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[jeffulot]

?

There is so little info about COVER ART in both your version 8 and version 9.

I am really hoping your software will go to the net and automatically retrieve the album COVER ART like MUSICMATCH JUKEBOX.

I like the functionality of the rest of your packe a lot better, but I'm really into album art.

Is there some setting that will tell MEDIA JUKEBOX to go get the album art as I play the tracks?

This really is all I see that is preventing me from purchasing your product.

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

[rocketsauce]

I think the only time MC will get cover art automatically is after ripping a cd. Otherwise, you can use Properties to get images from the internet or scanning, etc.

Rob

Listening to: 'Jackie (Long Version) (feat. Lisa Stansfield)' from 'Hi-NRG Dance Classics' by 'Blue Zone U.K.' on Media Center

[jeffulot]

Are you planning on integrating the remote/live retrieval of the album cover art feature during playback?

This really is the only thing I can see keeping this from being the all-inclusive mp3 player package for me and my wife.

It is a major drawback to not have this feature...

No one in their right mind is going to manually load images with each album...  My collection alone, that came only from my cd collection is over 12,000 tracks (My brother works in the music industry).

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE integrate this feature...

I'll talk your product up to all my friends and I'll license it if you integrate that.

MUSICMATCH JUKEBOX has this feature, so we know it's possible.

Thanks

Jeff

[draven]

I too am having problems getting the coverart to work.  Are the album covers not downloading?  Coverart would be a nice feature at parties.

--Draven

[nila]

Go to playlists/Auto Smartlists (music)/Task - No Image

Select all the files, right click and choose - get images from internet. Go to sleep for the night, wake up and find all your albums with cover art from the internet.

Should work great and wont require it to do it one by one. It'll all get nicely updated for you.

[jeffulot]

This seems like a rediculous approach.  I have 12,000 tracks in my existing library.  

It would make more sense to AT LEAST offer the option to simply display these album arts, if available, from the net as you play the tracks, and not store them lcoally.

MUSICMATCH has done a nice job with that feature...

Your product is superior in most other features however.

I REALLY hope you see my point...  I would love for it to work like this, or at least have this option.

Jeff

[rocketsauce]

No one in their right mind is going to manually load images with each album...

Actually, that's exactly what I'm doing. I've found that the quality of most of the cover art that is downloaded from the internet is not so good, so I'm scanning CD covers when I rip the discs.

Also, in a recent thread it has been stated that, for the time being, the cover art functionality won't be changing.

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1047463657;start=11#11

Rob

[Russell]

How do you assign cover art to tracks manually?  MC is not recognizing some of my local files (usually discs with multiple artists), so I point to point change the image file property manually.  I cannot edit that field.

Russell

[Doof]

It always amuses me when people come in here and start pointing out all the ways other products are better.

Just go use MusicMatch if the ONE feature that is the absolute most important to you is available only in MusicMatch.

Or you could just write your own plugin for MC that does what you want.

There are many more reasons to buy MC than cover art.

[rwf]

It always amuses me when people come in here and start pointing out all the ways other products are better. ... There are many more reasons to buy MC than cover art.

Yeah - I understand what you're saying, though I also understand where these particular questions/comments re:cover art are coming from too.

Precisely because of what MC9 offers beyond others apps (EphPod and MMJB being the two I've used), I've become an MC9 user. (And this week my satisfaction has increased as I no longer receive "stream error" messages starting with build .026 - I can actually sync with MC9 - yahoo!)

For me, the cover art is definitely a lower priority, but it is an aspect of my growing digital music collection. Seeing the holes in the album art views makes me want to fill as many as I can ... call it anal, unimportant, compulsive, and I'd tend to agree ...  nevertheless, it is for me, part of the fun.

And so - I'd like clearer directions in MC9 help about what to do in these two situations:

1 - the art is already in the album folder but not "seen" by MC9 (for the majority of the album folders containing art files, the art file is displayed in MC9, and I can't determine what the problem is for those that aren't). What needs to be done to make the connection to the art file? I was playing around with this last night, and even when the properties view says that the image file is "inside file", the cover art isn't displayed.

2 - albums for which cover art was not obtained in the ripping process, and I've not found on my own (ie - there isn't any art on my computer for the album). Lots of times I'd find the cover art myself, save it to the album folder and in MMJB tagging, connecting the art to the album was easily accomplished. In MC9, the "find art on the internet" hasn't accomplished much (or if it has, I can't tell what) - perhaps because most of the missing art is from more obscure albums (which is why the art wasn't found to begin with?).

Sorry to bring up MMJB again, but that's where my past experiences lie. And, I agree that in the big picture of MC9, this is pretty small - other bugs, glitches, problems, should be higher priorities (the "stream error" issue for example - I'm glad that's been fixed as it was a MUCH more significant problem for me than missing album art).

I hope this makes sense (I've been interrupted a few times in the writing & may have lost a bit of focus).

So - album art - surely not a deal-breaker for me, but I do wish this aspect of MC9 was more transparent & clear.

[zevele10]

Select all the files, right click and choose - get images from internet. Go to sleep for the night, wake up and find all your albums with cover art from the internet
-=-=-=-=-=
And when you get up in the morning JUST KILL YOURSELF when you see the result
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"There are many more reasons to buy MC than cover art'
-=-=-=-=
Yes but this is one point where MC is very weak.
I do not need most of the MC features if i cannot get tags for my songs.
Because with MM ,you get not only lseeves but tags\as well

Doof
You have to understand people asking for features that they see in other players.
And yes MusicMatch super tag is the best thing i got since long.
And yes not only you get sleeves ,but tags.
And yes with a 80/90 % good results.

