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Author Topic: Album Art Tonight for iPods  (Read 12937 times)

SteveG

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Album Art Tonight for iPods
« on: November 15, 2005, 01:29:10 pm »

Tonight's build of MC 11.1 will include Album Art support. This is very new and has required pretty major revisions to the iPod code to implement so if you are a little adventuresome, give it a try. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve
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IJAG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2005, 01:56:41 pm »

Very cool..... I will definately be testing this tonight.... Thanks!!
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LonWar

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2005, 06:46:28 pm »

Did some playing tonight....

When you hook the iPod up, it syncs, That fine, but when you click on show files, It lists all the files, Whats on the pod as well as what's to sync. Shouldn't this just show the files to sync?

When the syncing is finished, It seems like it's freezing, but it's deleting the tracks that isn't in your sync list. Can this be changed to work the same as the uploading? ie, showing you the files that it's removing.

I have some non anylized tracks on the pod, Since then I have anylized them in MC. The syncing doesn't pick up the change and reupload the files.

At the end of a sync, it pauses for about 10 seconds before you can do anything with MC

After ejecting Pod, MC goes to the start screen, Can this be changed to the Library?

After Ejecting the Ipod, can there be a message saying that the Ipod has been ejected.

When viewing files on a handheld, it displays it like a Playlist. Can this be changed to panes?

Ipod doesn't load album art on files that don't have it on Ipod, but now has it in the files.



Big Issue, I have transfered a few files with this build, and the Ipod seems to freeze, If you cheese an artist it freezes for a sec, then enters the artist, But you can not move up and down till you go back then go in.


Well that's all the time I have tonight.
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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2005, 07:03:29 pm »

First, MC hangs for a long time (about 30 secs) when you plug the iPod. Then autosync seems to be broken.

So I did a manual sync and added about 100 tracks with embedded album art. Nothing showed on the iPod. I figured that maybe the iPod needed to be re-initialized to enable the new feature. Did that (BTW, the progress bar of the 'initialization progress' window is kind of useless: it jumps to about one third right away and then doesn't move until initialization is completed), transfered a few files (about 50), and... bingo! album art on the iPod.

Now transfering back 7,000+ songs, most of them with album art. Going to bed and reporting tomorrow morning.

edit: just noticed the MC logo for the files without album art. Surprised at first but I think I like it.

Thanks Steve, looks good so far.
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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2005, 11:11:06 pm »

Trouble at first.....
60GB ipod photo.

I deleted the itunesdb file from my ipod.
I then initialized the ipod by right clicking on it in the tree view.
I then looked at the ipod in explorer and saw that a new itunesdb was created.
I also noticed that there were no files in the subfolders under ipod_control\music\.

Next, I sync'd a playlist with about 40 songs.  MP3s as original source and option set to never convert.
In MC if I click on the ipod under devices in the tree, it displays the songs that I said to sync.
I look at the ipod in explorer again, itunesdb grew in size.  I also see the mp3 files in the \ipod_control\music\F00 and other folders.

Removed ipod from dock.  Selected Music>Artists>All.  Doesn't matter.   It's empty.  I can't see the artist or the albums.  Here's what the itunesdb looks like at this point:
http://zxsix.dyndns.org:81/temp/itunesdb

I then right clicked on ipod in tree under devices. Selected the rebuild database on ipod option.
Undocked ipod.
Go to Music>Artists>All.
There's still nothing showing up!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solution....
Ran the ipod updater 09-23-2005 and did the restore option to reset ipod back to factory defaults.

Started MC and initialized the ipod.
Clicked on Handheld Player in the action window.
It shows 38 files to be transferred from the playlist.
Clicked the sync button.
After it finished, I clicked on ipod in the tree.  It shows the songs.
Undocked ipod.
Success!   All is as it should be and cover art shows for the songs that had it embedded.





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brickf

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2005, 11:12:36 pm »

I gave it a try with my 5G 60g. When I downloaded files to the IPOD and ejected, my database was hosed. Rather than rebuild the database I 'restored' with the IPOD updater, and then transfered some files that had album art.

