USB artwork

[Steve Woodhouse]

I’ve just completed putting music onto a USB drive and plugging it into my Ultra.

Mainly the ‘folder’ jpeg method works, but for the odd one it doesn’t.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[jfbuk]

Mainly the ‘folder’ jpeg method works, but for the odd one it doesn’t.

Do you mean nothing displays ?

Are the jpg files for the ones that that do not work bigger than the rest ? pixel reolution ?

Did you download or rip the troublesome tracks ,and if rip , what software did you use to rip ?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Do you mean nothing displays ?

Are the jpg files for the ones that that do not work bigger than the rest ? pixel reolution ?

Did you download or rip the troublesome tracks ,and if rip , what software did you use to rip ?

Now, pixel size. I’ll have a look.

Most were ripped to WMA Lossless using WMP many years ago, with data and cover art added automatically at the time, then converted to FLAC.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Do you mean nothing displays ?

Are the jpg files for the ones that that do not work bigger than the rest ? pixel reolution ?

Did you download or rip the troublesome tracks ,and if rip , what software did you use to rip ?

Sadly, that’s not it, but I think I’ve found it.

On first inspection, JPEGs are showing, but PNGs aren’t.

Actually, other issues too, but I can’t nail them.

I’ve yet to find a PNG that works, but I’ll keep trying.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

@WiiM Support could you confirm what rules are in place for cover art? File type? Number of pixels? File Size? Anything else?

Many thanks.

 

[Burnside]

Convert the PNGs to JPEG?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Convert the PNGs to JPEG?

Yes, I’m on with it.

But there are still some JPEGs not showing. And their file size doesn't look particularly different to others which do show, as far as I can tell.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

There’s something else I’ve noticed.

Some of the JPEGs not showing aren’t perfectly square. They’re something like 220x219 pixels.

Edit - Scrub that, I’ve found one that’s not ‘square’ but shows.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Bizarrely, I've found something completely illogical.

I have an album (The Crickets' The "Chirping" Crickets), in 3 mixes.

So I have a folder 'The Chirping Crickets', containing three sub folders 'The Chirping Crickets (Mono)', 'The Chirping Crickets (Stereo)', and 'The Chirping Crickets (Without Backing Vocals)'.

I have the exact same JPEG copied and pasted into the main folder and the three sub folders.

It's showing in the main folder, but not the three sub folders.

 

[Burnside]

Is this after a rescan?

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Is this after a rescan?

Yes.

Even more bizarre - you know that Crickets album. For reasons I won't go into, the same folder/3 sub folders is elsewhere on the drive, and it shows fine.

 

[Burnside]

I’d maybe browse thru the usb drive wiim_cache folder on your pc and see if you can spot any clues in the jpegs it has saved in those folders - from memory, it’s one jpeg per track for the track/album artwork.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

I’d maybe browse thru the usb drive wiim_cache folder on your pc and see if you can spot any clues in the jpegs it has saved in those folders - from memory, it’s one jpeg per track for the track/album artwork.

Cheers.

So this is where I am.

I've changed all PNGs to JPEGs.

I've had a look at some folders, and this is wonky. You look in a folder and there are 21 tracks and 1 JPEG ('folder') so that's 22 items. You come out of the folder and right click on it, then Properties, and there are 23 items. And yes, I have it set to show 'hidden' files.

A big example, my Kinks EP Collection, despite me putting different, individual 'folder' JPEGs in each EP's folder, all of them show as the same image. If I right click on each folder and select properties, it shows 6 files in each folder, despite it having just 5 (4 tracks and a JPEG).

I've copied each track and JPEG out of that folder into a new one, deleted the original then copied back in the new folder. Right click and it's 5 items not 6.

I've completely deleted, then re-formatted the USB drive, then copied in the adjusted dive.

Let's see how it goes.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

Ran it this morning before work. I didn’t have my notes (a list of errors), but I could remember a few, and all bar one were fixed.

I should finish it tonight.

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

A quick update, we're pretty much sorted.

I think all the folders not showing an icon are now doing so, so that's great.

There is still an issue, though.

I mentioned earlier The Kinks EP Collection, which is a multi-disc boxed set, each disc representing a 4-track EP. I have a folder for the boxed set, which correctly shows a pic of the box. I then have a folder for each EP, with its own cover art showing correctly. However, when I go into that folder, all 4 tracks show as the wrong cover art.

On doing a little digging - I was unaware of this as a fact, but I'd sort of guessed - the album art is embedded into the FLAC file, and there's no easy way to remove it. Which is quite mad.

There is a way to sort this, or a couple of ways, using different tag programmes.

Here's the one I intend to use:

 

[jfbuk]

MP3tag (as referenced in the YouTube) is very functionally rich so will do the job.
I think that in theory you could select your whole collection and remove album art metadata across all albums

 

[Steve Woodhouse]

MP3tag (as referenced in the YouTube) is very functionally rich so will do the job.
I think that in theory you could select your whole collection and remove album art metadata across all albums

Now I could do that, and have considered it.

But as it is, probably 75% of my folders and tracks are showing correctly because of embedded artwork rather than ‘folder’ JPEGs which I’ve inserted myself, so I’d just be creating more work.

Still a possibility, though. And I like tinkering.

 

[BEE]

The app Bliss which runs on many platforms can strip embedded artwork very easily and left to run through all your tracks automatically.

 

[Bill Mac]

MP3tag (as referenced in the YouTube) is very functionally rich so will do the job.
I think that in theory you could select your whole collection and remove album art metadata across all albums

I agree 100% that MP3tag is a great resource for providing album art. I'm new to adding album art to files ripped to USB har drives and find MP3tag to work quite well. I had ripped about 200-300 SACDs in my collection. When the SACDs were ripped I made the mistake of not adding album art. Recently I spent a considerable amount of time adding album art to all of those ripped SACDs using MP3tag.

 

[simbun]

I agree 100% that MP3tag is a great resource for providing album art. I'm new to adding album art to files ripped to USB har drives and find MP3tag to work quite well.

Can you add additional sources to Mp3tag?
Whilst MusicBrainz and Discogs have quite good coverage I find their quality lacking. If you're only after 600*600 it's probably not too bad, but generally I prefer resolution over compression for detail retention.

I use AlbumArtDownloader which includes Discogs and Musicbrainz but also the big online services e.g. Qobuz, iTunes, Deezer, where you'll generally find better quality images.