[solved] ID3 tag album cover is not displayed (2 Viewers)

[horned_reaper]

Thank you very much for your investigation, really appreciated!
I'm sure that we will solve also this problem.

After some testing and researching I found out that the issue occurs under some circumstance, when the " (quotation mark) character is used to enclose the search strings in the URL.

Working:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release-group/?query=artist:"Various+Artists" AND release:"Dream+Dance,Vol.+46

Please note the missing quotation mark character at the URL end!

Not working:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release-group/?query=artist:"Various+Artists" AND release:"Dream+Dance,+Vol.+46"

With all quotation marks.

According to the MusicBrainz API documentation search strings don't need to be enclosed:
Artist
Example

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/artist/?query=artist:fred%20AND%20type:group%20AND%20country:US

If you remove the quotation mark from the MBID search function it works for all albums and we comply with the MBID query syntax:
Working:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release-group/?query=artist:Various+Artists AND release:Dream+Dance,+Vol.+46

The same applies to the GNR album:
Working:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release-group/?query=artist:Guns+N'+Roses AND release:Use+Your+Illusion+I

 

[ajs]

According to the MusicBrainz API documentation search strings don't need to be enclosed:

The documentation does not contain a description of whether quotes are necessary or not. But without quotes, the search for some artists gives either a wrong result or no result at all. Perhaps this was before and now something has changed. But simply removing quotes is not quite an option.

Perhaps i can remove the quotes from the album title, but here you need to check well on the same non-English names. There may not be everything so good.

 

[ajs]

But! In API documentation i see: The query field supports the full Lucene Search syntax; you can find a detailed guide at Lucene Search Syntax.

A Phrase is a group of words surrounded by double quotes such as "hello dolly".

 

[horned_reaper]

Now I think I've finally found the root cause and a solution!

The release group was named exactly as the album: Dream Dance, Vol. 46

I was not aware that FH searches for the release name instead release group name. Hence, I didn't take care of the release name.
And the release name had a different name: Dream Dance 46

On other compilations of this series where FH finds the album art, the release name matches with the release group name. E. g.:

My apologies that I didn't realise this so long, @ajs!
Apparently FH works well.
Nevertheless, I'm glad that the root cause is found! Thank you very much for your support, really appreciated!

 

[ajs]

No problem, but if everything is fine, then I am glad, I will read the text tomorrow, today I have no strength.

-- Tapatalk | WBR, ajs

 

[horned_reaper]

Coming back to the original topic of this post. Those who prefer the music file (ID3 tag) integrated album art can modify the skin file.
E. g. Titan Simple Mode:
File name: C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MediaPortal\skin\TitanPlayingNow.SimpleBody.xml

    <control>
      <type>image</type>
      <description>Album Art image</description>
      <id>0</id>
      <!--posX>1525</posX-->
      <posX>1650</posX>
      <posY>810</posY>
      <width>250</width>
      <height>250</height>
      <texture>#Play.Current.Thumb</texture>
      <animation effect="fade" time="250">WindowOpen</animation>
      <animation effect="fade" time="250">WindowClose</animation>
      <!--visible>Player.HasMedia+string.equals(#fanarthandler.music.artisthumb.play,)</visible-->
      <visible>Player.HasMedia</visible>
    </control>

    <control>
      <type>image</type>
      <description>Album Art image</description>
      <id>0</id>
      <!--posX>1525</posX-->
      <posX>1650</posX>
      <posY>810</posY>
      <width>250</width>
      <height>250</height>
      <texture>#fanarthandler.music.artisthumb.play</texture>
      <animation effect="fade" time="250">WindowOpen</animation>
      <animation effect="fade" time="250">WindowClose</animation>
      <!--visible>Player.HasMedia</visible-->
      <visible>Player.HasMedia+string.equals(#Play.Current.Thumb,)</visible>
    </control>

With this modification the MediaPortal Playing Now screen shows the file embedded album cover and in case it doesn't exist it shows the Fanart Handler album art (album cover or artist thumb).

 

[ajs]

With this modification the MediaPortal Playing Now screen shows the file embedded album cover

If MP have embedded album cover then MP save it in thumb folder, and FH should find this thumb and show it in FH property ...

 

[horned_reaper]

Yes, this is right, if the "Use for thumb creation cover art embedded in ID3-Tags" MP option is enabled.
However, if a file embedded album cover exists and FH finds an album cover as well, the album art may shortly zoom in or out on music track start. This looks strange, as shown in this video.
The reason is that MediaPortal and FH use different ways of scaling. If an album cover is not quadratic (unequal length and height), FH crops it. MediaPortal always shows the full album cover, as discussed in this thread.

On track start the album art also may brighten or darken: If the embedded and the FH album cover originate from different sources, they may look different e. g. because of different scanner hardware quality or scan settings.

If for these reasons or to prevent false positives by FH, the user prefers (his manually assigned) file embedded album covers in MediaPortal, currently there's no other way as to modify the skin file, right?
I'd love to see a FH option to show FH album covers only if MediaPortal doesn't show an album cover for the current track. In this case there would be no conflict between FH and MediaPortal, and the skin files wouldn't need to be modified.

 

[ajs]

FH show thumbs as is without resize, crop etc. If MP extract embedded cover to thumb, FH find it and fill FH property and skin engine show picture. In this case MP and FH property equal and the some.

-- Tapatalk

 

[horned_reaper]

This would be nice! However, MediaPortal doesn't create the thumbnails from the ID3 tags.
What I did to reproduce this issue:
1. Revert the skin file adjustment
2. Delete all files from MP album thumbs folder
3. Clean up all missing files with FH configuration user interface
4. Enable the MP database options to create missing thumbnails from ID3 tags and folder.jpg files.
5. Run a database scan
6. Play an affected album (Sunshine Live, Volume 19)

Result: MediaPortal didn't create the thumbnail for this album, FH created a cropped album thumbnail, album cover is zoomed in at track start, as shown in this video.