Unfortunately no album art is displayed on any of the files. All these files have art stored in the file and have worked when tranferring with the IPOD previously (itunes of course).

Thinking that this might be due to some subtle changes with the way the 5G works, I tried out with my wife's Ipod Photo 40g, and album art shows up just fine and dandy!

Arrgh....please don't make me go back to Itunes:) Anyway, hope you guys can get a hold of a 5G soon to figure out what is so different.

Thanks again for your efforts to get album art working.

brick
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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #6 on: November 15, 2005, 11:26:09 pm »

Cover art shows correctly for mp3 songs that have embedded cover art.

Cover art shows a blank gray square for mp3 songs that have a folder.jpg file but not embedded in the file.


I'd really prefer not to need embedded cover art and just have it use the folder.jpg files from each album folder if that's at all possible.  Request, pretty please!?!

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Vivarin

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #7 on: November 15, 2005, 11:44:00 pm »

I have about 1500 songs and a 30GB iPod Photo.  Only a few of my songs have album art.  I upgraded and tried to sync, but it said the iPod is already fully synchronized.  When I tried to eject it sent my iPod into a continuous reboot loop.  It's still doing it now, nothing will stop it.  Reset doesn't work, the electrical plug won't work.  Just constant off-on with Apple logo.
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brickf

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #8 on: November 16, 2005, 12:34:17 am »

Vivarin,
Welcome to the reload of death club. Check out this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=30184.0

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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #9 on: November 16, 2005, 02:00:37 am »

Quote
Now transfering back 7,000+ songs, most of them with album art. Going to bed and reporting tomorrow morning.

So, when I came back this morning I had an error message from MC (C++ Runtime error) and another one from Windows (virtual memory too low). I closed that, ejected the iPod and there was no cover art on there, not even for the 50 files I had successfully transfered last night. I restarted MC, did another sync, had about 100 new files to transfer. These showed with album art on the iPod.

I'm reinitializing the iPod now and will try to retransfer everything in two batches: a smaller one (about 500) and the big one (about 7,000). Will report again.

edit :

a few details I forgot:

iPod: Model M9585LL (40gb iPod photo) Firmware 1.2

Media Center Registered 11.1.58 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 2002 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 36 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive G:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive G: _NEC     DVD_RW ND-2500A    Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:32  MaxSpeed:32  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None
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razumik

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #10 on: November 16, 2005, 10:48:04 am »

My experience with the 5G Ipod has been similar to brickf...though I have had no problems that required me to rebuild the database.  I have restored with the IPOD updater and initiallized in MC.  All files sync properly but no album art was available...all of my art is stored in the tags.

One interesting thing that I noticed when I first sycn'd before restoring/initiallizing is that the artist/album/title were left justified like they would be if album art was displaying on the screen.

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brickf

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #11 on: November 16, 2005, 10:55:02 am »

Quote
that the artist/album/title were left justified like they would be if album art was displaying on the screen.

This is interesting. I did not see this on my 5G.
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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #12 on: November 16, 2005, 11:49:04 am »

Finally did 3 batches:
-450 files --> fine
-1250 files --> fine
-6000 files --> before I could start that sync, 'syncing portable info to MC' was very long (more than 5 min), with MC using about 90% of the CPU. 'analyzing files' was very long as well (about the same time), also with a very high CPU usage.

about what others said:

Quote
When the syncing is finished, It seems like it's freezing, but it's deleting the tracks that isn't in your sync list. Can this be changed to work the same as the uploading? ie, showing you the files that it's removing
not sure you'd have time to see anything there as the files are deleted much faster than they are uploaded.

Quote
At the end of a sync, it pauses for about 10 seconds before you can do anything with MC
Same here. The time MC pauses seems to depend on how many files you just transfered. MC paused for a few seconds after my first batch, somewhere between 5 and 10 mins after the second one. After the third one, CPU and mem usage went up for about 40 mins, with peaks at 99% and 300Mb. Then both went down to normal for another 40 mins (MC still frozen). Then up again and then the same error message:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime library
Runtime error!
Program: C:\...\Media Center.exe
This application has requested the runtime to terminate it in an unsual way.

