Help with cover art in customized Genre view (1 Viewer)

[RayN]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.1
MediaPortal Skin: BlueWide
Windows Version: 7 32-bit

Hi there, I found most of what I needed from searching the forums but I'm stuck at one last thing. I have a large collection of Classical music and the default views and tagging weren't cutting it. I found out about the albumartist tag field and have used that to great success, it accomplishes exactly what I wanted in displaying my music database. I updated the Genre view to include displaying albumartist between artist and album. However, the thumbnail art is hit and miss (mostly miss) on the albumartist part of the view. Is there any way to correct this?

As a secondary request, I don't mind the Shares view, it's a little slow but I have my music organized in folders exactly how I'd like it displayed. My problem with this view is I can't figure out how to change the default layout for the track list. It defaults to Big Icon List and I would like it to be List.

Any ideas for me?
Thanks in advance! I'm a recent Meedio convert and so far I'm liking this a lot.

Ray

 

[jameson_uk]

Not 100% sure what you are seeing.

First off you now have your view setup as
Genre | Artist | Album Artist | Album | Tracks

Just not sure why you don't replace the Artist level with Album Artist so you have
Genre | Album Artist | Album | Tracks

That aside, what thumbs are you missing? Artist and Album Artist both share the same thumbs so if it works for one it should work for the other.

As for shares view I really recommend you use database views as these are so much faster and more powerful than shares view. If you really do want to use it then there are two places where the default layout is set. First off you set a default layout for the music folder (Music Folders - MediaPortal Wiki and the default view drop down). This will be the default but if you then change it in MP then this view will stick for that folder (another reason I would suggest using database views). If you want to reset all the folder layouts (they will then be what is defined as the default as above you need to delete the folder database (Databases - MediaPortal Wiki)) but shares view does not allow you to have defaults at different levels (which database views do)

 

[RayN]

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it! I was able to get the Shares view going exactly like I wanted.

As for the database option, you're right, I had replaced Artist with Album Artist in the view. I've attached a couple of images, the first is the album artist view of a particular genre, you can see the missing album art. The next screen is a selection of one of the items missing its art and, as you can see, the art is there. Strangely some show up and some don't. Would this have anything to do with how I tagged the albumartist field?

 

[jameson_uk]

Where are you thumbs stored and what options do you have set in the music database screen for thumbs.

The options on the left will determine where thumbs are picked up from. The options on the right will try and create thumbs you are missing. When creating the artist preview thumbs this will use the album thumbs and turn them into an artist thumb; in this case, if there are no album thumbs there will be no artist thumbs.

Also have you disabled downloading cover art from in the music now playing section? This will actually lookup artist thumbs for you and you may get actual pictures of the artists (not sure how good last.fm is with classical music)

So basically you need to first off figure out the thumb settings but you have a couple of options

• leave MP to create artist thumbs based on the album artwork
• allow MP to download artist thumbs from the internet (only does this when actually playing music)
• manually download artist thumbs yourself with thumbs called albumartist.jpg (eg go here and save one of those images as emma kirkby.jpg and that will then appear as the artist thumb

Album & Artist Images - MediaPortal Wiki

 

[RayN]

Here are my settings for thumb creation.

 

[jameson_uk]

Here are my settings for thumb creation.

as above, where are your thumbs stored? If these are embedded within tags you need to tick that option. Do those album artists without a thumb have any thumbs for the albums under them?

 

[RayN]

Thumbs are stored in C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs. I don't have any images embedded within tags, all images are stored as Folder.jpg inside the album folder. Yes, once I click on a blank folder album, the individual album in the next screen shows its image.

Thanks for reformatting my images, I'm not sure how to do that myself.
--Ray

 

[jameson_uk]

Thumbs are stored in C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\thumbs. I don't have any images embedded within tags, all images are stored as Folder.jpg inside the album folder. Yes, once I click on a blank folder album, the individual album in the next screen shows its image.

Can you try and rescan the database untick the only changes since xxxx option. (I doubt that will do anything but worth a go)

Then assuming that does not do anything can you (for one artist where no thumb is showing) confirm the folder structure of the folders that those files are in and the album artist that is set for all songs in that album and also that a folder.jpg does exist?

Thanks for reformatting my images, I'm not sure how to do that myself.

I attached the images rather than linking as an image. This just makes big images easier to read

 

[RayN]

Ok, I deleted my music database, deleted the Music thumbs, checked all my tags (they're fine) re-ran music import and still the same images are missing. I am able to copy the folder.jpg file to the thumbs directory as "Emma Kirkby.jpg" and then it shows up. I can manually create the thumbs if needed, it's just strange that the import seems to ignore some of the folders.

Thanks for your time, it's greatly appreciated.

--Ray

 

[jameson_uk]

can you attach full logs please