Request: How to assign Cover art to folders?

[pepstor]

Hey there, firstly, thank God/Allah/Satan/Whoever you worship, that you guys are here on the net helping peeps out!

I just got me a MZ-DH10P instead of getting one of the new Sony hard drive walkmans, or an IPod, as I've been a fan of MD since I had my MZ-1 before anyone else a million years ago (I actually had three, it got sent back that much it was so buggy, RIP bless etc)

I'm no stranger to SonicStage as I also have an ATRAC3+ CD Walkman - which I have sussed out totally in the past and have had many hours of enjoyment from.

Now I've got the SonicStage software from this site, as the CD that came with my machine installed but wouldn't run (summat to do with databases,) thanks to your tutorials and downloads I've got it working fine, and have made a few discs, but so far haven't figured out (it's not in the manual!) how to assign album art from Amazon (or whereever,) as the album art for particular "groups" - (this was momentarily confusing, as "group" to me is a bunch of people with instruments who play the songs, but in the world of MD, it appears to mean "folder,")

So I've got ALL of Douglas Adams work (Hitch Hiker, Dirk Gently,) as various bitrated (vs audiobooks or not,) bitrates, and would LIKE to assign a pic of the CD covers as "Album Art" - and here's my question:

How do I do it?

I've not taken any photos on this disc, so a picture folder hasn't been created, it's my GUESS that I should take a photo, so it creates a pic folder, then delete the photo and add the album art to that folder?? *shrugs*

Please help, I'm very much a "finish the job before moving on" kinda guy, and this is stopping me from removing this disc and ripping half of my 982364827469873781628354859954 CDs...

Thanks in advance,

KLx

[atrain]

you get you image on the hard drive then right click 'album' in sonicstage & goto properties then to 'add' under the image box

[pepstor]

you get you image on the hard drive then right click 'album' in sonicstage & goto properties then to 'add' under the image box

Yeah, I can do that with files on my hard drive, but I'm wanting to do exactly that, with the files I've already encoded and put on the HiMD

[Ishiyoshi]

Yeah, I can do that with files on my hard drive, but I'm wanting to do exactly that, with the files I've already encoded and put on the HiMD

Welcome to MDCF!

Please read page 41 of your operating manual - Cover Art Setting: "Setting a Still Image as the Music Cover Art." You should be able to set cover art to tunes already transferred.

[pepstor]

Welcome to MDCF!

Please read page 41 of your operating manual - Cover Art Setting: "Setting a Still Image as the Music Cover Art." You should be able to set cover art to tunes already transferred.

Thanks - this only seems to let me choose from photos I've taken using the unit, not any "external" artwork..?

[Ishiyoshi]

Thanks - this only seems to let me choose from photos I've taken using the unit, not any "external" artwork..?

In that case, you can always transfer the cover art (jpeg file) in question and set them accordingly to the designated tunes.

[pepstor]

In that case, you can always transfer the cover art (jpeg file) in question and set them accordingly to the designated tunes.

Nope, it's only letting me see photos that have been taken with the unit, even though I've put the cover art pics in the same folder as the photos

[Ishiyoshi]

Nope, it's only letting me see photos that have been taken with the unit, even though I've put the cover art pics in the same folder as the photos

That's rather cumbersome then. Well, I reckon you are left with only two alternatives:

1) you will have to set cover arts accordingly before you re-transfer those tunes. I am sorry that you have to do this all over again.

or

2) take an instant picture of the cover art with the DH10P and set it accordingly to the designated tunes.

[Richard]

That's rather cumbersome then. Well, I reckon you are left with only two alternatives:

1) you will have to set cover arts accordingly before you re-transfer those tunes. I am sorry that you have to do this all over again.

or

2) take an instant picture of the cover art with the DH10P and set it accordingly to the designated tunes.

I think as Ishii says you've only got the above 2 options to go with, which I'll say from experience is a minor annoyance as I had about 20 or so HI-MD discs encoded with other units before I got my DH10P and wanted to add the cover art after the fact. What I did try was this:

Create the photo folder on the disc. Get my cover arts from various sources. Re-size them using an editing program to have the same dimensions as a cover art snapshot and save them as Jpeg's. Copy them to the unit. This allowed me to see & assign them as cover art, but if I remember correctly they didn't display correctly on the unit, they just showed up as an icon indicating a "broken link" type thing. I didn't dig much further than this and now as a rule generally download my album art from Discogs.com or Amazon then assign to the group in SS before transferring.

Edited September 24, 2005 by richyhu

[pepstor]

OK Guys, thanks for your help - like I say, you've all been majorly enlightning so far anyway..

Keep up the good work!

[pepstor]

OK, I've deleted everything off the HiMD, and assigned each track album art and then re-encoded it and uploaded it to the HiMD again! But it doesn't work! It brings up a pic of a musical note, not the image I assigned, and when I try to add cover art (on the unit,) it says "NO GROUP"

? ? ?

[Richard]

OK, I've deleted everything off the HiMD, and assigned each track album art and then re-encoded it and uploaded it to the HiMD again! But it doesn't work! It brings up a pic of a musical note, not the image I assigned, and when I try to add cover art (on the unit,) it says "NO GROUP"

? ? ?

What I do is this. Rip cd's in SS. Organise my view in SS to be albums/playlists. Right click on each album and in the properties of the album only add the cover art. Transfer each album by clicking on the top-level album itself not the individual tracks. This should send across the albums as groups with the art assigned to each group.

[pepstor]

Right, I've figured it out, and I'm gonna write it here to help those who wish to get to the bottom of this.

As far as I can make out, you can't create "groups" on the "My Library" side of SS - you can only make Playlists or Albums - you can assign cover art to these Playlists and Albums, and provided you transfer them AS playlists or albums, (right-click, transfer to HiMD,) they will become "groups" (folders) on your MD (nowhere in any literature does it explain that this is what will happen!!) - only if you do it this way can you assign album art to groups - you cannot "create groups on the md" and then assign art later - neither can you assign art to individual tracks and then add them to newly created groups that you made on the MD - also, you need to be viewing the list of My Library or whatever search you're doing to find the thing you need as "Albums/Playlists"

you HAVE to create Playlists or Albums on the LEFT and assign art to THAT before porting it over. Trust me, it does work, but only when you do it this way - this includes creating Albums out of bunches of mp3s on your hard drive - it may help (although it takes a while) to make sure the "album" field of each mp3 is the same as that of which cover art you wish to apply to it.

Cover art does not need to be of any particular size as far as I can tell the software downgrades it and re-sizes it to what it needs.

One last thing, if you have more than one copy of a certain mp3 or album in My Library, it may help if you delete the duplicates and just work on one batch.

Is I-Tunes easier than this?!

PS: As for my Douglas Adams compilation, you'll be pleased to know there turned out to be 42 tracks on it.

Edited September 25, 2005 by KLX1

[Richard]

Cover art does not need to be of any particular size as far as I can tell the software downgrades it and re-sizes it to what it needs.

PS: As for my Douglas Adams compilation, you'll be pleased to know there turned out to be 42 tracks on it.

That in a nutshell is what I do, although you explained in a lot clearer fashion The manual resize I onyl tried for adding art not taken with the unit to previously recorded discs (which didn't work). Yes SS will resize any cover art so that it displays correctly.