Embeded Album Art

[Batter Pudding]

If I want high quality artwork, then I pick up the original vinyl cover and look at that.

we agree on that. i have several framed vinyl covers, look great on the wall imo.

Then I will develop a plugin that brings that important feature to Winamp. It will interface with a robot to retrieve the correct vinyl sleeve from the shelf. At least two of us will use it. And if I develop the other arm to get a beer from the fridge - all round win.


@Thinktink: fine bit of work on your plugin there. I'm gonna hook myself a copy as I don't like it when the artwork gets too big. Or having inappropriate quality levels. Looks like your neat little plugin is an easy way to reduce that.

[Aminifu]

alas i need to find more time to be able to look into and further resolve the remaining deficiencies with the current handling (which will just be fixing it to preserve original image data, nothing else involving functionality changes).

Is the fix to preserve original image data in the 5.7 beta 2, build 3323 released yesterday?

[DrO]

when using 'load artwork' and the source is a jpeg file then yes. http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.ph...4&postcount=18 mentions what hasn't been 'fixed'.

[Quentin2791]

Thank you!

Your timing was perfect. Today I just decided to start adding album art to my mp3 files that had none. What a pain in the ***. All those jpegs clogging up my nice neat folders. I then stupidly thought I could use my own file names to ID the jpeg files...NOT. By the time I realized good ol' Winamp had disregarded my new jpeg names and created duplicate files with names Winamp decided on, I had done one folder FULL of mp3s.

After downloading your plugin, I was dismayed to have the same things happen again. However, it was just a matter of procedure; I neglected to select "cover <embed>" BEFORE I loaded the jpeg.

It maybe just a simple tweek, but your simple tweek epitomizes what separates the "It works O.K." to "It's outstanding".

Thank you.

[MrSinatra]

Your timing was perfect. Today I just decided to start adding album art to my mp3 files that had none. What a pain in the ***. All those jpegs clogging up my nice neat folders. I then stupidly thought I could use my own file names to ID the jpeg files...NOT. By the time I realized good ol' Winamp had disregarded my new jpeg names and created duplicate files with names Winamp decided on, I had done one folder FULL of mp3s.

After downloading your plugin, I was dismayed to have the same things happen again. However, it was just a matter of procedure; I neglected to select "cover <embed>" BEFORE I loaded the jpeg.

It maybe just a simple tweek, but your simple tweek epitomizes what separates the "It works O.K." to "It's outstanding".

Thank you.

thats another reason i don't use the winamp UI. did u find it was [re]naming the files according to the value for the album name tag?

i'd like to be able to get winamp to use "Folder.jpg" and also set the art as "hidden" in file properties.

i realize this is getting beyond the scope of winamp's duty, but still, its another reason why i'm not using it for art.

(for embeds, the filename shouldn't matter though, right?)

one thing to consider, is it might help you to consider a traditional one album per folder file structure, as its a lot easier to deal with art [thats in folders] that way, and fix any issues, and its basically universal to all apps and devices. what is your current structure?

[Aminifu]

Hi thinktink,

I have good news and bad news. The good news is your w5s plug-in works perfectly for embedding art. The bad news it causes my Winamp to crash. After embedding some test images in copies of the same mp3 and switching between them to check image quality, while not playing the file, Winamp crashed within 2 to 5 minutes.

It does this with both versions of the plug-in. After it happened with v.1.0.2.6, I switched back to v.1.0. By the way, neither version lists it's number in the Windows file properties dialog. The only way to tell them apart is by their file sizes. Below is a part of the error log generated by the "gen_crasher.dll" plug-in while using v.1.0.

Winamp client version: 5.7 build 3323 Beta
winamp caused an Access Violation (0xc0000005)
in module bpembededart.w5s at 0023:02726821.

Exception handler called in Winamp.
Error occurred at 3/20/2013 09:09:40.
C:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp\winamp.exe, run by *.
Operating system: Windows 7 (6.1.7601).
4 processor(s), type 586.
39% memory in use.
4095 MBytes physical memory.
2487 MBytes physical memory free.
0 MBytes paging file.
0 MBytes paging file free.
2048 MBytes user address space.
1633 MBytes user address space free.
Write to location 0065007a caused an access violation.

Context:
EDI: 0x0297ff40 ESI: 0x0000dca8 EAX: 0x02b82340
EBX: 0x0000dcac ECX: 0x00650076 EDX: 0x02b82350
EIP: 0x02726821 EBP: 0x0297fdc4 SegCs: 0x00000023
EFlags: 0x00010202 ESP: 0x0297fdbc SegSs: 0x0000002b

Bytes at CS:EIP:
89 51 04 89 4a 08 8b 48 04 89 51 08 89 4a 04 89

[thinktink]

O.o!

That's interesting. Can you attach the mp3, current config file (%appdata%\Winamp\Plugins\BPEmbededArt.ini), and art you are trying to embed? Or you can PM me the link if you're worried about copyrighted material redistribution.

