Topic: Oh No, Yet another cover art question (Read 3958 times)

jackpod · « **on:** December 03, 2005, 12:03:03 pm »

Hi All, My first post. New to Media Center. I am ripping my cd collection onto a Raid 5 array in Wav format. I am using 11.0. Everything is going fine. I have the option checked to retrieve the cover art from the internet, but I am only getting a few and some are incorrect (I do have a lot of imports), so I want to scan the covers I have. Now for the question, How do I attach the image to the album? I also use Cinemar's Main Lobby and Music Lobby

Please Advise

I promise to try to make my newbism inturnship a short one

marko · « **Reply #1 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:09:46 pm »

1. place cover in scanner
2. list the album (no files selected translates as all selected)
3. open the 'image' action window (file properties > image)
4. right click in the 'image' action window and click on 'get from scanner'

LonWar · « **Reply #2 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:22:29 pm »

Google Images is also a great source to get art, That's were I get mine.

KingSparta · « **Reply #3 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:23:32 pm »

It May Be Better To Use APE Format Than WAV

jackpod · « **Reply #4 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:29:12 pm »

Wow, quick responses! Thanks!

Marco, I'll try that

Imjustagamer, How do you retrieve from other than the YADB?

KingSparta, I have the HD space, other than space is there any other reason to not use wav, my array is 1.5TB and I have 1221 cd's in my collection, I figure I should still have several hundred gigs left when I am done. I am on disc# 117 of 1221

Thanks!

Jackpod

KingSparta · « **Reply #5 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:33:40 pm »

You Can Save Tags (Artist, Album And Sing Info) And Images In APE And Not In Wav So If Anything Happens To Your Database In Media Center You Can Always Recover The Data From The Tags Saved In The Media File. In Wav You Would Need To Re-Type All The Info Back In.

I Normally Always Riped My Files Into Wav And Then Later Batched Converted Them Into A Format Later (I Prefer MP3 VBR High) Since It Is Basically A Standard And Is Compatible With Almost Any Device.

I maintain Separate Databases And Have Over 300,000 MP3's On Two 1TB Drives (One 1TB Drives is A Backup of the First One). the 1tb drives are actually two 500 Gig Dives Using Raid 1

jackpod · « **Reply #6 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:44:17 pm »

Ok, I need more info.

Is APE considered "lossless"? Will I hear a difference in my audio system (high end) I have an M_Audio Delta 1010lt in m music server, will be feeding McIntosh audio gear

What if I wanted to burn a CD to play in a standard player, can I reconvert back to WAV?

Can I convert the 120 discs I have already ripped or do I need to start over? to take advantage of the APE features you describe?

Thanks!

Jackpod

KingSparta · « **Reply #7 on:** December 03, 2005, 12:50:42 pm »

Quote

Is APE considered "lossless"?

Yes

Quote

Will I hear a difference in my audio system (high end)

No

Quote

can I reconvert back to WAV

Yes

Quote

Can I convert the 120 discs I have already ripped

Yes

Matt Who Created The APE Format Works For J River (I think APE was created before He Started Working For J River). Not Sure On That One However.

he also has a web site at http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

Here iS A Link To Compair

http://www.true-audio.com/codec.comparison

jackpod · « **Reply #8 on:** December 03, 2005, 01:00:34 pm »

Ok, great, I will continue to rip as wav. I will be busy for a few more days at least. I will check out the APE website

Thanks for all your info

modelmaker · « **Reply #9 on:** December 03, 2005, 01:01:07 pm »

Ape (or Monkeys Audio) was developed by by Matt here at J River and completely lossless. Bit for bit. You can convert all your wav files using MC's converting tools. The sound will be the same. And you will gain all the advantages King mentioned.

On cover art, I prefer to manually download them from walmart.com (500x500 pixels) or amazon.com (300x300 pixels) and then use Irfanview (www.irfanview.com) to resize to 900x900 and make any other adjustments if needed. I save the image to the album folder and then use MC's "add image from file" tool. You have options to add the image to the tag and next to file and as folder.jpg etc.

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #10 on:** December 03, 2005, 01:24:16 pm »

You might also want to consider turning on "Secure Copy Mode"
for the CD Drive that you are ripping from.
This basically verifies the read from the device is done successfully,
although will slow the ripping down.

Alex B · « **Reply #11 on:** December 03, 2005, 01:47:46 pm »

Wave doesn't support file tagging. In my opinion that is a very good reason for using a taggable lossless file format like Monkey's Audio instead.

Even if there is no short of directly accessible storage space, the smaller file size would make copying and moving files faster and the needed amount of backup space would be smaller.

I have my file archive stored in three separate places and maintaining the backups is easier with losslessly compressed files. I have also noticed that any storage system will eventually fill up, usually sooner than one would expect.

Alex B · « **Reply #12 on:** December 03, 2005, 01:56:36 pm »

Quote from: Mr ChriZ on December 03, 2005, 01:24:16 pm

You might also want to consider turning on "Secure Copy Mode"
for the CD Drive that you are ripping from.
This basically verifies the read from the device is done successfully,
although will slow the ripping down.

