Album art

[Guest]

What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of albums that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the pic is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they were both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't there.Is there a
certain size the pic needs to be?

 

[Mike Williams]

What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of albums that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the pic is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they were both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't there.Is there a
certain size the pic needs to be?

No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art in each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in one go.

 

[Guest]

Thanks will give it try when I get home tonight. Pretty easy to find Advanced
Tag Editor and doing bulk style? Thanks again.

 

[Guest]

Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way iTunes does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3 standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the folder for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from Amazon.com. It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes visible
low quality.

 

[Mike Williams]

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

 

[Guest]

When you save AlbumArt in file "folder.jpg" it doesn't change it.

But you'll need to make shure that it's attributes are NOT system nor hidden.
Then it will take over the propriety of these files and overwrite them.

Also you need to delete all the AlbumArt.jpg files (are hidden).

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way iTunes does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3 standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the folder for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from Amazon.com. It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes visible
low quality.

 

[Mike Williams [Thin Ice]]

WMP will change folder.jpg and the other Album Art files in v10, regardless
of the file attributes. I've had all the files fixed up with the correct
artwork, and then the next morning they've all been replaced by incorrect
art or placeholders with attributes reset.

The Windowsmedia team considers all these files to be owned by them.

When you save AlbumArt in file "folder.jpg" it doesn't change it.

But you'll need to make shure that it's attributes are NOT system nor
hidden.
Then it will take over the propriety of these files and overwrite them.

Also you need to delete all the AlbumArt.jpg files (are hidden).

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way iTunes
does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3
standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the folder
for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the
folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from Amazon.com.
It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes
visible
low quality.

:

Thanks will give it try when I get home tonight. Pretty easy to find
Advanced
Tag Editor and doing bulk style? Thanks again.

:

birdog wrote:
What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of albums
that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the pic
is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to
customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they were
both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't there.Is
there a
certain size the pic needs to be?
No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art in
each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in one
go.

 

[Guest]

Okay. That's interesting. Than it must be that I've also set WMP10 (and
WMP11)
to update media files but only missing items.

In my case it adds AlbumArt.jpg and Folder.jpg to the folders that do not
contain these files but if my folder.jpg exists nothing will be added.

But I noticed that this is not 100% secure. If some house member uses my
MP3's on a standard WMP10 they get damaged again :-(.
Would it be possible to protect our "work" by setting a protection on the
folder.jpg files using NTFS protection. Like setting "everyone" on DENY edit
?

You see. I sometimes have put a lot of effort in these Folder.jpg. WMP often
puts a 200 x 196 pixel in there which gives me a white stripe in Media
Center. I have edited the file (crop) to 196x196. I don't want WMP or any
other Media player to screw me.

I don't like the AlbumArt in the MP'3. If I find a better one (300x300) I
just want to change folder.jpg instead of all MP3's.

WMP will change folder.jpg and the other Album Art files in v10, regardless
of the file attributes. I've had all the files fixed up with the correct
artwork, and then the next morning they've all been replaced by incorrect
art or placeholders with attributes reset.

The Windowsmedia team considers all these files to be owned by them.

When you save AlbumArt in file "folder.jpg" it doesn't change it.

But you'll need to make shure that it's attributes are NOT system nor
hidden.
Then it will take over the propriety of these files and overwrite them.

Also you need to delete all the AlbumArt.jpg files (are hidden).

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

NL12143 wrote:
Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way iTunes
does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3
standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the folder
for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the
folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from Amazon.com.
It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes
visible
low quality.

:

Thanks will give it try when I get home tonight. Pretty easy to find
Advanced
Tag Editor and doing bulk style? Thanks again.

:

birdog wrote:
What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of albums
that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the pic
is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to
customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they were
both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't there.Is
there a
certain size the pic needs to be?
No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art in
each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in one
go.

 

[Mike Williams [Thin Ice]]

WMP just doesn't handle multiple-users on a single machine very well at all.
I have seen your issue on a number of family PCs where a single household
has partly-shared libraries and multiple handheld players. One person's
library settings wrecks another's library data/organisation.

I've been told that this is not something that will be fixed by Microsoft.

As far as the protecting the folder.jpg files, well because WM sees them as
system files, system file protection seems to trump user rights.

It may have changed subtly in v11 but there is still too much volatility in
its UI - especially with respect to Album Art - to even attempt a repro'able
test case. The user ACLs all go to hell on Vista anyway, so any victory on
XP may be short-lived.

The only advice I can give is to keep full backups of files and art,
completely out of reach of WMP (or iTunes etc) and restore from there as
needed.

Okay. That's interesting. Than it must be that I've also set WMP10 (and
WMP11)
to update media files but only missing items.

In my case it adds AlbumArt.jpg and Folder.jpg to the folders that do not
contain these files but if my folder.jpg exists nothing will be added.

But I noticed that this is not 100% secure. If some house member uses my
MP3's on a standard WMP10 they get damaged again :-(.
Would it be possible to protect our "work" by setting a protection on the
folder.jpg files using NTFS protection. Like setting "everyone" on DENY
edit
?

You see. I sometimes have put a lot of effort in these Folder.jpg. WMP
often
puts a 200 x 196 pixel in there which gives me a white stripe in Media
Center. I have edited the file (crop) to 196x196. I don't want WMP or any
other Media player to screw me.

I don't like the AlbumArt in the MP'3. If I find a better one (300x300) I
just want to change folder.jpg instead of all MP3's.

