albumcovers - problems with certain compilation albums (2 Viewers)

[macardi]

That would be fine i guess. But why dosent the album art show for ablums with CD# in the end eventhough there are .jpg files for it whith the exakt album name - Album Name CD1.jpg, Album Name CD2.jpg ....

 

[1gkar]

I realise this is a very old thread to be bringing up, but unless someone can point to a more relevant one, I believe there are still large, unresolved issues surrounding the music coding section of Mediaportal.

I love the app, but the music section is easily the third-world cousin to other areas, such as the Moving Pictures & TV Series plugins.

I have also read Kiwijunglist's thread, & for me, it does not cover what I would prefer my music section to look like. I do not want to have a single album covering 2, or more complete albums, as I don't have the time to listen to an entire two-disc title in one sitting, let alone a four-disc one. And I don't want the hassle of having to setup a playlist just to accomplish the task: just to press the <play> button on the remote of a highlighted album should be sufficient for anyone.

I simply don't understand how MP looks for, & recognises coverart, as there appears to be major inconsistencies in the process, as the thumbnail shows. One double album is recognised, whilst the second is not. The editing shows how the album names are tagged exactly. So, why should one present coverart, whilst the other does not? This is representative of my complete collection. Some show up with coverart, whilst others do not, & it is totally irrelevant of the naming nomenclature.

[/URL][/IMG]

The reason I have brought this up now, is I have just completed a total reinstall of my HTPC's WinXPSP3 OS, & just want a complete, working & optimised front-end. Is it that impossible to have a check-box, inside the MPConfig>Music which let users decide to separate multiple albums & have the coverart recognised?

[/URL][/IMG]

I want to sign off with a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year to one & all, especially to those coders of MediaPortal, StreamedMP (& other) skinner(s), & all the plugins that make this the best front-end there ever could be

 

[jameson_uk]

I simply don't understand how MP looks for, & recognises coverart, as there appears to be major inconsistencies in the process, as the thumbnail shows. One double album is recognised, whilst the second is not. The editing shows how the album names are tagged exactly. So, why should one present coverart, whilst the other does not? This is representative of my complete collection. Some show up with coverart, whilst others do not, & it is totally irrelevant of the naming nomenclature.

MP will only pickup the album art you have setup. Depending on settings in config this might be embedded within tags or stored as folder.jpg (Album & Artist Images - MediaPortal Wiki)

What have you set for thumb creation (MediaPortal Wiki - MediaPortal Wiki Are you using database or shares view?

 

[1gkar]

MP will only pickup the album art you have setup. Depending on settings in config this might be embedded within tags or stored as folder.jpg (Album & Artist Images - MediaPortal Wiki)

I have hi-res coverart images (800x800-1200x1200+) embedded inside ALL my music ID* tags. That is how I have setup the music database, to recognise the ID3 tags only. I have found trying to use the folder.jpg option (even though I have deliberately removed ALL the low res images hidden inside the album folders & installed the hi-res variety), I still get low-res reproductions in MP which look awful. I have verified this by having the relevant thumbs folder open, & other images are added to the folder when the database is updated, even with ALL internet lookup disabled inside MP config.

What have you set for thumb creation (MediaPortal Wiki - MediaPortal Wiki Are you using database or shares view?

I have only used albumartist mainly, & occasionally, artist view for years. Never shares as this won't recognise the coverart correctly, anyway.

 

[jameson_uk]

I have hi-res coverart images (800x800-1200x1200+) embedded inside ALL my music ID* tags. That is how I have setup the music database, to recognise the ID3 tags only. I have found trying to use the folder.jpg option (even though I have deliberately removed ALL the low res images hidden inside the album folders & installed the hi-res variety), I still get low-res reproductions in MP which look awful. I have verified this by having the relevant thumbs folder open, & other images are added to the folder when the database is updated, even with ALL internet lookup disabled inside MP config.