Unlike many here i understand that on this feature only ,MM may have   more workers than two times all the JRiver stuff.
And had spend $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
So i just gave them the $20 [? i do not remember ], and i use SuperTag.Other programs not as good cost just double.
Unlike many ,i see the problem in another way:
Why since years JRiver keeps a feature who does  not work?
To be very fair ,my deap feeling is that this fonction is and was crap
Just remove it.
Like it no one saying" why Mx-My get sleeves and not you?"
People wanting this kind of thing ,would have to pay $40 for a s-h-ty program or $20 to MusicMatch.

And ,i can bet you millions $$ that NO ONE would left MJ/MC and use MM for other thing that the SuperTags

[tonuab]

I just downloaded Media Center for evaluation to see if I want to replace my existing jukebox software. I know there was a discussion about improving the cover art functionality that has been closed, but as a new user, I'd like to put my two cents in and this thread seems to be closely related to that discussion.

I realize there are a lot of reasons to use Media Center besides cover art, but I have a specific interest in cover art because I design it. My boyfriend records local bands and, sometimes, I will design their cover art. We always rip the CDs to MP3 and listen to them in the jukebox. Obviously, the cover art is only going to reside on our local drive and not on the Internet.

However, in MC9, it appears that the ONLY way I can add cover art to an album is via the internet. The Help file (which is for version 8.0) indicates that there was, at one time, a way to add cover art from a local file system. Are there any plans to add that functionality back in?

While I also would like to see functionality added to the download from internet option that would allow me to select an image (rather than having it selected for me), being able to add an image from my local file system is a much higher priority to me.

I'm not saying that this would be a deal-breaker for me over whether I would buy MC9, but it does make me wonder what other functionality is only partially complete. I haven't spent enough time with it to see how easy it is to rip CDs or download multimedia, yet. Importing my existing library was really easy, so the next thing I turned my attention to was what Media Center could do that my existing jukebox software cannot. Being able to browse by cover art, and easily download cover art in batch from the internet was the first feature I examined.

I know that MC9 is still beta, so I'm hoping this feature gets improved before its final release. However, as I stated, if the very first thing I examine has less than ideal functionality, it does lower my confidence that the rest of the product will be as complete as it first appears.

I work for a software company myself, so I understand that a single product cannot meet the needs of all people. However, I also understand that when you implement functionality that sometimes it is better to not include the functionality at all than to include it poorly. This kind of functionality can be a differentiator when comparing software of similiar functionality. And when that kind of functionality is not well implemented, it will often cause much greater customer dissatisfaction than if the functionality were not present at all.

For me, the bottom line is this: if your jukebox software has basically equivalent functionality to my current software, the super cool features like being able to browse by cover art (and being able to add my own artwork) would make enough of a difference that I'd be willing to switch. But, if on closer examination, those super-cool features haven't been thought through or implemented well, then it's not really worth it to me to switch products. That's not saying that I might not be able to find other super cool features that would make me want to switch, but this particular feature would probably make a big difference to someone like me.

So, please let me know if you are planning to allow users to add artwork from their own hard drive, or if the functionality in the final release will be the same as it currently is in the beta.

Thanks in advance for addressing this issue for me.
Tonua

[JimH]

You can add it from a file.  

Select a file, right click / tools/cover art/add from file.

[Jaguu]

As one that was unhappy with the cover art issue for a very long time (it did not work properly with wma format), I can only say that in the last build (130) cover art has been greatly improved and works very well now!

Just today I scanned over 50 covers by simply selecting the album, right clicking properties > tools > cover  art > get from scanner (or get from internet or add from file or past from clipboard).

The only missing issue is that with wma format files are not stored internally! But this could be a wma limitation!

So download the newest version and try it out. It works very well now!

[tonuab]

You can add it from a file.  

Select a file, right click / tools/cover art/add from file.

The version of MC9 that I have does not that this option. The only option I have when I right-click and select Tools is 'Get Cover Art From Internet.' In addition, I've examined the Tools menu on the toolbar and it doesn't provide me with any options for adding cover art from my file system either. I cannot find anything in the product that allows me to add from a file system.

Thanks.
Tonua

[Matt]

The version of MC9 that I have does not that this option. The only option I have when I right-click and select Tools is 'Get Cover Art From Internet.' In addition, I've examined the Tools menu on the toolbar and it doesn't provide me with any options for adding cover art from my file system either. I cannot find anything in the product that allows me to add from a file system.

Please download the latest version of MC 9. (9.0.131)

Then look under Tools -> File Tools -> Cover Art -> Add From File...

It's also in the right-click menu and "Image" properties pane.

[rwf]

Yahoo!!

The added options for adding cover art are just what I was hoping for - (build  .131)

The issues I touched on in an earlier post in this thread are issues no more ... (and MMJB now has no edge on MC9 in the cover art realm - for those concerned with product comparisons )

You MC9 developers have added one more feather in your cap by fixing/improving this - thank you, thank you, thank you!! My little compulsive heart - "gotta have cover art for every, single file" - is singing ...

[tonuab]

Thanks JimH and Matt from J River, as well as Jaguu for your comments.

I thought I had the latest version of the beta because I was downloading it from the beta download area of the website. But that downloads 9.0.124. After a little searching, I found the link to the 9.0.131 download and it's great!  

Thanks for your help with this.

Tonua

[drosoph]

How about we ask the good guys at JRiver, to MODIFY the slideshow plugin to have the ability to JUST pull cover art (from the magical place that they pull if now) ...

BTW, SlideShow plugin 1011 doesnt work in builds 130 or 131 .. just a note