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[slikvik]

Could someone please tell me why the cover art downloader is the way it is?

Basically I have run a test on a small amount of the compilations I own to see what success rate I would get when getting MC11 to find cover art. These are the Albums:-

Acoustic - (Disc One)
As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt 2
Cream Classics - (Disc One)
Cream Classics - (Disc Three)
Cream Classics - (Disc Two)
Daredevil: The Album
Essential Sounds
Funky Divas - (Disc One)
Funky Divas - (Disc Two)
Kiss Smooth Grooves Summer 99 - (Disc One)
Kiss Smooth Grooves Summer 99 - (Disc Two)
Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
Motown Dance Party - (Disc One)   
Motown Dance Party - (Disc Two)
Now 1987 - (Disc One)
Now 1987 - (Disc Two)
Now Dance - The Best of '93 - (Disc One)
Now Dance - The Best of '93 - (Disc Two)
The Full Monty Soundtrack
The Lost Boys
The Ultimate Chill Out Collection
The Very Best Euphoric Old Skool Breakdown - (Disc One)   
The Very Best Euphoric Old Skool Breakdown - (Disc Two)
Titan A.E. -  Music From The Motion Picture

OK....

This is all I found using MC11:

http://www.tabram.net/covers1.jpg

This is all I found using Kings plug-in:

http://www.tabram.net/covers2.jpg

SideNote: I don't want the same cover for every track!

I know what the problem is. All cover art programs that I have tried search for the Album Name and the Artist. Unfortunately the Artist in these Albums is different for each track! IF you search for the Album Name and VARIOUS ARTIST on Amazon and Walmart you WILL find them.

The only other program I have found that works perfectly like this is XLobby. It does a scan of your music database and IF it finds more than one Artist per Album Name, it uses Various Artist when searching for cover art. Unfortunatly XLobby is a HTPC front end that I do not want to use and also doesn't allow for a batch search.

MC11 is IDEAL to fix this problem as it already knows when an album has multiple artists so it needs to simply search on AlbumArtist(Auto) and Album Name. Obviously I would recommend Various Artists instead of Multiple Artists as this is the defacto standard. Why don't you use Various Artists? (Assorted in the filesystem!?!)

I would also recommend dynamically removing Disc 1, Disc One etc when searching as I think this hinders compilations.

And....please...if this did get fixed can I have my images saved in folder.jpg. I use other programs (Including Windows Explorer,) and they will only give me an image if they find a folder.jpg.

This is really hindering my 'easy' management of my audio which is the main reason I use MC11. I would just like to know why this simple fix has never been changed. Do you not agree?

Regards

Vic

[Myron]

SideNote: I don't want the same cover for every track!

I too have the same issue but I don't get this comment!

Since there is only one cover per album all the tracks on that album should have the same cover, no?

What do you propose that the individual covers be and where would they come from?

[tcman41]

I have been running into the same problem, seems like an easy fix to me, but perhaps not.

Most of my 400 albums are mainstream stuff and haven't had to many problems gettting the cover art. Indeed some weren't found so i just went out to amazon and walmart and got the covers, no big deal to me.

I was somewhat baffled in the fact that i had about 5 albums that aren't even out out and it found the cover art for all of those, go figure.

The thing with various artists vs mulitple artists is a little foggy to me, but I have seen how mc11 has problems with this occasionally.

Terry

[KingSparta]

This is all I found using Kings plug-in

so you get more with my plug-in

I have two plug-ins that get cover art one from my server, and one to get it from 3  other servers.

[slikvik]

Hi King,

I got only one result with your latest plug-in - Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Although as I mentioned, I got it 10 times for one album. I will try your other plug-in tonight, but I have used it in the past and got pretty much the same results with Various Artists albums.

Still no answer from JRiver.

I would just like to know if they acknowledge that what I have suggested would fix the issues and improve their cover art downloader. Or am I incorrect  ?

I wonder if there is a reason for not alllowing saving in folder.jpg as this seems a popular choice. Maybe they don't want to step on your toes King!


Vic

[slikvik]

Wouldn't searching for Cover Art using the Album Artist cure this?

(I have my VA albums with "Various" in the Album Artist field and the individual Artist names in 'Artist'.)

Yes. Thats pretty much what I'm suggesting. Search on AlbumArtist so you will get either 'Various Artists' if it's a compilation or the artists name if it's a single artist album.

[KingSparta]

I wonder if there is a reason for not alllowing saving in folder.jpg as this seems a popular choice. Maybe they don't want to step on your toes King!

funny

I Highly doubt it

If you Have "Various Artist" in the artist field it will search for that name

[KingSparta]

maybe if it is "Various" it should drop the artist name, and just use the CD Name, i think that would make more sence

[Mr ChriZ]

Can you explain this folder.jpg thing to me?
I've seen it mentioned in places and don't understand what it does.
Does
A. It create one big image that contains everything
B. Create a folder called folder.jpg
C. create a file called folder.jpg that goes in each album folder
D. Something else

Whats wrong with having the album image in the folder where the music
files are stored?
Is that what happens at the moment? I haven't gone in search, but I remember
vaguely copying a housemates folder of Mp3's and found the album
folders had image files in, which made sence to me!

You can phone a friend, but you've alreay usedy your fifty fifty
and the audience are dumbasses.

Mr (hriZ

So i'm lazy, got a problem with that?!

[NoCodeUK]

The folder.jpg is the cover art stored as a jpg file in the albums directory.  It is called folder.jpg because that way XPs file explorer can use the file to display the cover art as a thumbnail.

Adam

[Mr ChriZ]

Ah!
OK that makes sense cheers!
I stick with 2k so no folder images for me 

Cheers
ChriZ

[slikvik]

maybe if it is "Various" it should drop the artist name, and just use the CD Name, i think that would make more sence

That would help a bit, but you will get some Albums that have lots of results. Take my Accoustic album example. If I do a search just on the album name I'll get John Lennons Accoustic as well as others.

If you just do a search on Various Artists - Accoustic you'll get what you want. Simple.

Can I just have a quick opinion from Matt of Jim?

Regards

Vic

[tcman41]

80% of my albums say the image is folder.jpg, yet when i go and look in the album folders there are no .jpgs.

The other 20% of my albums i went out and got cover art from amazon and walmart and the images are in my data/cover art folder and linked to the albums.

How do i get the 20% of my albums from data/cover art folder to folder.jpg images and how do i get them all to be in the album folders. I tried the move images to folder.jpg plugin and it doesn't seem to work.

Terry

[slikvik]

You'll probably be best asking the question in another thread as this one is about inmproving the search results.

Regards

Vic