WMP will change folder.jpg and the other Album Art files in v10,
regardless
of the file attributes. I've had all the files fixed up with the correct
artwork, and then the next morning they've all been replaced by incorrect
art or placeholders with attributes reset.

The Windowsmedia team considers all these files to be owned by them.

When you save AlbumArt in file "folder.jpg" it doesn't change it.

But you'll need to make shure that it's attributes are NOT system nor
hidden.
Then it will take over the propriety of these files and overwrite them.

Also you need to delete all the AlbumArt.jpg files (are hidden).

:

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter
that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

NL12143 wrote:
Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way
iTunes
does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3
standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the
folder
for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg
and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the
folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from
Amazon.com.
It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes
visible
low quality.

:

Thanks will give it try when I get home tonight. Pretty easy to
find
Advanced
Tag Editor and doing bulk style? Thanks again.

:

birdog wrote:
What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of
albums
that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the
pic
is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to
customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they
were
both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't
there.Is
there a
certain size the pic needs to be?
No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make
your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art
in
each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in
one
go.

 

[Guest]

The only advice I can give is to keep full backups of files and art,
completely out of reach of WMP (or iTunes etc)

Can someone tell us how to create a folder with such protection
(permissions) settings that it becomes a true read-only drive (like a CDROM).

Yesterday I noticed that in the folder for an album there are 2 types of
"desktop.ini".
One simply tells XP it is a music folder for an album (size= 45kB). The
other is larger (300 kB) and contains also information about the album. Get
rid of the latter (replace with standard desktop.ini) as it keeps WMP telling
to change the AlbumArt and so on.

To avoid a repalcement in all subfolders I delete all desktop.ini in my
album folder in 1 go using a file explorere like Win Commander.

WMP just doesn't handle multiple-users on a single machine very well at all.
I have seen your issue on a number of family PCs where a single household
has partly-shared libraries and multiple handheld players. One person's
library settings wrecks another's library data/organisation.

I've been told that this is not something that will be fixed by Microsoft.

As far as the protecting the folder.jpg files, well because WM sees them as
system files, system file protection seems to trump user rights.

It may have changed subtly in v11 but there is still too much volatility in
its UI - especially with respect to Album Art - to even attempt a repro'able
test case. The user ACLs all go to hell on Vista anyway, so any victory on
XP may be short-lived.

The only advice I can give is to keep full backups of files and art,
completely out of reach of WMP (or iTunes etc) and restore from there as
needed.

Okay. That's interesting. Than it must be that I've also set WMP10 (and
WMP11)
to update media files but only missing items.

In my case it adds AlbumArt.jpg and Folder.jpg to the folders that do not
contain these files but if my folder.jpg exists nothing will be added.

But I noticed that this is not 100% secure. If some house member uses my
MP3's on a standard WMP10 they get damaged again :-(.
Would it be possible to protect our "work" by setting a protection on the
folder.jpg files using NTFS protection. Like setting "everyone" on DENY
edit
?

You see. I sometimes have put a lot of effort in these Folder.jpg. WMP
often
puts a 200 x 196 pixel in there which gives me a white stripe in Media
Center. I have edited the file (crop) to 196x196. I don't want WMP or any
other Media player to screw me.

I don't like the AlbumArt in the MP'3. If I find a better one (300x300) I
just want to change folder.jpg instead of all MP3's.

WMP will change folder.jpg and the other Album Art files in v10,
regardless
of the file attributes. I've had all the files fixed up with the correct
artwork, and then the next morning they've all been replaced by incorrect
art or placeholders with attributes reset.

The Windowsmedia team considers all these files to be owned by them.


When you save AlbumArt in file "folder.jpg" it doesn't change it.

But you'll need to make shure that it's attributes are NOT system nor
hidden.
Then it will take over the propriety of these files and overwrite them.

Also you need to delete all the AlbumArt.jpg files (are hidden).

:

As I wrote before, WMP overwrites external files (folder.jpg or
the[GUID].jpg) that don't match what it finds in its own database. To
date, adding the files to the ID3 tags is the best way to counter
that.

WMP's images are also lower quality than what you might create/locate
yourself.

NL12143 wrote:
Add image to each MP3. What a crazy idea. That's the stupid way
iTunes
does
it. Instead of sticking an image in each file better use the MP3
standard
refererence to the albumArt in the file Folder.jpg.

On a PC the AlbumArt is mostly a 300x300 dpi image stored in the
folder
for
the album. These are hidden files and carry names like AlbumArt.jpg
and
folder.jpg.

To define your own image just add a file called folder.jpg to the
folder.
Best is
to not hide this file.

Where to get these. Either let MP look it up or get it from
Amazon.com.
It
must be at least a 200x200 dpi image. Under 200x200 dpi it becomes
visible
low quality.

:

Thanks will give it try when I get home tonight. Pretty easy to
find
Advanced
Tag Editor and doing bulk style? Thanks again.

:

birdog wrote:
What does it take for album art to stick. I have a couple of
albums
that the
picture doesn't stay in media center. I go to my music and the
pic
is on the
folder there. I had wmp and wmc both open and when i went to
customise the
folder picture I tried jpg and bmp they both worked when they
were
both open
but after closing and comin back to wmc the album art isn't
there.Is
there a
certain size the pic needs to be?
No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make
your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art
in
each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in
one
go.

 

[Guest]

No. It's just WMP overwriting your choices. The only way to make your
choice stick is to use the Advanced Tag Editor to insert the art in each
track. You can bulk-edit an album's tracks in WMP to do that in one go.