S610/A810 Playlists + Album Art W/O WMP11

[dr. zoidberg]

Hi everyone, I just got an S615F and I find it annoying that in order to make playlists or to have album art (without embedding it into the tag) I have to use WMP.

I am willing (and sort of capable) of making a small app to make playlists and upload album art via MTP. In fact, my first test with album art has already been successful. Getting playlists might be a bit harder though

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to make playlists with the player in UMS mode. Because of this, it's necessary to use MTP which is provided by WMP10 and above. The point of this app would be not to have to mess around with the WMP media library (or other programs libraries like media monkey)

I will probably develop this app for myself anyways, but I just wanted to see if anyone else is interested in this.

Cheers

Edited March 12, 2008 by dr. zoidberg

[Ascariss]

hey doc, I wouldn't mind seeing an applicaiton like this, in fact I would highly support this would even offer my services in making graphics for it, if you needed some. I have no programming skills so I can't help on that end sadly. But I am sure most people who own the new players, would appreciate this software.

WMP isn't bad, but I would just want to drag and drop all my mp3 files into 1 folder in the music folder, then just drag and drop various playlists that would read from that one large music folder. if you could make such software to create playlists that read from one folder it would be heaven for me.

looking forwards to seeing this in action.

[LG1_]

Shhh, don't forget about Sony Media Manager.

Wait that is still crap, so maybe not, but it does do playlists with album art so its worth a try

[mmp64]

I use Winamp.

[bob123_]

I would definitely be interested in your proposed application. WMP11 is fine but doesn't support AAC transfer etc as so you can't have any ACC songs on WMP playlists. I have found Winamp to be unreliable and unpredictable in terms of what is transferred to the player. Album art isn't such a big deal for me as I use dbpoweramp to rip files which embeds the art.

[dr. zoidberg]

hey doc, I wouldn't mind seeing an applicaiton like this, in fact I would highly support this would even offer my services in making graphics for it, if you needed some. I have no programming skills so I can't help on that end sadly. But I am sure most people who own the new players, would appreciate this software.

WMP isn't bad, but I would just want to drag and drop all my mp3 files into 1 folder in the music folder, then just drag and drop various playlists that would read from that one large music folder. if you could make such software to create playlists that read from one folder it would be heaven for me.

looking forwards to seeing this in action.

Ok, that would be appreciated, I suck at graphics .

I would definitely be interested in your proposed application. WMP11 is fine but doesn't support AAC transfer etc as so you can't have any ACC songs on WMP playlists. I have found Winamp to be unreliable and unpredictable in terms of what is transferred to the player. Album art isn't such a big deal for me as I use dbpoweramp to rip files which embeds the art.

Lack of AAC support in WMP is also one of the big reasons I want to make this program (media monkey/winamp can do it blah blah, i'm still making this app ).

I don't have a fixed roadmap but I plan to develop this in baby steps. I'll first try to get album art working by just adding the album art to files already on the player. This would seem to be the easiest to do since I already have an extremely rudimentary working app that does this. After that, I'll tackle making playlists with files already on the player. Eventually, I'd like to be able to upload files and automatically add album art.

I'll keep you guys posted!

[Zizone_]

I personally use WMP11 for just WAV files. Other than that I use PS3 for AAC files, which also supports album arts; I haven't tried using playlist function on PS3 but I can try it later and let you guys know when I get back home later. Anyhow, it will be nice to see additional software

[dr. zoidberg]

Hi, here is a taste of what the app will be like. It's very rough right now, i.e. most stuff doesn't work

The only thing that works now is creating playlists from music files already on the player but it is still not complete and very rough.

http://walkmanmtp.googlecode.com/files/Wal...TP%20v0.1r3.zip

you will need the .Net framework and possibly the Visual C++ runtime 2008

if you choose to submit bug reports, please make them very detailed!

enjoy!

