GF Platinum 3.0.1 - no cover art in JR Media Center 11

rd_taylor · Post by **rd_taylor** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 5:01 am

This seemed to have been fixed in the original build of 3.0.1, but when I got the new build of 3.0.1 it's not working again...

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:15 am

It's not working for me either. MC11 build 310 and G-Force 3.0.1

In my directory for each album, I have a JPG called "[Artist] - [Album].jpg" AND a JPG called "album.jpg" AND the cover art is embedded in the file ( APE format ).

Is there a service release for G-Force to correct this?

Thanks, nick

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Sun Sep 11, 2005 1:52 am

Is no one else getting problems with MC?

nick

mysticeti · Post by **mysticeti** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:35 pm

To be honest I haven't tried it. I've been holding off upgrading to 3.0 until I hear that things like this work correctly.

Post by **andy55** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:55 am

mysticeti wrote:To be honest I haven't tried it. I've been holding off upgrading to 3.0 until I hear that things like this work correctly.

Hrm, I need to reproduce this on my end before I can see what the problem is (and fix it). Please send me a zip file of everything I should need (w/ instructions of what to place where and the steps to take to repro it).

Thanks,
Andy

Post by **andy55** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 10:56 am

nmalcomson wrote:It's not working for me either. MC11 build 310 and G-Force 3.0.1

In my directory for each album, I have a JPG called "[Artist] - [Album].jpg" AND a JPG called "album.jpg" AND the cover art is embedded in the file ( APE format ).

Is there a service release for G-Force to correct this?

Thanks, nick

Please see my other post in this thread and email me a zip file and I'll try to get right on this.

Thanks,
andy

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:06 pm

Andy, thanks for the offer. I tried creating a replicable set of files, and then low and behold, the cover art appeared. Now I am really confused...

On the surface, it seems that sometimes it works and other times not. It depends on a how GForce starts - or whether it is already running. The thing is that the problem does NOT appear at all when using MP3's, only with APE's.

Give me a while to sort out the circumstances to make it fail all the time and I will forward the results.

nick

rd_taylor · Post by **rd_taylor** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:08 am

In my case:

all files are MP3s
All cover art is stored in album folder as "folder.jpg" (not stored in internal tag)
I access my music using the Media Server functionality of Media Center.

So, my setup appears to be quite different from nmalcomson's...

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:32 am

Hi RD,

As I said in my post, I am not getting the problems with MP3's. You didn't say if you were getting any cover art problems?

Do you have any APE albums to test with as well?

As an aside, I used to keep my cover art in one directory, but now I also use other players sharing the same music files ( SlimDevices ). I have found the most flexble way to do this is to keep all the informatin for one album together in one directory.

For example...
In directory
\\Server\music\ape_3\Assorted\Creamfields 2000 - CD2
I have
(Multiple Artists) - Creamfields - CD2.JPG
album.JPG
Creamfields 2000 - CD2_01_Reach Out (Space Raiders Remix)_Midfield General feat. Linda Lewis.APE
Creamfields 2000 - CD2_02_The Beach (The Bucket & Spade Mix)_Coco & Stonebridge.APE
etc

If you assume that your primary music database gets corrutped/deleted or just dies, then this way you can easily re-scan the files, build the information from the filenames and include the cover art, or indeed anything else album specific (e.g lyrics)

nick

rd_taylor · Post by **rd_taylor** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:02 am

I have only MP3s...

My library is stored on a 4X80Gb RAID-5 array. Folder structure is:

[Artist]\[Year]-[AlbumName]\[TrackNum].[TrackName]

In each album directory, the cover art is stored as the file "folder.jpg". This is so that I can see cover art from Windows as well as being used by my music librarian (JRiver Media Center 11).

I play music from the Media Server function of Media Center on up to 3 PCs around the house.

I DO have problems in the latest verion of G-Force. When I'm playing tracks from a machine that's not the server, I see a black box where the cover art should be.

I just noticed also, that G-Force does not seem to respond to key presses in eirther windowed mode or full-screen. ie. After the trackinfo fades from tracks changes, if I press "T", nothing happens. It used to re-display the trackinfo and album cover...

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:42 am

I suppose that the first thing to check is whether the client PC can see the cover art within MC. Either mouse over a track or have a look at the MC option to display cover art.

If you can "see" the cover art in MC and cannot see it with the GForce visualisation, then it's GForce's problem - otherswsie it's MC's.

I don't use MP3's, so not sure if it is a file tag format problem or something else...!

nick

rd_taylor · Post by **rd_taylor** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:39 am

I have no problems seeing the cover art in Media Center on any of the client machines.

If I change the playing now visualisation window in Media Center to just display cover art, it displays just fine, and I can see thumbnails when I hover over tracks no probs...

I might try a re-install of G-Force...I've probably re-installed a few new builds of MC since I last installed G-Force...

cheers
Rob

nmalcomson · Post by **nmalcomson** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 2:17 pm

Here's the problem - sorry, I don't know the solution...

MC can display cover art two ways:-
1. By reading the cover art embedded in the files or
2. By showing the thumbnail from the MC database.

MC creates 2. from 1. upon import, but when you make changes or additions, it does not necessarily write 1. unless you deliberately update tags from the library ( and this doesn't work in all cases ).

G-Force does not appear to display 2., only 1.

So, things can appear fine within MC, but G-Force doesn't display cover art.

Who's fault? I think MC, for not embedding the cover art properly in the file.

nick

rd_taylor · Post by **rd_taylor** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 6:26 pm

Nick,

It's a choice thing whether you embed cover art within the file.

I choose not to. I prefer the album covers to be visible in the directory structure of WindowsXP.

G-Force used to work just fine this way. With the latest version it doesn't. This has happened before, where a build of G-Force stopped this working, then a subsequent build fixed it.

I've no problems reading/displaying cover art in any of the other areas in which MC displays cover art.

cheers
Rob

adamsp70 · Post by **adamsp70** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:55 pm

Anybody got any further with this?

I have just updated to MC 11.1 and G-Force 3.1.2 and am getting a black box instead of cover art.

My art is stroed as cover.jpg in the album directory.

My previous installation of MC11 and G-Force ? worked perfectly

Thanks....