Clicked OK. MC's dead, eject the iPod, no cover art. Tried resetting the iPod, no cover art. Tried rebuilding the db, got caught in the restart loop. I give up for now.

Quote
Big Issue, I have transfered a few files with this build, and the Ipod seems to freeze, If you cheese an artist it freezes for a sec, then enters the artist, But you can not move up and down till you go back then go in.

Quote
I'd really prefer not to need embedded cover art and just have it use the folder.jpg files from each album folder if that's at all possible.  Request, pretty please!?!
Please try to offer both options.

Quote
Just constant off-on with Apple logo.
Sorry to hear that. If you follow the link given by brickf it should fix it since you don't have a 5g.
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Vivarin

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #13 on: November 16, 2005, 12:01:33 pm »

Vivarin,
Welcome to the reload of death club. Check out this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=30184.0



That worked to rescue me from it.  I'm still trying to get a good sync done, each one has locked up MC and the iPod is still showing empty.  Hoping this works...
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Vivarin

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #14 on: November 16, 2005, 12:23:07 pm »

I finally got the sync to finish, it took two tries before the eject worked, and no art on the iPod.  The second connection to the iPod it shows that I'm 6.5 GB over the cap and won't sync.  The problem is I only have 6.5 GB of files and it's a 30 GB iPod.
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SteveG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #15 on: November 16, 2005, 01:15:23 pm »

Vivarin,

You most likely have many files on the iPod that are not recognized by the database. You can verify this by going to Windows Explorer and checking the available space on the iPod and it will most likely be the same as what MC is reporting.  The best plan is to use the right click 'Initialize' option and then transfer a few files with Album Art and verify that all is well before going forward with a massive sync.

Steve
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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #16 on: November 16, 2005, 02:04:22 pm »

My successful sync was with ~4500 files.  Cover art was successful on all that I've checked.
I let it sync overnight so I can't comment on how long it took or any long pauses.
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ForsakenArdor

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #17 on: November 16, 2005, 02:33:47 pm »

I'm having an experience similar to lOth's.  After initializing, I tried transferring just one double album and the cover art showed up fine.  But MC refused to run for some reason after I re-docked.  I manually deleted the iTunes, Music and Artwork directories and MC was able to run again.  I reinitialized and then manually dropped the my entire library into the handheld box.  I have 2,237 songs, all mp3.  It takes around an hour and a half, less if MC is minimized during the uploading.  After the songs finished uploading, a Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library window pops up with the following message:

Quote
Runtime Error!

Program: C:\PROGRAM FILES\MEDIA CENTER 11\MEDIA CENTER.EXE

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.  Please contact the application's support team for more information.

The songs are all fine on the iPod, but there's no cover art.  The playlist syncing problem I've explained in the alpha build threads, when I have to delete the one song, when it gets uploaded back, it's the only one with cover art.

This problem is repeatable.  Long transfers always prevent cover art from transferring.

I'm using Win98SE, a 60 GB iPod Photo model M9586LL, firmware 1.2.
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SteveG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #18 on: November 16, 2005, 03:46:20 pm »

For anyone still having issues with Album Art, please retest with tonight's build. In particular, if you were having difficulities and you were using art from files that used external art with relative paths, you would have had issues prior to tonight's build.

Steve
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LonWar

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #19 on: November 16, 2005, 06:59:25 pm »

Updated:


Did some playing tonight....

When you hook the iPod up, it syncs, That fine, but when you click on show files, It lists all the files, Whats on the pod as well as what's to sync. Shouldn't this just show the files to sync?

When the syncing is finished, It seems like it's freezing, but it's deleting the tracks that isn't in your sync list. Can this be changed to work the same as the uploading? ie, showing you the files that it's removing.

I have some non anylized tracks on the pod, Since then I have anylized them in MC. The syncing doesn't pick up the change and reupload the files.