This all sounds ok, have you set the options in music database tab to create missing folder.jpg? This will create a file but he embdedded artwork shoudl still be used.

Can you check that all the tracks in the album actually have the same album artist and album tags and also all have the he correct album art (and set as cover if you have the ability for multiple artwork)

I have only used albumartist mainly, & occasionally, artist view for years. Never shares as this won't recognise the coverart correctly, anyway.

That is good; database views are far better

 

[1gkar]

I appreciate your responses.

I am going out of town this morning for a few days, so don't have the time for a full & proper reply. Will get back to you, when I get back.

Have a great New Year

 

[1gkar]

OK, I'm back & rearing to go, for the New Year.

-if I only have use embedded ID3 tags, I get the hi-res images used as covers in MP: but I don't get BOTH discs on a two-disc set. The second is only the "streamedMP" folder.

-if I also check use folder.jpg, I get ALL covers visible in MP, but the images are low-res.

I have tried the above, & unless I can find a way to prevent the following from recurring, I don't know the answer.

I have just checked the hidden image files in each music folder. Last year, I systematically went through ALL the folders & deleted EVERY IMAGE file, & replaced the folder.jpg with a hi-res version. This must has been overwritten when I reinstalled Windows over Christmas

Is there any way to batch delete ALL present images, & prevent Windows from overwriting the updated folder.jpg files I would reinsert? I'm not prepared to manually redo the task, as it took bloody ages, last time.

Or, another way to achieve my goal of removing all low-res images & update the folder.jpg in one hit? Cheers.

PS. I also tried using "create missing folder.jpg" & it didn't work.

 

[jameson_uk]

To delete all the artwork files in the same folders as the music files then use DOS

DEL *.jpg /S

might also need

DEL *.jpg /S /A:h

to delete hidden files (can never remember without trying it....)

If all your music is tagged then I would not bother with folder.jpg (you will open WMP by accident one day and it will helpfully overwrite everything)

When you say you don't get artwork for both discs in a set can you be more specific? There is a little feature in MP that you can not have different thumbs for different discs in the same album (we use the album name alone for thumb creation) but if both discs are tagged with the same album artist / album tags they should display the same thumb. (Handling multi-disc albums in general has been much improved in 1.2 btw)

 

[1gkar]

If all your music is tagged then I would not bother with folder.jpg (you will open WMP by accident one day and it will helpfully overwrite everything)

So I assume there is no setting (either within Windows or Media player) to prevent this from occurring?

When you say you don't get artwork for both discs in a set can you be more specific?

Check the image attached to my first post. I have red-circled what folder is not getting the proper coverart. I have the attached coverart in ALL my music ID3 tags.

(Handling multi-disc albums in general has been much improved in 1.2 btw)

So are you saying that the latest version will configure multiple album coverart properly, with each album of a multiple disc set being set up as an individual album?
I tried the 1.1.2 version over Christmas, but had issues with its stability on my system {a brand new OS reinstall with the latest version of MP installed from scratch}. May have been an issue with the StreamedMP skin, though. Will retry it, but will not happen for a while, due to time constraints. Thanks.

 

[jameson_uk]

So I assume there is no setting (either within Windows or Media player) to prevent this from occurring?

Not sure. I am fairly sure that some thumbs still get created no matter what (the albumsmall* ones).

So are you saying that the latest version will configure multiple album coverart properly, with each album of a multiple disc set being set up as an individual album?

What we have introduced is an extra level for disc# that sits between album and tracks (and is only shown by default if there is a disc id). So in this view you would see "The Wall" a single entry but clicking on it you would get both discs shown and you can play either of them from here (and still have the ability to play the whole album if you did find the time). This also removes the feature where multi-disc albums get the track numbers renamed to things like 101 and 203

Looking at your image though you appear to have set the album tag to "The Wall - Disc 1" rather than having the tag set to "The Wall" and the disc# tag set to 1 ??

So much has changed since 1.1 that I need to remind myself how this used to work... I will provide a file later so I can see what is going on.