[thinktink]

...By the way, neither version lists it's number in the Windows file properties dialog. The only way to tell them apart is by their file sizes...

Actually, it shows up in my list. I don't know why it's not showing up for you.

[Aminifu]

Hi All,

Preliminary results using the BPEmbededArt plug-in, before the crashes reported in post #36 above.

I used copies of a single mp3 and 2 versions of the same JPG image:

Image A = 160x160 pixels, 96x96 dpi, 24 bit color, 85 compression quality, 5,532 bytes file size

Image B = 300x300 pixels, 96x96 dpi, 24 bit color, 85 compression quality, 14,465 bytes file size

Using MediaMonkey to embed increased the mp3 file size by 4,096 bytes with Image A (1,436 bytes < the source image) and 14,336 with Image B (129 bytes < the source image).

Using BPEmbededArt v.1.0 & v.1.0.2.6 to embed increased the mp3 file size by 4,224 bytes with Image A (1,308 bytes < the source image) and 14,464 with Image B (1 byte < the source image).

I did not notice the "BPEmbededArt.ini" file until after I had switched back to v.1.0. I assume both versions were using the same compression quality value.

So it seems that both methods further compress the source image somewhat. MediaMonkey does it a little more, especially with image B.

I want to use the smallest image size possible to suit my needs. The 160x160 image has acceptable quality at all the display sizes I normally use, but becomes pixelated at the maximum display size I sometimes use. The 300x300 image has acceptable quality at this maximum display size, so it also looks a little better than the 160x160 image at the smaller display sizes.

I don't know much about image formats and don't understand why Image B's file size is not larger than it is (since 160x160=25,600 & 300x300=90,000), for the same picture at the same dpi, color depth, and compression levels. Must be some JPG compression magic.

Would I get the same quality results with Image A if it's dpi was larger?

[Aminifu]

That's interesting. Can you attach the mp3, current config file (%appdata%\Winamp\Plugins\BPEmbededArt.ini), and art you are trying to embed? Or you can PM me the link if you're worried about copyrighted material redistribution.

Take a look at my post #39 above. Do you want both images and the mp3 with or without the embeds. The version 1.0 .ini file just has the following 3 lines:

[Main]
EmbedOptionFirst=0
DefaultImgWriter=JPEG

But like I said, the actual embedding goes fine. The crash happens when Winamp is just sitting there (with no song playing) displaying an image. I've removed your plug-in and everything is back to normal, even when displaying the images embedded with your plug-in.

Actually, it shows up in my list. I don't know why it's not showing up for you.

That is strange. Maybe because I'm using Windows 7. That looks like an XP dialog.

[thinktink]

Take a look at my post #39 above. Do you want both images and the mp3 with or without the embeds.

Both if possible please

The version 1.0 .ini file just has the following 3 lines:

Version 1.0 didn't use an ini.

[Main]
EmbedOptionFirst=0
DefaultImgWriter=JPEG

That works.

But like I said, the actual embedding goes fine. The crash happens when Winamp is just sitting there (with no song playing) displaying an image. I've removed your plug-in and everything is back to normal, even when displaying the images embedded with your plug-in.

What is showing the art? Is it the gen_classicart window or something else? Bento Skin? Winamp Modern?

That is strange. Maybe because I'm using Windows 7. That looks like an XP dialog.

Yes, it's on Windows XP but it shouldn't matter anyway. I'll go find a 7 box to see if it does the same thing with the versioning.

[thinktink]

...Yes, it's on Windows XP but it shouldn't matter anyway. I'll go find a 7 box to see if it does the same thing with the versioning.

I just realized something. It's a w5s, not a dll, so Windows has no reason to check for a version resource unless you modify the registry to do so.


lulz

[Aminifu]

Both if possible please

The files names ending in A & F were embedded with MediaMonkey. B & E with your version 1.0. C & D with your version 1.0.2.6. The remaining mp3 does not have an embedded image.

Version 1.0 didn't use an ini.

That explains why I did not see it until after I had installed v.1.0.2.6 and then switched back. I had already installed v.1.0 before you updated it, but had not had a chance to try it until today.

[QUOTE=thinktink]What is showing the art? Is it the gen_classicart window or something else? Bento Skin? Winamp Modern?[\QUOTE]

I'm using a cPro skin, as listed in my signature below. I was using its "Now Playing" panel. I can switch to 1 of the Nullsoft skins, but I don't think it will make a difference. If it does, then I quess I won't be able to use your plug-in. Too bad for me, in that case.

Edit:

The attachment did not work. Maybe it's too big. I'll put it on a file sharing site and post the link. That will take a few minutes.

[Aminifu]

I just realized something. It's a w5s, not a dll, so Windows has no reason to check for a version resource unless you modify the registry to do so.


lulz

While waiting for my zip file to upload, can you tell me how to do that?

[Aminifu]

Ok, the link to the zip is below.

http://www.mediafire.com/?bd1a8bcv9cxedba