At the end of a sync, it pauses for about 10 seconds before you can do anything with MC

After ejecting Pod, MC goes to the start screen, Can this be changed to the Library?

After Ejecting the Ipod, can there be a message saying that the Ipod has been ejected.

When viewing files on a handheld, it displays it like a Playlist. Can this be changed to panes?

Ipod doesn't load album art on files that don't have it on Ipod, but now has it in the files.



Problem, After syncing, some of my album art is on the wrong files, Like I had a Motorhead pic, on a cars album. This didn't even sync this time around??

Anapod is correcting this issue with the Rebuild coverart Database, Can this be added to mc?
Quote
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Vivarin

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #20 on: November 16, 2005, 07:04:41 pm »

Everything seems to be working fine for me with build 59.  I haven't done a lot of detailed checking, but all art seems to match the artist or I see a MC icon.  I have around 1500 songs in a 30GB iPod Photo.  I resize each art file to 320x240 before putting them in each MP3 to try to keep the size down.  Had a LOT of problems with build 58, but build 59 seems to be working fine.
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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #21 on: November 16, 2005, 07:51:27 pm »

Installed today's .059 build.
restored ipod.
initialized ipod with MC.
album art shows fine if it's embedded in the files.
if it's not embedded, but kept in folder.jpg, then it shows up as plain gray squares on ipod.
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risingdamp

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #22 on: November 17, 2005, 02:29:26 am »

Great news that this is finally available.  Thanks Steve and anyone else in JR who's helped make this happen.

I haven't tried it yet because every build of MC post 11.0.302 has a problem with the com interface that affects NR MediaBridge users (MC always crashes on closure).  I've a few ideas about how to workaround this in the absence of a fix so hope to be trying out the new build soon. 

In the meantime I have a question:  All my album art is stored as folder.jpg - a relative path I believe because MC just shows folder.jpg in the image tag rather than the full path.  Most of these jpegs are scanned from the original covers at high quality settings so they are pretty large files.  So will this have an adverse effect on the iPod sync or the space used on my iPod?
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JLee

pank2002

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #23 on: November 17, 2005, 04:00:52 am »

I have tried album art and I thought it worked quite alright. I had no problem during upload (although it was a bit slow).

I think MC calculated the remaining space wrong in the action window, but it was right in the little box above the main window.

Only hassle is that one has to initialize the iPod to upload album art. It would be nicer if one could just sync. This is true for analyzed audio too.

I have my album art located in the default directory (i.e. in the profile folder).

When will this work for regular photo's?

edit I: I used build 58.

edit II: When no album art is present a MC logo is inserted. This is nice. However, currently the logo's background is gray. I think it should be white.
Does MC draw a border around the album art or does the iPod do it? Either way it looks splendid. 
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Music is life... the rest is details.
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gk666999

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #24 on: November 17, 2005, 04:06:28 am »

Quote
When you hook the iPod up, it syncs, That fine, but when you click on show files, It lists all the files, Whats on the pod as well as what's to sync. Shouldn't this just show the files to sync?

When the syncing is finished, It seems like it's freezing, but it's deleting the tracks that isn't in your sync list. Can this be changed to work the same as the uploading? ie, showing you the files that it's removing.

I have some non anylized tracks on the pod, Since then I have anylized them in MC. The syncing doesn't pick up the change and reupload the files.

At the end of a sync, it pauses for about 10 seconds before you can do anything with MC
Same here: 26 newly imported files needed to be uploaded. When I clicked on "Show List" all the files on the Ipod were shown with "Queued" assigned to the 26 new files in the "Status" column. So far, so good though we used to have an option to "Show queued files only". The problem is that MC removes all but 26 new queued files from Ipod on synch.
In addition, I really miss old "Uploading file xx of xx" and "Speed" and the ability to check/uncheck playlists to be synched right from Synch window vs going to the Handheld options in the current build.
UPDATE I:
I will try .59 as soon as uploading the rest of my deleted library is finished.
UPDATE II:
Installed v.59 - synch will no longer  unnecessarily delete files. Great!
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brickf

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #25 on: November 17, 2005, 10:50:19 am »

I tried .59 with my 5G, this time I 'initialize' it, but still no art.

