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More => Old Versions => Media Center 14 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: Warbird777 on March 03, 2010, 11:59:47 am

Title: Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?
Post by: Warbird777 on March 03, 2010, 11:59:47 am

Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?

I am trying to get a handle on cover art in my media directories.
It is not clear what MC uses for its Album cover art image.

Is it the folder.jpg file in the Album's folder (some other named JPG file)?
Is it the image embedded inside one of the media file's tags, and if so which one (the first one)?
Does it come from somewhere online?
Or some combination of these?

And specifically, what does the Option [Auto-Import Folders - Options - Get Cover Art] control?

Title: Re: Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?
Post by: JimH on March 03, 2010, 01:59:34 pm

The wiki has info on cover art.
http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Cover_Art

Title: Re: Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?
Post by: Warbird777 on March 03, 2010, 06:57:11 pm

Quote from: JimH on March 03, 2010, 01:59:34 pm

The wiki has info on cover art. http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Cover_Art

The only mention of Cover Art in the Wiki is "Ignore special files (folder.jpg, etc.) - You may not want to automatically import certain special files into your library. For example if you are using the folder.jpg concept of cover art for your audio files, you may not want to include these files."

And I cannot find any description in the Wiki or in the Forum that explains what the Option [Auto-Import Folders - Options - Get Cover Art] controls.

Irrespective of the state of these settings, MC is displays Cover Art for several Albums that do not contain Folder.JPG files.
And in some cases the Art is wrong.

I am asking the question to understand where MC gets its Cover Art, so that I can correct this.

Title: Re: Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?
Post by: JimH on March 04, 2010, 08:22:16 am

Right click on any file and choose Cover Art/Get from Internet.  That uses our database and lets you select if there are multiples.

The option tells MC to do this automatically.  It chooses the most popular file if there are multiples.

Title: Re: Cover Art Question - what does the Option [Get Cover Art] control?
Post by: Alex B on March 04, 2010, 09:23:00 am

In addition to what Jim said,

- On media file import MC links existing cover art. It uses the location (& naming scheme) that is specified in the File Location options. If "folder.jpg" is not set the naming scheme is "Album Artist (auto) - Album.jpg". Naturally folder.jpg is possible only when the option is set to look the media file's folder.

- If the file has embedded cover art inside the file tags in a supported format this image has priority over external images.

- If no embedded or external local cover art is found and the auto-importer is set to "get cover art" then the online lookup is done automatically as a background process. The online database is based on user submissions and the search criteria is Album Artist (auto) - Album (i.e. the files need to be tagged).

- MC has a library field named Image File. It is useful for troubleshooting cover art problems. It can have four different type of field values:

1. the field is empty  (cover art is not linked or embedded)
2. Inside File  (embedded cover is present)
3) a plain filename without a folder path  (external cover art is linked from the media file's folder)
4) a filename with full directory path  (external cover is linked from this path)

You can add the Image File field as a column to a list view or add it to Action Window > Tag.