id3 tag album art from some titles not recognized (1 Viewer)

[BrillMistake]

Update.... the plot thickens....

OK, so after much frustration, I deleted my Music Database, and started over. Configured MediaPortal (RC3) to only use folder.jpg, and not to use ID3 for images.

Now here's the interesting part.... precisely the same results (although I am confident MediaPortal is picking up the folder.jpg, since I used the same folder.jpg file in ALL my album folders (as a test).
So... I think ID3 embedded art is a possible red herring....

For some reason, given precisely the same folder.jpg file placed in every album folder.... MediaPortal still only picks up the first 18 or so artists (including all their associated albums). Then it starts to fail to render the cover art of the artist.


My next test will be to remove the cover art for the first 18 artists and see if MediaPortal then finds the cover art for the next 18 (suggesting it's memory / disk constrained in some way)

 

[BrillMistake]

Issue resolved via a workaround

The workaround that worked for me was as follows:

a) Enable my shared music server folder to be read/write (I reluctantly had to do this for the obvious reasons revealed below)

b) Ensure no folder.jpg exist in any of the album folders

c) Enable MediaPlayer configuration to use both ID3 embedded art AND folder.jpg based art

d) Ensure MediaPlayer is configured to create folder.jpg files from any found art (hence read/write access)

e) Rebuild the database


This took literally 4 hours or so, but worked.




I take a slight objection to the developer claiming that real music lovers would user folder.jpg - There are logical reasons for both embedded and folder.jpg based art (that's why we have two ways to do it.... there's always a reason)


The pro's and con's?....

Embedded Art
Pro Can reduce disk cluster usage (in massive collections, and only if embedded in the first track of an album)
Pro Always stays with the track (if embedded into every track) - even if a single track is sent to a media device
Con Typically wastes disk space
Pro Can embedded multiple images in a file
Con Some oddball implementations of the 'standard' can cause problems
Con Harder to update than Folder.jpg

Folder.jpg
Pro One file to represent the entire folder
Pro Usually results in less disk space usage
Con Can sometimes increase diskspace usage (moderately)
Con Not really a standard at all... it's Microsoft's quite poor arrangement for cover art
Con Can only hold one file (although, yes, of course you can have 'Front' 'Back' CD' etc
Pro Usually easier to update


There are probably more pros and cons, but all in all, it's just wrong to say one way is the right way for real music lovers.!!!



MediaPortal?.... in the top 10 Open Source projects our there... Superb suite, if a little convoluted to use at first.

Final comment - So many postings about issues are down to the lack of understanding between 'Shares' and 'Database'. This needs to be massively addressed - I truly believe folks give up on MediaPortal too quickly having not grasped this basic concept.... the UI could help this situation, but that's for another day...


/The Analog Kid

 

[Clair]

Im sick because of covers. Why winamp, itunes and other simply applications can show me covers exactly as i wish and MP not

I just delete all jpg files and i just rebuild database from id3 - so covers in every mp3 are shown.. but FOLDERS with albums are without covers (ofcourse not all) and i dont know WHY

I have few album with mp3 and in every song id3tag i have cover of this album (created by Mp3tag 2.42) this pretty works with itunes who im using for my iphone. So i dont understand how it works. What im doing wrong?

Is there possibility of just getting cover to folder from content mp3 (if in folder are mp3 with different covers (i.e. some kind of mixes) it could be show by random or by selected cover as it is in itunes)

sorry for my english

 

[bms2012]

It seems that MP doesn't support ID3V1 (why?).

Rewrite the ID Tag to Version 2.3+ with MP3tag and you will see them!

 

[rtv]

I've added some fixes which improve extraction of embedded cover art if the image is corrupted or too big.

 

[techsc]

rtv:

thanks. I'll test it once I have some more time left.

For the time being I can say that MP does extract 99,99% of the images I've embedded in the songs (~30K Titles).

Clair:

Your request equals to my idea of how MP should be working.

If there is a folder.jpg availble, use this to display the folder icon. If not, extract it from a song inside the folder. Well, I have setup my collection with folder.jpg's in all folders - a lot of work indeed, but works now like a charm

 

[techsc]

Please see the attached test file (the content is silent - no copyright issue here).

Too bad, the new Mediaportal 1.0.2 now has again problems showing some album cover art - although their respective embedded cover art is successfully extracted and cached.

All these titles worked in the previous Release.

Example file:

Filename: "Anastacia - Paid My Dues.mp3"
Track: [Empty]
Disc: [Emptye]
Title: "Paid My Dues"
Artist: "Anastacia"
Album: "Megahits2002 Cd1"
Album Artist: "Anastacia"
Year: 2002

Successfully extracted cover art: "Anastacia-Megahits2002 Cd1.jpg" and "Anastacia-Megahits2002 Cd1L.jpg".

However, within MP the cover is not shown ;(

 

[Spragleknas]

Eh... MediaPortal 1.1?

 

[techsc]

Eh... MediaPortal 1.1?

Thanks for the snag info. I've corrected the post

The problem still applies.

 

[techsc]

Can someone test the attached file and confirm that MediaPortal is unable to display the album art?