Utility to put album art in correct format

[TooManyUserNamesToRemember]

I Discovered that if you use the 'file details' option on Windows Media Player 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 Sony 'media manager' does.

This means I now I have art that is visible in both WMP and media manager, but no way to put it in a format that the player (NWZ A818, i.e. not an ATRAC device) 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). As I have 3000 or so ripped cds, most with art automatically inserted by WMP I can't face fixing this manually.

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, I'm guessing its in the folder icon itself for each album) 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?

(See, the NWZ A818 will only display album art if its inside the folder, with the name 'folder', or if its embedded into the mp3 tags themselves, but WMP doesn't do that if you automatically look up the art on line, it puts it in the holding folder icon, I think).

PS Using XP SP2

Edited May 3, 2008 by TooManyUserNamesToRemember

[pata2001]

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, I'm guessing its in the folder icon itself for each album) 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?

No, you just hate WMP.

My favorite app is MP3tag, although I'm not sure if it could do exactly what you want (ie. automatically retrieving WMP's album art). The album art from WMP should be stored in the same folder as the MP3 as a hidden/system file called folder.jpg/albumart.jpg. You might have to paste them manually using a separate ID3 tag editor. MP3tag can do batch tagging pretty well.

[TooManyUserNamesToRemember]

No, you just hate WMP.

My favorite app is MP3tag, although I'm not sure if it could do exactly what you want (ie. automatically retrieving WMP's album art). The album art from WMP should be stored in the same folder as the MP3 as a hidden/system file called folder.jpg/albumart.jpg. You might have to paste them manually using a separate ID3 tag editor. MP3tag can do batch tagging pretty well.

Thanks for that suggestion, I've grabbed that program and it looks very good, though I don't think it entirely solves my specific problem with art. Ideally I need something that goes through every folder and automatically changes the way the art is stored from the WMP method (in the folder icon, I think) to the system file in folder method that the player uses. In fact I don't understand how exactly WMP stores the art.

I was using a program called 'audioshell' from www.softpointer but it kept crashing with very worrying error messages (something about 'windows has stopped this program to protect your computer' because it was trying to write to memory reserved for windows). Had to spend an age on virus and spyware scans to be sure.

Anyway, it seems to me there's a serious need for standardisation about mp3 tags and art. Every program and player seems to handle them differently. Art is either embedded in the mp3 file, or it is, as you describe, in a system file in the folder, or it;s somehow embedded in the folder icon but not present inside the filder.

Now I have loads (thousands) of albums each with the art embedded in a different way, and its a pain to tell beforehand which ones will show up on the player!

Still, I really like this player. Sony seem to have much higher QA standards (for hardware) than Apple. and amongst the best sound quality, I think.

[TooManyUserNamesToRemember]

Woo hoo!

Seems that program you recommended does indeed allow a 'batch job' approach so I can do exactly what I wanted, i.e. automatically take the folder art and embed it for all 3000+ albums. Thanks very much, solved my main problem.

Now if only I could stop WMP overwriting correct art and tracklists with wrong ones, without even asking me first.

(Seems it uses a database of music data that consists entirely of US releases, and as they are often slightly different from non-US ones it proceeds to mangle, corrupt and generally ruin all my albums in its attempts to force them to fit to their US versions. Grrr. Trouble is Sony's Media Manager is even worse.)

[juli_]

Now if only I could stop WMP overwriting correct art and tracklists with wrong ones, without even asking me first.

I had exactly the same problem until prankz (thank you prankz!!) told me to go WMP > Tools > Options > then click the 'privacy tab' along the top menu and take OUT the tick in the 2 boxes beneath: "Enhanced playback and Device experience"

I also make sure my library settings don't override anything either (see second pic).

I am going to try that program you said worked for album art. Since switching to WMP with the 829, I'm going crazy with all the covers displaying incorrectly under individual songs, especially as the covers have been physically deleted. Does WMP have some long-term memory or something???

[juli_]

Sorry, no idea why the pictures were duplicated. I checked and only 2 attachments were inserted.

[TooManyUserNamesToRemember]

I had exactly the same problem until prankz (thank you prankz!!) told me to go WMP > Tools > Options > then click the 'privacy tab' along the top menu and take OUT the tick in the 2 boxes beneath: "Enhanced playback and Device experience"

I also make sure my library settings don't override anything either (see second pic).

I am going to try that program you said worked for album art. Since switching to WMP with the 829, I'm going crazy with all the covers displaying incorrectly under individual songs, especially as the covers have been physically deleted. Does WMP have some long-term memory or something???

Try it, it seems to be an excellent program, no horrible crashes like the previous tageditor I was using. Instructions on how to do a batch job with it I found on this web site here

http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2008/02/aut...t-to-large.html

Really, it's saved me hundreds of hours of mouse clicking (actually I wouldn't have bothered if I had to do it manually, just put up with no art).

WMP really is horrible. MS seems to have an fundamental problem in their approach to things. They _always_ try and take control from the user, by second-guessing what they want and then doing it without asking them. The trouble is they ALWAYS get it wrong and the user ends up continually fighting their programs, attempting to undo the stupid things the programs, unasked, have done.

Another example of this 'don't worry your pretty little head about it, the computer knows better than you' mentality is the way if a folder has music files in it (or is in the MyMusic folder, not sure which) by default windows only shows music-file related info - you have to perform several mouse clicks to get it to show the 'modified' date, which is what you more often than not, need to see or sort by. Again it's windows trying to be too clever and pre-empt what you want, and getting it annoyingly wrong.

And yes, WMP does seem to have its own 'memory', insisting on showing the wrong art when the correct art is in the folder, refusing to display the art it itself has just downloaded, or refusing to show all the tracks in an album, or occasionally entire albums. For some reason the only way to force it to notice the files its decided it doesn't like is to 'add' the music folder again with the file menu, then it suddenly wakes up and re-reads the directory.

I also hate the way there seems to be no way to stop it automatically playing cds that you put in the drive while its running. Worse, if at the time it's in the middle of downloading info from the net then you can't even get at the 'stop; button to stop the cd playing, because the 'retrieving information' dialog box has the focus. You're stuck playing till it finishes a disk you never asked it to play. I can find no way to turn this off.

I'm about to google for an alternative music manager, but I'm paranoid about spyware.

Edited May 8, 2008 by TooManyUserNamesToRemember