Edited March 26, 2008 by dr. zoidberg

[LG1_]

Sorry to tell you its not working

ERROR INITIALIZING

Index out of Range

[dr. zoidberg]

here's a better version

http://code.google.com/p/walkmanmtp/downloads/list

[dr. zoidberg]

new version again (0.3.0). You can now upload any kind of file to the player. Normally you are limited to uploading supported file types (unless you're using UMS mode of course)

Known bug: the Playlists folder must already be present in the same directory as MUSIC or else you will get a playlist error. If it's not there, create an empty directory called 'Playlists' (case sensitive) and upload it to the player via explorer

http://code.google.com/p/walkmanmtp/downloads/list

[dr. zoidberg]

New version 0.3.9.1 (lots of bug fixes and speed enhancements).

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showt...2640#post242640

[TooManyUserNamesToRemember]

Shhh, don't forget about Sony Media Manager.

Wait that is still crap, so maybe not, but it does do playlists with album art so its worth a try

I tried Sony Media Manager, and it seems even worse than ChronicStage. It seems to insist on spending 30 minutes on startup 'opening media cache' whatever that means, during which time it obstructs your access to the desktop with an unmovable spash screen. Then, if when it finally runs it for some reason fails to detect your net connection there's no way of making it look again (that I can find) short of quitting and restarting, involving another 30 minute wait while it does God knows what. This issue alone makes it unusable for me.

I will never understand how a company as wealthy as Sony (and with such high standards of quality control for hardware) is unable to find any competent programmers to employ. Is it that they get their hardware engineers to knock up some software in their spare time or something? Or maybe they get their engineers' pre-school children to make something as a kindergarten project?

Anyway, the reason I was posting is that I've used Windows Media Player to embed art, and it shows up fine in WMP and in 'media manager' but almost none of it will show up on the player itself. The manual says in an unhelpful way, that 'some art may not display depending on the format'. All the art is in jpeg form, and maybe 2% of it displays. What 'format' does it have to be in so that the player will actually display it?

Oh, figured it out now, my ignorance...so if you use the 'file details' option on WMP it only puts art into the folder icon or perhaps some hidden database of its own, it neither embeds it in the mp3s nor puts in the folder the way media manager does. So now I have art visible in both WMP and media manager, but no way to put it in a format that the player can use. Worse, there's no way to tell from looking at it in WMP or MM whether the art is there in the right form or the wrong form, so I don't even know which albums need to be laboriously updated by googling, saving and then dragging and dropping the art (that I already have).

I hate computers.

Does any one know of a utility that can take all the (thousands of pieces of) art that WMP has stored (somewhere, God knows where that is) and automatically move it into the relevant album folders or embed it in the mp3 files, so that it can be used by the player?

Edited May 2, 2008 by TooManyUserNamesToRemember

[fugusushi]

I use Winamp.

this suggested new programme sounds spot on!

but for the time being, i've just started using Winamp too. But I can't fathom how to add cover art - so if you can do it, i'd certainly appreciate a quick guide as to 'how to'

many thanks

[fugusushi]

New version 0.3.9.1 (lots of bug fixes and speed enhancements).

http://www.anythingbutipod.com/forum/showt...2640#post242640

this sounds like just what i need!

will it work on my 829?

many thanks

[juli_]

I ended up using Mp3tag to sort out ALL my album art on my 829 yesterday. I didn't know I could do it in 'batch' form, but once I did, it was fine. Now every single track has the correct album art. It took a while, but it worked, which is the main thing.

There's nothing worse than spending hours on something, only to find out it didn't make the changes.

I had certain albums displaying 5 different covers on the 829 (covers that were not even on my hard drive anymore!), so it was nice to finally sort it out!

[fugusushi]

I ended up using Mp3tag to sort out ALL my album art on my 829 yesterday. I didn't know I could do it in 'batch' form, but once I did, it was fine. Now every single track has the correct album art. It took a while, but it worked, which is the main thing.

There's nothing worse than spending hours on something, only to find out it didn't make the changes.

