Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[zerocool]

I still regard myself as a newcomer to MC. I use it on my HTPC (99% of the time in Theatre View) and have tried most media center programs.

I have more than 2000 albums, all hand tagged and the individual files embedded with cover art. I have folders for each artist and in these folders my albums are stored in individual sub folders – all containing a folder.jpg which is the Album Art for each album.

Most of the embedded cover art is the same as the folder.jpg’s but I pride myself in tagging tracks that have been released as singles with cover art for the single.

All other media centers and software players I have tried, natively creates the album thumbnails from the different folder.jpg’s  and only displays the embedded art when a given track is played. MC, as fare that I have discovered, quit strangely ignores the folder.jpg’s and instead look at the very first file in an album when creating the thumbnails. Anyways this is the behavior I have observed in Standard View, but this is not always the case in Theatre View where it seems more random which cover art is chosen as the Album Art. The result is that cover art for singles frequently shows up as Album Art.

Is there any way that I can get “normal handling” of my cover art from MC?

[vagskal]

I have made the exact same observations as you. Having MC always use the folder.jpg to represent the art for the entire album would be great, or at least having MC in Theatre view behave as in standard view.

I make for every album that has track art a dummy very short mp3 file with track # 0 and embed the folder.jpg image in that file. This gives me correct album art in standard view, but unfortunately it does not work in theatre view. There are a few downsides to this approach: The album gets marked as "incomplete" by MC and the track # count is of course off by one. Previously it was also a hassle to remember to copy to the dummy file all album related fields I use for grouping, but this is much easier now with the copy and paste tags function.

[jmone]

I too have previously commented that it would be great to have Album art and Track art displayed as appropriate.  This really makes sence if I create say a Top 100 for 2012 Album but want to keep art for each track.

[zerocool]

I have made the exact same observations as you. Having MC always use the folder.jpg to represent the art for the entire album would be great, or at least having MC in Theatre view behave as in standard view.

Well this problem seems to be in the bug category. It would be great to hear from the developer team if any fix is in the pipeline?

I make for every album that has track art a dummy very short mp3 file with track # 0 and embed the folder.jpg image in that file. This gives me correct album art in standard view, but unfortunately it does not work in theatre view. There are a few downsides to this approach: The album gets marked as "incomplete" by MC and the track # count is of course off by one. Previously it was also a hassle to remember to copy to the dummy file all album related fields I use for grouping, but this is much easier now with the copy and paste tags function.

Tanks, I appreciate your input. As I predominately use Theater View this unfortunately doesn’t help me.

In any case I would like to see MC healed and not just equipped with crutches.

I too have previously commented that it would be great to have Album art and Track art displayed as appropriate.  This really makes sence if I create say a Top 100 for 2012 Album but want to keep art for each track.

It not only makes sense. It is the way all other software players/media centers work, making it quite a headache migrating to MC. 

[Matt]

Sorry, but unique album art per track isn't supported.  We consider album art the atomic artwork for music.  We do support artist, series, and season category images.

You can read more about the cover art system here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

Someday we may better support a distinction between track and album art, or multiple images per track.

[vagskal]

or multiple images per track.

Multiple images per ALBUM would be more useful, for showing all cover art for the album, front, back, inside, inlay, cd and booklet.

Thanks for considering.

PS. I agree with the OP that the different behaviour between standard and theatre view smells like a bug. Standard view behaviour shows that the logic is already there somewhere but just not applied to theatre view.

[zerocool]

We consider album art the atomic artwork for music.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

“Atomic artwork” – I have never heard that term before. Could you please elaborate?

Someday we may better support a distinction between track and album art, or multiple images per track.

Hoping that it will come with build 18.0.?? 

Thanks for considering. I see that we are not alone in our request: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=76215.0

Multiple images per ALBUM would be more useful, for showing all cover art for the album, front, back, inside, inlay, cd and booklet.

How would that work?

[leezer3]

In situations like this, I tend to add an image to the album, and use a viewscheme that allows audio and images with a custom calculated sort.

Basically- Custom field CompilationSortID is a calculated field that contains 0 for images, 1 for audio, 2 for video and 3 for data. I then set the sort within an album to first CompilationSortID, then second track number and third alphabetically.

Better than nothing

-Leezer-

[wildcatknh]

Sorry, but unique album art per track isn't supported.  We consider album art the atomic artwork for music.  We do support artist, series, and season category images.

You can read more about the cover art system here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Cover_Art

Someday we may better support a distinction between track and album art, or multiple images per track.

I am able to assign different artwork to different tracks and it shows up in both standard view and theater view.  However, it does appear that the primary album covert art is linked to the first track's artwork.

[Vincent Kars]

We do support artist, series, and season category images.

As a lover of classical music I would love to see Composer images.

[audioriver]

+1 for this. I have one album, with tracks that embed their own separate cover. I was about to ask in the forum if it's possible to change the "first track" album art MC arbitrary applies but it seems not possible. Please add support for this.

[6233638]

Sorry, but unique album art per track isn't supported.  We consider album art the atomic artwork for music.  We do support artist, series, and season category images.

It seems to be working here?



Source

[zerocool]

It seems to be working here?



Source

Well, I see that you have individual covers for each track (embedded in the files), but what is shown as the cover for the whole album (that isn’t shown in your screen dump)? From the way I have observed MC is behaving, I’m guessing the Album Art thumbnail is getting created from the artwork in the album’s first track and thereby any Folder.jpg’s are getting ignored.

[6233638]

Well, I see that you have individual covers for each track (embedded in the files), but what is shown as the cover for the whole album (that isn’t shown in your screen dump)? From the way I have observed MC is behaving, I’m guessing the Album Art thumbnail is getting created from the artwork in the album’s first track and thereby any Folder.jpg’s are getting ignored.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they had an overall Album cover, but Matt had said it wasn't possible to have different art on a per-track basis. (perhaps I misunderstood what he had meant by that)

It would be nice to have that option.

[zerocool]

Someday we may better support a distinction between track and album art

Have you given my request any additional thoughts?

I'm not a programmer, but as I see it, it would probably be an minor task to implement this feature.

MC would have to look for any Folder.jpg's in the album folders and if these are present, let the Folder.jpg's take priority over any embedded art when creating thumbnails for albums.