I also copied some Coldplay tracks to my 4G with art. Now when I play Coldplay tracks it does not show any art, but when I play Air, which I downloaded via .58 it shows the Coldplay album art. I did not 'initialize' this IPOD after loading .59 , It's my wife's and I did not want to make intrusive changes, so it may not be a fair test.

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SteveG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #26 on: November 17, 2005, 01:31:36 pm »

Quote
When you hook the iPod up, it syncs, That fine, but when you click on show files, It lists all the files, Whats on the pod as well as what's to sync. Shouldn't this just show the files to sync?

This behavior is by design currently. We will consider modifying it.

Quote
When the syncing is finished, It seems like it's freezing, but it's deleting the tracks that isn't in your sync list....

At the end of a sync, it pauses for about 10 seconds before you can do anything with MC

The deletions occur before the sync starts. At the end, MC is updating its database. We can try to optimize this further.

Quote
After ejecting Pod, MC goes to the start screen, Can this be changed to the Library?

Maybe.

Quote
I have some non anylized tracks on the pod, Since then I have anylized them in MC. The syncing doesn't pick up the change and reupload the files.

Modifications need to be made to handle this.

Quote
After Ejecting the Ipod, can there be a message saying that the Ipod has been ejected.

Currently, ejecting iPod in MC makes the iPod ready to be disconnected safely, but the device is not truly ejected (as far as the PC is concerned) until it is physically disconnected.

Quote
When viewing files on a handheld, it displays it like a Playlist. Can this be changed to panes?

Maybe.




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ForsakenArdor

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #27 on: November 17, 2005, 01:40:26 pm »

I installed .059 last night and did a sync after playing about 150 songs during the day.  I had deleted one entire album with .058 in the morning so it would have cover art when I synced up smartlists.  Before, .058 would erase any existing cover art that made it to the iPod, but this one album retained its image after syncing in .059.  The time it took for MC to recover the info (tag changes, playcounts, etc.) was very long, but eventually, it got all of the rating changes and playcounts (smartlists don't get updated without an upload, though).

I initialized and left the transfer on overnight, but in the morning, the same runtime error I got before popped up.  I do have all the cover art stored externally in a single directory.  .059's change for me is that a sync no longer deletes cover art during a sync.  However, the tool tip popup doesn't show a thumbnail for songs that would have cover art unless it was just uploaded and the thumbs that do show (from a fresh upload) vanish if you restart MC.
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LonWar

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #28 on: November 17, 2005, 01:58:19 pm »

How is this working with the 5G Ipods? I am thinking about picking one up.....
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SteveG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #29 on: November 17, 2005, 02:29:00 pm »

Quote
album art shows fine if it's embedded in the files.
if it's not embedded, but kept in folder.jpg, then it shows up as plain gray squares on ipod.

Can anyone else beside zxsix replicate this? I cannot. Zxsix, can you try initializing your iPod and then transfer one file and see if you have the problem? If so, please email me the file at steve @ jriver.com

Quote
Most of these jpegs are scanned from the original covers at high quality settings so they are pretty large files.  So will this have an adverse effect on the iPod sync or the space used on my iPod?

Adding Album Art does use more space but the images on iPod Photo should be around 45 k per Album Art item.

Quote
When will this work for regular photo's?

This is the next big item to tackle for iPods.
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razumik

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #30 on: November 17, 2005, 02:53:14 pm »

As mentioned by brickf earlier, the cover art feature does not seem to work at all with the 5G Ipod.  Even though it is not working, though, I am assuming that MC is still trying to update the cover art database after a sync.  If I sync 200 files it takes an extra 2-3 minutes after all of the songs finish transferring before I am able to eject the ipod.  When I transfer my library (~5000 songs) the process after the transfer takes between 45-60 minutes.  Is this extra time being caused by the creation of the cover art db?  If so, could there be a selection in the handheld options to turn off updating covert art for those of us who cannot use it yet anyway?

