cover art displayed

[djeddieo]

I did search before posting this admittedly dumb first post, but didn't find anything. It's such a minor thing but I really like how WinAmp gives me a little "alert" in the corner of whatever window I happen to be working in while listening, every time the song changes. That little image with the track/artist/time info often has the correct cover art but more often does not, and it seems to choose the same wrong cover for every track it doesn't get right. Anyone know why?

[MrSinatra]

winamp only displays the art given to it. so either your files have embedded art in the tags, or the folders have artwork in them, and these files can be hidden so u need to adjust your OS to be able to see them.

[djeddieo]

thanks, but what it's doing is displaying different art than is associated with the file. I had imported my iTunes library and playlists and admittedly not all songs had cover art added, but on some it displays the correct associated artwork, and on others it displays the artwork of a completely different file.

PS. I see you have a link to Penn State Radio in your sig; Can I assume that once I have enough posts to personalize my profile, that I can put a link to my webstream?

Thanks again for your assistance.

[MrSinatra]

thanks, but what it's doing is displaying different art than is associated with the file. I had imported my iTunes library and playlists and admittedly not all songs had cover art added, but on some it displays the correct associated artwork, and on others it displays the artwork of a completely different file.

how did u import the songs to winamp? a XML import? or a normal HD scan?

regardless, i'd have to know more about a specific case to tell you why its happening. and is your artwork embedded in the tag or no?

PS. I see you have a link to Penn State Radio in your sig; Can I assume that once I have enough posts to personalize my profile, that I can put a link to my webstream?

i think thats how it works.

[djeddieo]

normal HD scan. when I view file info, many files have this image as "cover":


that same song in iTunes has no cover art associated with it. and I am familiar with that Power Pop cover, which might be associated with one or more of my files, but certainly not many of them. It's as if WinAmp has decided to add that cover art to dozens of files that had none.

[MrSinatra]

normal HD scan. when I view file info, many files have this image as "cover":


that same song in iTunes has no cover art associated with it. and I am familiar with that Power Pop cover, which might be associated with one or more of my files, but certainly not many of them. It's as if WinAmp has decided to add that cover art to dozens of files that had none.

assuming that that one cover is not embedded in the tags of those files, it probably is in the folder where the files are, as Folder.jpg, Cover.jpg, etc... and possibly set as a "hidden" file so you need to adjust the OS to see it.

its also possible that you have songs that share an album title or no album title at all, and therefore get conflated.

i can GUARANTEE you that winamp is not grabbing this art from the net, and is not just randomly showing the art without some underlying, and explainable mechanical reason.

[djeddieo]

lol, I didn't mean to imply that believe Winamp had gone shopping for cover art; I was just baffled as to why that one cover kept showing up. It's certainly not important enough to worry about, as I'm the only one that sees it. The flash widget that plays my Icecast feed doesn't even display title/artist metadata, nevermind art. Thanks for your help.

[MrSinatra]

well, i would like to get you to the bottom of it. are u giving up?

[djeddieo]

oh no, I'm happy to continue to work on it; I thought maybe I was annoying YOU with the issue, and being new here I thought better of it (plus I got distracted by what seems like Winamp reverting back to old crossfade settings and had to remedy that).

My webstream is at live.djeddieo.com BTW, or you can plug http://wifi.djeddieo.com:8000/live into your iTunes, VLC, MediaMonkey or what have you and get the limited metadata.

Back to the cover art, how would you suggest I start searching for the cause? I confess I'm not the sharpest computer user out there, if that wasn't already evident. iTunes seems to store all the Album Art in My Music as "AlbumArt_{0A8AE2F4-5F15-4213-A873-F1C636554202}_Large" and the like....

[djeddieo]

and BTW, Winamp just displayed that PowerPop cover for a file that has a different image associated with it, so it's not just happening to "blanks."

[MrSinatra]

Back to the cover art, how would you suggest I start searching for the cause? I confess I'm not the sharpest computer user out there, if that wasn't already evident. iTunes seems to store all the Album Art in My Music as "AlbumArt_{0A8AE2F4-5F15-4213-A873-F1C636554202}_Large" and the like....

those are files WMP puts in folders, not itunes. itunes uses either embedded art in tags, or art it has put into an itunes art cache folder.

so do you have windows setup to show you hidden files then? they look subdued if so. that file would be hidden.

and BTW, Winamp just displayed that PowerPop cover for a file that has a different image associated with it, so it's not just happening to "blanks."

a different image associated with it by what? how?

[djeddieo]

those are files WMP puts in folders, not itunes. itunes uses either embedded art in tags, or art it has put into an itunes art cache folder.

I never use WMP, so I was unaware of that. I guess I could just delete all those then, right? I typically DL mp3 files and then seek out the artwork to use in iTunes. I always assumed those hundreds of image files were the ones I collected.

so do you have windows setup to show you hidden files then? they look subdued if so. that file would be hidden.

I do and they are....hundreds of them.

a different image associated with it by what? how?

an image that, in iTunes at least, always shows.

[MrSinatra]

I never use WMP, so I was unaware of that. I guess I could just delete all those then, right? I typically DL mp3 files and then seek out the artwork to use in iTunes. I always assumed those hundreds of image files were the ones I collected.

ok... first, WMP will do things, sometimes even if you don't run it, and esp if the files are in a windows "my music" type of monitored location.

second, itunes is awful. do you have to use it?

third, move your music to a folder you make, like:

C:\audio\music\

fourth, don't use itunes to get art. don't embed art either. instead, keep art in each album folder.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=690557

afterwards, u can point itunes to the new location, but tell it NOT to move files or retag and let it find art for its DB.

I do and they are....hundreds of them.

probably safe to delete.

winamp only sees the one actually named "Folder.jpg" winamp ignore all the rest of them.

an image that, in iTunes at least, always shows.

don't confuse what itunes does with anything else. itunes has its own rules it plays by that really don't mean anything to any other app.

what you want to do is get winamp working right. thats the goal. do that, and orry about itunes afterwards.

to get art straight in winamp, you want your files in an ..\albumartist\album\songs.mp3 folder structure, and you want to either embed the right artwork in each file, or put one Folder.jpg in each album folder. (i don't like embedding album art)

you can probably safely delete all the hidden files NOT named "Folder.jpg"

sound plausible?

[Aminifu]

... winamp only sees the one actually named "Folder.jpg" winamp ignore all the rest of them. ...

Actually, Winamp uses the following rules when selecting artwork to display.

The lookup order criteria/precedence is as follows:

1. Embedded art in the tags of the files

2. %album%.jpg/png/gif/bmp in the containing folder (where %album% is the exact name of the Album)

3. An .nfo file with the exact same filename as an image file in the containing folder

4. cover.jpg/png/gif/bmp

5. folder.jpg/png/gif/bmp

6. front.jpg/png/gif/bmp

7. albumart.jpg/png/gif/bmp

And that is all.

[MrSinatra]

thats true, but i was speaking to HIS case. WMP is whats putting the hidden art files there and the only file it puts there that winamp will see in any given dir is Folder.jpg