Hi

Whats the deal with the artwork in WMP11 / VMC ?

I've never really paid much attention to artwork as long as the cover shows in VMC, however looking more closely the quailty of the artwork on my 37" HDTV is pretty poor.

All my artwork jpg's are called front.jpg they are downloaded from various sources on the Internet so all different sizes and resolutions. I tend to get the album in to the WMP11 library and then select all the songs and go to the Advanced Tag Editor - Pictures Tab, I then click the Add buton and select the front.jpg from the albums folder and it applies the artwork to the album this is the way I have always done it.

Looking more closely in the album folders in Windows Explorer I notice that the system creates a folder.jpg and this is 200 x 200 it also creates a AlbumArtSmall.jpg at 75 x 75

Most of my folders also have jpg files with names like:

AlbumArt_{844B0076-4BAA-421E-B7EB-24FBC1CF1192}_Large.jpg

AlbumArt_{844B0076-4BAA-421E-B7EB-24FBC1CF1192}_Small.jpg

I presume these jpg's with the GUID's in the name have appeared because in WMP11 and VMC it was set to download artwork I have now disabled these options.

So my question is how can you force WMP11 / VMC to use Hi-Res artwork jpg files?

And not scale them down to 200 x 200 ?

There are cache folders as well located at:

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\Art Cache\LocalMLS\

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\ehome\Art Cache

I think the first path is the main cache location as there is not much in the second path location.

Cheers

 

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

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Unfortunately that's just the way it is.. no one afaik has come up with a way to display hi-res album art.

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My Media Center Blog

And my next question is, is it possible to add the back cover artwork? Like on in iTunes / iPod where you can flip to the back cover art.

 

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

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mabrown:

Unfortunately that's just the way it is.. no one afaik has come up with a way to display hi-res album art.

This guy claims to be able to have Hi-Res artwork might be worth a look.

Link here

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

Just found a great site for Hi-Res Cover art http://www.cover-paradies.to
Its a shame you can't use them lol.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

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? what are u guys talking about...its VERY easy to use high res cover art, i've been using it for a while and it works like a charm

read my posts here:
http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/vista-media-center-software/24344-album-cover-art-finally-fix-6.html
#51 and #53

link and explanation here as well: http://thegreenbutton.net/forums/thread/213312.aspx
(download link for app: http://www.claydons.net/vmc/UrlToCoverArt.rar)

works wonderfully :D

these are the steps i took first time I ran this:

1. Downloaded Mp3tag so I could easily remove the embedded cover art from my mp3s, as thru WMP11 i had to click on each individual track and remove it and was very time consuming.
   
2. Added High-Res cover art to each of my mp3 folders, named Folder.jpg or Coverart.jpg or whatever you want to name it as.
   Also deleted anything else i found in that folder, including the hidden images/files that windows created.  The only things I have in the folders are the mp3 files and a Folder.jpg image.
   
   
3. Open WMP11 and remove all music from Library Only, then close WMP11.
   
   
4. Deleted all files from the following locations:
   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\eHome\Art Cache
   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\Art Cache\LocalMLS
   
   
5. Open WMP11, go to Library->More Options->Library Tab->Monitor Folders (should already have your folders there)->Click OK
   Let it find all your music.
   
   
6. Open Vista Media Center and go browse your music by album cover...it should show no album covers this time, thats fine, Close Vista Media Center. It should have built a UrlToCoverArt.dat file in your LocalMLS folder and probably a copy of all your cover art there as well, but this will only work for the first track of your album.
   
   
7. Run the UrlToCoverArt program i linked above, point it to the root folder of all your albums (default is C:\USERNAME\music i  believe), and put the name of the .jpg you named it in your folders, eg. Folder.jpg or CoverArt.jpg.  It'll scan all your music and compare it to the .dat file for the location.  It should auto fix it, then you can just go to File->Save and overwrite the .data file.  It creates a backup as well, so no harm will be done.
   