Thanks.
Dan
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LonWar

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #31 on: November 17, 2005, 02:58:21 pm »

.... If no cover art is found, MC will put it's logo instead of cover art... I like this, but is there anyway to specify a different image?

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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #32 on: November 17, 2005, 05:47:44 pm »

Can anyone else beside zxsix replicate this? I cannot. Zxsix, can you try initializing your iPod and then transfer one file and see if you have the problem? If so, please email me the file at steve @ jriver.com


Still can dupe.

1) Right clicked ipod under drives and devices, selected initialize ipod.
2) highlighted 2 songs.  right click and selected image>remove cover art.
    both songs now show blank in the image file field.
3) went to tools>options>file location.  location rule says "next to file (folder.jpg)".
    Store images in tags also is CHECKED.
4) Right clicked song 1.  selected image>quick find in file/cover art directory.
    image file field for song now shows "inside file" and the image displays properly in MC.
5) went to tools>options>file location.  location rule says "next to file (folder.jpg)".
    changed Store images in tags option to UNCHECKED.
6) Right clicked song 2.  selected image>quick find in file/cover art directory.
    image file field for song now shows "folder.jpg" and the image displays properly in MC.
7) right clicked ipod under drives & devices.  chose sychronize.  watched the 2 files in the playlist sync to the ipod.
8) right clicked ipod under drives & devices.  ejected ipod.

9) Played both songs on the ipod.  Same results.
    Song 1 displayed both sizes of cover art correctly.
    Song 2 displayed solid gray image where coverart goes.

This is a 4G Ipod Photo 60GB.  Firmware is the 9/23/2005 version 1.2.
I have emailed both song files to you as requested.
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pank2002

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #33 on: November 18, 2005, 08:10:18 am »

I synced with build 59 and all the covers disappered. Sync info with the iPod was terribly slow. It was running for more than a half hour without getting anywhere.
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Music is life... the rest is details.
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SteveG

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #34 on: November 18, 2005, 09:14:19 am »

Found and fixed a bug with album art in the folder.jpg. If anyone stores their art in this way please get tonight's build and retest.

Quote
Is this extra time being caused by the creation of the cover art db? 

I don't think so. I will test further.

Quote
... If no cover art is found, MC will put it's logo instead of cover art... I like this, but is there anyway to specify a different image?

Not yet.
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prod

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #35 on: November 19, 2005, 12:52:50 pm »

i can't seem to get the album art working with 11.1.60 - i have a cover art directory where all my cover art is so i don't have the art inside the mp3 files. the files go across as normal and everything works ok but the display shows no cover art at all. also the "Tools > Options > General > Importing & Tagging > Save cover art inside tags when possible" option has disappeared so i can't even test it with an image inside the file.

is there something i've missed?

Edit: i've since found the save art option under Tools > Options > File Location
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risingdamp

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #36 on: November 19, 2005, 01:44:38 pm »

I removed some albums from my ipod and then put them back to see if the album art worked properly.  Unfortunately no art is shown at all.  The art is stored in MC as folder.jpg. 

Am I doing something wrong?  Do I have to initialise the iPod before it will work properly with album art?
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JLee

prod

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #37 on: November 19, 2005, 03:03:58 pm »

Am I doing something wrong?  Do I have to initialise the iPod before it will work properly with album art?

i'm getting the same results and i did initialise the ipod first so that's not the problem
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gbdesai

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #38 on: November 19, 2005, 03:09:28 pm »

Me 3.  I am using 11.1.60 with a Nano, I even used the 10-12 Updater to wipe the Nano, reinitialized with 60 and synced.  I have album art stored as Folder.jpg too.  Are we missing a setting somewhere or is it just supposed to work automatically?
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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #39 on: November 19, 2005, 03:12:12 pm »

a simple question here: what's the biggest number of files with cover art that someone has been able to upload successfully to an iPod in a single transfer?

