Displaying high resolution cover art in Now Playing (1 Viewer)

[jmarc]

Hi all,

While playing with the brand new Fanart Handler plugin, I realised that the "Now Playing" window was showing the ugly low res version of the covert art, very annoying when there are such beautiful background pictures.

FYI here's the link to the fantastic Fanart Handler: Fanart Handler Plugin v1.0 (and music fanart scraper) - MediaPortal Forum

The way I've resolved this problem is the following:

1) Delete all your music thumbs as follow (make backup beforehand):

It will clear C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs\Music

2) Prevent MyMusic from downloading covert art from the Internet:

When this option is not selected, the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs\Music\Albums contains 500x500 STRETCHED versions of the 120x120 thumbs automatically downloaded from the Internet. That's why it looks ugly in "Now Playing"

3) Force MyMusic to use the cover art embedded in ID3-Tags:

I have embedded high res cover art all all my music files with the EXCELLENT MPTagThat: MPTagThat - MediaPortal Forum (love it)

Here's the end result:

Hope you'll find this useful ...

Cheers,

JMA

 

[Henkie Flits]

Great! I was looking for the same thing and since you already found the cause, excellent!

Do you know what the impact is from the Last.fm album and artist art finder? This is a great source and automatic which is great but how will it affect the use of Fanart Handler regarding to picture quality?

 

[jmarc]

Not too sure as I don't use Last.fm (assuming you're talking about the Audioscrobbler plug-in). Sorry

 

[kiwijunglist]

The images for album/artist that the audioscrobber plugin finds depends on what is available on last.fm

Last.fm allows a resolution limit high enough for good quality artist/album thumbs, but the quality all depends on what has been uploaded to them, as there is no minimun standard. The resolution limit on last.fm is too low for fanart suitable images.

 

[boombastic]

I cannot manage to open the link with the images you poste. Can you also detail by words the settings needed?

 

[jmarc]

Done ... Please let me know if it helps ...

 

[ToXIc]

great info... what skin are you using?

 

[jmarc]

StreamedMP: StreamedMP - MediaPortal Forum

I have also tried X-Factor, it's really nice too.

Cheers,

 

[boombastic]

Thank you for the working links to the images.

Following your instructions this is what i get in "Now Playing" with StreamedMP and Fanart Handler installed.

The cover is missing on the left-top, what could be wrong?

 

[jmarc]

Have you embedded the hi-res cover art in the music files themselves (ID-3 Tags) as per step 3?

The idea is to force MP to use the ID-3 tag.

Otherwise ... no idea sorry