   
8. You can go back to the LocalMLS folder and delete everything EXCEPT the UrlToCoverArt.dat file.
   

Thats pretty much it, now everytime I add a new album to my root folder, i just run the program and it adds the entries to the .dat file pointing to the coverart for my music.

It all works pretty well.

All the top steps are off the top of my head, as I'm at work right now, but it sounds/looks about right :D

fatalcure:

? what are u guys talking about...its VERY easy to use high res cover art, i've been using it for a while and it works like a charm

read my posts here:
http://www.xpmediacentre.com.au/community/vista-media-center-software/24344-album-cover-art-finally-fix-6.html
#51 and #53

link and explanation here as well: http://thegreenbutton.net/forums/thread/213312.aspx
(download link for app: http://www.claydons.net/vmc/UrlToCoverArt.rar)

works wonderfully :D

these are the steps i took first time I ran this:

1. Downloaded Mp3tag so I could easily remove the embedded cover art from my mp3s, as thru WMP11 i had to click on each individual track and remove it and was very time consuming.
   
2. Added High-Res cover art to each of my mp3 folders, named Folder.jpg or Coverart.jpg or whatever you want to name it as.
   Also deleted anything else i found in that folder, including the hidden images/files that windows created.  The only things I have in the folders are the mp3 files and a Folder.jpg image.
   
   
3. Open WMP11 and remove all music from Library Only, then close WMP11.
   
   
4. Deleted all files from the following locations:
   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\eHome\Art Cache
   C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\Art Cache\LocalMLS
   
   
5. Open WMP11, go to Library->More Options->Library Tab->Monitor Folders (should already have your folders there)->Click OK
   Let it find all your music.
   
   
6. Open Vista Media Center and go browse your music by album cover...it should show no album covers this time, thats fine, Close Vista Media Center. It should have built a UrlToCoverArt.dat file in your LocalMLS folder and probably a copy of all your cover art there as well, but this will only work for the first track of your album.
   
   
7. Run the UrlToCoverArt program i linked above, point it to the root folder of all your albums (default is C:\USERNAME\music i  believe), and put the name of the .jpg you named it in your folders, eg. Folder.jpg or CoverArt.jpg.  It'll scan all your music and compare it to the .dat file for the location.  It should auto fix it, then you can just go to File->Save and overwrite the .data file.  It creates a backup as well, so no harm will be done.
   
   
8. You can go back to the LocalMLS folder and delete everything EXCEPT the UrlToCoverArt.dat file.
   

Thats pretty much it, now everytime I add a new album to my root folder, i just run the program and it adds the entries to the .dat file pointing to the coverart for my music.

It all works pretty well.

All the top steps are off the top of my head, as I'm at work right now, but it sounds/looks about right :D

Hi

thanks for posting I check it out and let you know how I get on.

---

Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

Now I'm really confused I can't get my head round how this is meant to work?

I've painstakenly removed all the embedded art work from my mp3's. I've downloaded Hi-Res artwork renamed them all to Folder.jpg and resized them all to 600 x 600, I've deleted all the hidden artwork from my album folders that the system created all this took me about 3 days lol.

I delete all the cached artwork in both these folders:

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\eHome\Art Cache
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player\Art Cache\LocalMLS

I then opened VMC and could see no artwork it then started creating jpg's with Guids in the names in the C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\eHome\Art Cache folder automatically and they were the new 600 x 600 Hi-Res covers. Then in VMC I could see all the Hi-Res artwork, at this point I hadn't even run the URLToCoverArt.exe

Great I thought I'd done it, I have about 250 albums and most seemed ok the artwork would display on each track in the album but then I started noticing on a small percentage of the albums the artwork was only showing for one track. Which is what you said the URLToCoverArt.exe is meant to fix.