Even though I've installed .60 and successfully uploaded 1,500 files, I've got a feeling I'm going to run into the runtime error if I try to transfer the 6,000 other files I previously had on my iPod:

iPod smartlists are now properly synchronized, but I still get that nasty runtime error if I upload too many files.  Cover art creation is most definitely the cause of this, as all songs are uploaded fine but without covers.  I can delete a small amount of songs and upload them back and while I get a slight hang after they finish, they do have covers.
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zxsix

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2005, 10:34:20 pm »

Quote
a simple question here: what's the biggest number of files with cover art that someone has been able to upload successfully to an iPod in a single transfer?
~4500 mp3's with cover art as folder.jpg files transferred successfully to my 4G ipod photo last night using build 60.
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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #41 on: November 20, 2005, 02:36:04 am »

thanks zxsix. It's probably a good idea to let us know whether the cover art was embedded in the file or not. Maybe the extraction of the image from the mp3 causes the runtime error when there are too many files to process.
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risingdamp

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #42 on: November 20, 2005, 02:51:02 am »

I tried again but with the image inside file and it still doesn't show album art.
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JLee

risingdamp

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #43 on: November 20, 2005, 03:28:35 am »

There's a lot of mention here about this not working with 5G iPods so maybe that's my problem.  I have no idea what 'G' my iPod is (where do you get that info?) but I have a 60Gb Photo with color screen.
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JLee

lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #44 on: November 20, 2005, 04:38:15 am »

Quote
There's a lot of mention here about this not working with 5G iPods so maybe that's my problem.  I have no idea what 'G' my iPod is (where do you get that info?) but I have a 60Gb Photo with color screen.

Does it do video? if it does it's a 5g, if not it's a 4g
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prod

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #45 on: November 20, 2005, 05:40:19 am »

There's a lot of mention here about this not working with 5G iPods so maybe that's my problem.  I have no idea what 'G' my iPod is (where do you get that info?) but I have a 60Gb Photo with color screen.

"G" = generation. yours sounds the same as mine: a fourth generation (or 4G) 60gb ipod photo with a colour screen and no video functionality.

i've restored the ipod, then copied mp3's (with embedded images) across with itunes and it shows the album art; copying the exact same files with MC does not show the album art. intialising the ipod with MC and going thru the process again yields the exact same results. i can't understand why it works for others and not for myself (or risingdamp) and besides i've run out of ideas so i give up! for now.

here's my system info for anyone who's interested;

Media Center Registered 11.1.60 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2786 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 521 MB, Free - 182 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   No CD drives found.
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  No burners found.
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None
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risingdamp

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #46 on: November 20, 2005, 06:11:33 am »

Yes I can confirm I have a 4G iPod.  Thanks prod for saving me having to go through the pain of restoring and resynching because it's clearly not going to make a difference.

Steve - let me know if there's any troubleshooting I can do to help.
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JLee

prod

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an interesting thought....
« Reply #47 on: November 20, 2005, 06:56:38 am »

possibly we have some ipod software version differences to the people who have this working.

i'm using the ipod updater 2005-10-12 and the software version on the ipod is 1.2 - risingdamp, whats yours? (you can find this out by loading the updater up). maybe this is whats causing us problems; other people may be using an older version of the updater, and/or have a different ipod sw version.

anyone who's got album art working: what updater/sw versions are you using?
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lOth

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #48 on: November 20, 2005, 07:04:53 am »

Quote
anyone who's got album art working: what updater/sw versions are you using?

I have a 4g with the same updater and sw version as you and got it to work (although I'm still unable to upload successfully too many files in a single transfer).

My system details are already posted above in this thread.
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gbdesai

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Re: Album Art Tonight for iPods
« Reply #49 on: November 20, 2005, 07:54:43 am »

1.2 10-12-05 with my Nano.  Problem is that they bundle all updates into a single updater.  I think the Nano's own SW revision is only 1.0 even though the updater is 1.2.  Same goes for all other iPod generations, they vary in version.  But, yes, this seems to affect 5Gs like the Nano and iPod Photo?, iPod Video?

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