Some related instructions:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=29157

EDIT

Secure mode is not much slower by design. When MC does reread attempts there is a good reason.

Mr ChriZ · « **Reply #13 on:** December 03, 2005, 02:55:01 pm »

Quote from: Alex B on December 03, 2005, 01:47:46 pm

I have also noticed that any storage system will eventually fill up, usually sooner than one would expect.

Yeh I've noticed that

Just filled another 160gb drive. That was supposed to last till
the summer when I'm actually making some money again!
I've also noticed a few 500gb drives appearing on the market... it is tempting!

KingSparta · « **Reply #14 on:** December 03, 2005, 02:57:41 pm »

Secure Copy mode is really not needed for most newer computers, i think older ones and maybe if you have a bad CD, but i doubt most of the time you would notice the 0.00000001 second of bad sound

Alex B · « **Reply #15 on:** December 03, 2005, 03:18:22 pm »

Drives are better than before, but bad CDs are not so rare. I have a few. Secure mode is a good way to pick them up when ripping hundreds of CDs. It may take years before the files are used for the first time.

Besides, I think jackpod is a perfectionist.

jackpod · « **Reply #16 on:** December 03, 2005, 03:55:53 pm »

Wow, I really appreciate all the info. I belong to a number of boards and have NEVER had so much response to a question. I will try turning on secure mode to see if it slows things down at all. The system i built is brand new and a fairly serious piece of iron. 3.4 ghz P4 2mb cache 800fsb LGA775, 4 gigs pc4200 533mhz ram, 3ware 9550 sata II raid controller and 7 250gb Sata II drives configured Raid 5 for 1.38TB. I put in an M-audio Delta 1010lt. I am very anal about anyone touching my cd's and they have lived their life in changers until this point. The only thing I am running on this box is Media Center, Cinemar Musiclobby Plugin and Main Lobby CLient. I am running ML Server and Homeseer 2 on a separate box

Once I get the remaining discs ripped I will convert to APE but I still have over 1000 to go

Thanks again for all the help and advise

AndyCircuit · « **Reply #17 on:** December 03, 2005, 04:04:31 pm »

a nice alternativ source if you seek for cover arts:

http://rateyourmusic.com/

stefansmith · « **Reply #18 on:** December 04, 2005, 05:21:02 am »

I support the recommendation of APE - very easy to use, works so well in JCMC. I have most of my stuff encoded as APE in 'fast' or normal' mode.
If you're just using JR media center attached to you hi-end hi-fi don't sweat to much about codecs. The advantage with APE (and most other lossless codecs) is that you can transcode. So want to go from APE-FLAC-WavPack-Whatever?.... you can.
I've also transcoded all my APEs to MP3 on another drive for use on a portable player. Very easy to do.

Just three additional tips: backup, backup, backup.

JustinChase · « **Reply #19 on:** December 04, 2005, 01:24:21 pm »

One more piece of advice, if you haven't already had enough...

Personally I would take a break, convert what you have to APE (I use HIGH for my APE files), then continue ripping into APE from now on to save yourself the time later to convert 1000 CD's from WAV to APE. It's not any slower to do in the first place, and will save you A LOT of time later. I would also use secure ripping, just to be sure you got good copies.

Oh yeah, backup your library from time to time; losing all your tags SUCKS!!

jackpod · « **Reply #20 on:** December 04, 2005, 01:38:58 pm »

Again thanks for all the info and advice. Still plugging along ripping discs. have had a few hiccups but all in all it is going well

Dave T · « **Reply #21 on:** December 04, 2005, 09:08:06 pm »

I'll echo what others have said about not using WAV. Having the tags added to the files is ~huge~. You can copy the files, transcode, etc - without having to worry about not being able to tell what's what. There's no reason to use WAV - even if you have plenty of space. Lack of tagging support alone makes WAV a bad choice.

EricT · « **Reply #22 on:** December 12, 2005, 12:23:16 pm »

I'm about to start a similar project. I have ripped ~3300 cd's in wav format and my 1.75 TB is full. So I will convert in batches to APE and mp3 for portables. I've started with the mp3's and question how the cover art works. I've downloaded most of the cover art and store it in the album directory (artist\album\cover.jpg). So, what I thought is that the cover art was saved inside the mp3 file but when playing the converted mp3, it gets the tags by no cover art. Is this expected behavior?
Thanks

JustinChase · « **Reply #23 on:** December 12, 2005, 09:47:43 pm »

Quote from: EricT on December 12, 2005, 12:23:16 pm

So I will convert in batches to APE and mp3 for portables.

MC will convert ape files to mp3 files on the fly for putting on a portable. It takes a while, but means you don't have to have a library with both ape files and mp3 files, or worse, 2 different libraries to maintain.

As far as the files in the tags, it's an option you have to check, but can't remember where offhand.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Oh No, Yet another cover art question (Read 3958 times)