So I ran this program and saved the new dat file in the eHome\Art Cache folder but the problem remained on the few problem albums. I then deleted / re-added all the music from my WMP11 library and ran the URLToCoverArt program again still I have some albums that don't show the artwork on all the tracks. I'm totally confused and can't seem to fix this and it driving me nuts now.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

the sad truth is that this has been ignored by microsoft. here's a thread that is ongoing for some 11 months now about this http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/213312.aspx

This problem seems more wide spread than I first thought quite a lot of albums are now not displaying the artwork for each track. Some albums are fine and the artwork shows for all tracks others are not this is bloody annoying to say the least. Does anyone have any more information on this bug in VMC?

Thanks.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

slig:

the sad truth is that this has been ignored by microsoft. here's a thread that is ongoing for some 11 months now about this http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/213312.aspx

I have seen that thread before not sure I read it all. Before I started messing around with all this trying to get all the artwork up to Hi-Res images I have never noticed albums having missing artwork on tracks, they all just worked now I think I've made a right mess of my system trying to get Hi-Res images to replace the 200 x 200 Folder.jpgs that the system originally created.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

After 3 days messing with this I am totally ****** off. Is it recommened to have embedded artwork in your mp3 files of not? Previously most of my music had embedded artwork as I would go in to the Advanced Tag Editor in WMP11 and add artwork to the album which embeds the cover. Maybe this is why I have not noticed this missing artwork on tracks problem before in VMC? If I can't fix this I am going to be kicking myself or the PC.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

What a ******* joke this is. I've just gone in to WMP11 selected all the tracks of a problem album gone to the advanced tag editor inserted my front.jpg as the front cover. This over wrote the Folder.jpg that was 600 x 600 to 200 x 200 and now all the tracks on that album have the artwork in vmc

This is why I have not seen this problem before as I was using the default 200 x 200 Folder.jpg's and embedding covers in WMP11.

I can't believe MS haven't sorted this out already. So we are either stuck with crappy low res images but at least you can see them on every track or Hi-Res images that only show up on some tracks.

Can anyone confirm this URLToCoverArt thing fixed the missing artwork on tracks? because it don't seem to work for me.

Cheers

Edit: Even though the Folder.jpg was converted down by the system to 200 x 200 from the orginal one that I manually created at 600 x 600 when I look at the properties of the embedded artwork in the mp3 file in Tag&Rename it says its 600 x 600 so now I dont know what resolution image I am actually seeing in VMC for this album I just edited in WMP11?

Edit: This just gets worse, I've just done the same thing in WMP11 adding artwork in advanced tag editor to another album and when viewing the tracks in VMC some are blurred low-res some are hi-res. I just can't get how this is working at all.

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!

personally im not going to go into the whole converting process again. i've been there and its the biggest pain i nthe ass ever! not worth the tiem and it doenst work 1/2 of the time jst cuz it (the cover file) might get overwritten. so w/e im waiting untill ms fixes and makes this a gru WOW experience. and im REALLY glad to finally see so many people concerned about the art cover problem! maybe now ms will @ least look into the issue.

althought they did re-do the album/song info service. its much better now you can easily search - pick wht songs from the album you want and so on, a good (slow) start.

 

let people know of this issue! so ms can hear us "up there"

I mean just look at this its a total joke.

Track 1 blurred low res

 

Track 2 hi res

I've checked the artwork properties in Tag&Rename of the 600 x 600 jpg I embedded on all the tracks of this particular album at the same time using the advanced tag editor in WMP11 and both tracks do say they are 600 x 600 I can't under stand how embedding the same artwork on all tracks results in some being hi-res and some low-res to the eye? How can something like this even happen??? I'm at a total lost with this now.

On Hi Def TV's 200 x 200 looks really bad and now I've seen some hi res artwork showing in VMC wow what a difference. I've just wasted 3 days of my life playing with this and I wish I never started now! At least I have the hi-res images in place for when Fiji comes out. This is extremely frustrating to say the least.

 

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Stu

aka C-Dub



The Windows Media Center Blog

Tips Tricks & News!