I had certain albums displaying 5 different covers on the 829 (covers that were not even on my hard drive anymore!), so it was nice to finally sort it out!

juli - thanks for the heads-up, i appreciate that.

i've downloaded and installed Mp3tag. i've used Winamp to load tracks as it seemed to the offering the best conversion options - but i've got no cover art so this is sure to help me out.

would you mind giving me a quick steer as to how you went about using it to get your art on there... what's the MO?

many thanks

[fugusushi]

actually, it doesn't seem to support WAV files - which is what all my tracks on are in my hard disk! not sure i'm gonna be able to make use of it after all...!

[juli_]

Rum Mp3tag and let it pick up all your music. Then click one of the top menus to view by album. That way they'll all be in alphabetical order. Highlight an an individual album (it will go blue), then right clight and choose "Extended Tagging". Click the red cross X on the right of the menu that pops up and then click OK. It will delete all existing screwed up artwork. The click the + symbol and navigate to where your chosen album art it, and click OK. You'll see a message saying 'saving tags' or something. Then you should see the album cover in the left hand preview pane of Mp3tag. If you scroll down the tracks you'll see the album art is the same for each track.

I haven't had a single failure yet, it's time consuming, but it works.

I've written all this from memory, so if it doesn't work (!!!), tell me, and I'll run the program and note all the steps.

[fugusushi]

juli - i really appreciate the assistance, but it won't read WAV files!! I checked - ran it on my whole disc and it did find a host of files in other formats - but not no matter what, no WAV!

it probably wasn't the smartest thing for me to bring in all my files as WAV - but i'd picked up a 300gb drive and 'it seemed like a good idea at the time'...!

i did find a tag editor that can retag WAV files. it's not as good as Mp3tag and not sure it's really solving my issues anyway - or at least it doesn't seem to play happy with Winamp...

i'm glad to hear you're enjoying your 829, 'cause i gotta say right now, i'm regretting getting it!! i did even look at the Japanese vs. that does support ATRAC - but the menus are only in Japanese so i didn't go for it...hmmm....

[juli_]

juli - i really appreciate the assistance, but it won't read WAV files!! I checked - ran it on my whole disc and it did find a host of files in other formats - but not no matter what, no WAV!

Oh crap, sorry! I converted all my lossless to mp3 (and kept the lossless on an external hard drive for backup), and I wrongly assumed you had the same kind of set up. Are you planning to put only WAV on your Sony, or a mix?

I have my favourite gapless albums in WAV (only way for them to play gapless!) and everything else in mp3 format.

How about converting your WAVs with dbpoweramp (trial period is 14 days I think). It's easy to use, you can convert using the highest mp3 lame setting (320kbps) - and you can use Mp3tag then to sort out all the album art. And you can keep all the WAV files as backup.

I appreciate it's a bummer to have go through all that. But once it's done, it's done.

[fugusushi]

yes, that's true, once it's done, it's done and that's why i'm persisting...

but, i tried a couple of tag editors that did support WAV and when i ameneded them they were no longer readable by WMP or Winamp! - WMP said someth. about not accepting compressed tag info - or someth. anyway, it's kinda shyed me away from the whole retagging idea.

i'm still mulling over what else to do...!

''damn you Sony! damn you all to hell!''

did anyone come up with a reasonable explanation as to how come the Japanese versions of these models still support ATRAC??

[dr. zoidberg]

I'm currently working on implementing album art functionality. When it's done, you should be able to add any kind of audio file to the album (including albums with mixed file formats, hopefully) along with the album art. keep checking the site for updates.

Incidentally, there is another update v0.3.9.3: changed the icons to make them look nicer, can now delete files from within the program

http://code.google.com/p/walkmanmtp/downloads/list

be sure to check the readme file and/or the Issues list on google code to see what works and what doesn't work yet.

Edited May 12, 2008 by dr. zoidberg

[dr. zoidberg]

For those of you that have problems with album art, I finally got around to implementing the album manager on WalkmanMTP. It is possible to create albums with album art with any file type supported by the player (not just mp3's). Doing so is really easy, just drag and drop the files that you want into the albums list area and everything else is automatic

http://code.google.com/p/walkmanmtp/

Edited June 8, 2008 by dr. zoidberg

[aafuss]

i copied several songs out of iTunes on a Mac onto my A815-the album art on these were retained and displayed fine.