not available, but now they are mostly.

MC has a pretty good database of cover art.  If you do it manually, you can select among the choices, but if you do it automatically, it will give you the best it has, and this choice is based on how other people have chosen.  It uses a sort of voting system to arrive at the best choice.  It's worth trying a few.

[csimon]

Basically if you have the autosync option on, this happens "periodically" to not swamp the network probably.

This is oft-quoted, but I don't understand what level of information could possibly be going across the network in order to swamp it. An individual library entry for a track...we're probably talking about bytes here, not even kilobytes. Even if changes have been done to hundreds/thousands of tracks in bulk (how often is that?), people are streaming HD videos over the network with no issue, client/server database communication over a network should be no issue at all.

I hardly do any admin on the server PC anymore except if I have a lot of ripping to do. You can even rip on your client and use the file transfer option, then import without leaving teamviewer -- its seems faster than copying over the network in windows, but not sure how it could be.

Why should there be a need to copy files manually over a network, using Windows Explorer or any other file transfer tool? The rip process automatically puts the ripped files in whatever location you have specified in settings, which could well be a network location such as a NAS or PC acting as the file server (i.e. the PC running the "server" version of MC) if it's not the PC you are currently ripping on.  Indeed, that's what I currently do. The only difference is that I have to detach the client from the server first and load a local library in order to do this, manually run an import on the server, then reload the remote library on the client, becuase MC is unable to put the metadata into a remote library. The rip process rips to the network location anyway - what could possibly be different or impractical about doing this from a "client"?

[gottwavo]

I have tried this database and when I import files the coverart from the MC datebase is automtically dowloaded. However mostly the files are much smaller than what you get from Album Art Downloader, exept for contemporary pop music. (I am more on Jazz, R&B and Classical). When I update the coverart from Album Art Downloader in my files I always automatically upload them back to the MC database. This way I'm contributing to good and better coverart.
And why does MC have it's own database and not just use the method that Album Art Downloader uses?

Just one example with a new addition to my music collection right now:
I imported Joe Newman, Essential Jazz Masters (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Joe%20Newman%2C%20Essential%20Jazz%20Masters). MC Database coverart is 170 px wide, ok they have the cover at least. When you run Album Art Downloader you get coverart of 1200 px ... much better.

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

Sadly cover art cannot be changed on a client at this time. Its something I would really like to have though, so maybe it'll happen.

I have just discovered the same—using MC 20.0.40 on a Mac. My library is on the server, and I connect to it using a client MC. I have noticed that I can change tags, but I cannot add/replace cover art. If I do that, the original art actually gets deleted from the track! Is this a feature planned for the future? It would make library management in a server-client-renderer (like Id) setup easier. Many thanks.