How do you get the album covers to show up?

[KJake]

Any feedback guys? Success, failure, confusion??

[theMixxMaster]

I know I'm not the only one doing nothing in the music area, unless Sage will support lossless wma format, and just using .jpg's in a folder. MUCH easier to use and setup. And of course, better sound quality.

[justme]

Any feedback guys? Success, failure, confusion??

Being totally honest I haven't had a chance to try it yet. I've been doing debugging, helping others and housework. One of these days I have to learn to do something for me. I promise i'll try it out tommorrow, I'm about to goto bed right now.

PS:I personally love what Sage has done with the music library. I already beats(in both ease of use and quality) than that overpriced Home Media Option that my Tivo keeps hawking. Once the Studio comes out others like KJake will add even more functionality to it. Possibibly even support for other formats. Almost certianly there will be plugins that intergrate your favorite players, ripper, etc. But has been stated by others we don't want Jeff to put too much time into the Media library. He's best put to use on Sage2's core and polishing up the Studio. Then music work can be done by the user base. All things come to those who wait.

[mlbdude]

I am not sure that WMA support will ever be added. Here is an old post. Not that things could not change....

http://forums.sage.tv/forums/showthr...&highlight=wma

[gplasky]

I went ahead and upgraded a version of MusicMatch I had laying around to plus. Ripped about 6 albums. The basics seem to work fine. They still have their visualization they had from previous version. Would like to see something happen there-either more visualizations or the possibly of either plugging in winamp visualization or a new format and plugin to create new ones. It's a little strange playing a song, going out of the music area and then go into the Live guide...and see your music playing there. I guess I was expecting it to stop and show TV in there. My 2 cents.

Gerry

[gplasky]

Found a new tool to use to embed your pictures into your mp3's.

The Godfather

You can use freedb or AllMusic to get your images. Let's you rename, re-encode, etc. Check it out-thought it might come in handy. Read the help file with it. Hope this helps.


Gerry

[RenHoek]

Not being able to wait for Studio, and hating the look of the "Browse by Album" screen when there aren't any/many covers, I tried the tips layed out in this thread...no love, though...

I can see a few covers (like SHS's radio interview back in Post #11, and from a few MP3's that I've downloaded), so I don't thinkg it's a Sage config problem. But I can't see any of the ones I've just ripped from my own CDs.

I'm using CDex for ripping, Amazon Cover Search (http://www.mewes.org/acs.php) for getting the JPG files, and MP3 Tag Tools for tagging. I'm using "Other" for the type of picture in MP3 Tag Tools -- I thought "Cover (Front)" was the way to go at first, but SHS's file that works is set as "Other", so that's that.

Any clues??

Thanks!!
-Ren

[follower]

I have posted earlier the procedure that works for me. I use MP3 TAG TOOLS V1.2 without a hitch. I get the image from Amazon. I select all of the songs a particular directory of the album. I choose the Cover (front), load the image I obtained from Amazon and re-write out hte MP3 tags. In sage 2.0, I drop the directory for the media. I then choose the dir again of the top of my music mp3s and I now see the image art. You should try this procedure for one album so you know it works.


-Follower

[Muchacho]

I too have made a app that automatically get album art from amazon. It works really fast and saves the art as a folder.jpg file. If anyone wants it I will post it as well as the VB code. I made it like a year ago, but it is free and if you want to add something to it that imbeds it into the mp3 file it would be easy.

[RenHoek]

Follower-
Thanks for the confirmation - that's EXACTLY what I've been doing - I originally tried "Cover (Front)" for an album, but then when that didn't work and the Sage interview (post #11) DID work, I figured that it needed to be "Other", since that's what the Sage Interview file used...no dice, though. Actually...hit or miss dice...since a few of the one's I've ripped/embedded with art actually work.

Late last night (er...this morning, actually...) I found out that even when I remove all library directories from within Sage, it still sees and PLAYS the files (yup - I rebooted, restarted Sage, etc etc etc) The Library directory is across my LAN on another computer, if that makes any difference.

Somehow my Sage install is hosed, I guess...My next plan is to remove Sage all together and reinstall Beta 13 from scratch. That better do it

-Ren

[KJake]

Hey, my 2.0.13 does the same thing. Remove the directory from the imports and they're still in the list. Shut Down sage - still there, reboot - still there.

Buggin' that one.

[follower]

My MP3s are on the same box. They are not on a remote box. This may be the problem. On the local box (where sage server is running), create a dir and throw a couple of mp3 that you have changed. Add this dir to your Media dir and see if the album art shows up.

Follower-

[m0ng00se30]

My MP3s are on a remote box, and here is what I just did to make an album art show up.

1. Embedded album art into "other" tag field.

2. Removed exsisting directory, and closed SAGE.

3. Started SAGE and verified the the music was gone (It was!)

4. Added directory... heard drives strat churning.

5. Checked for Art and it was there...

Agreed this is WAY too much to do this... folder.jpg needs to be added, but it does seem to work. I do have to restart after removing the directory to make it work or so it seems.

--Mike

[RenHoek]

Mike--
What version are you using? (I'm running v2.0.13 now)
Did you specify the remote folders using a mapped drive or a path (ie: \\mp3server\My Music) (I'm using the path method)

Thx-
Ren

[m0ng00se30]

2.0.13, and I specified a mapped drive. Drive letter M:\



--Mike

[KJake]

2.0.13 selecting Drive Letter D: on the same local machine...the same drive that Sage is installed on...still haven't been able to clear the Jukebox list.

[RenHoek]

...is that you can't reliably use remote MP3's unless you map a drive to them!

I removed and re-added my library (in the form of a mapped drive this time, instead of a path like "\\mp3server\My Music") and it worked - the album covers are now displayed. So, I'm off to submit that little bug...

However, now that it can see the files, it takes about 3 minutes at 100% utilization (and the UI is hung) if you page down through the albums. This is on an Epia M10000 system, w/512MB RAM, connected to about 4.5GB of MP3's (~75 CDs) over a 100Mbps LAN connection. The network is hardly being used, so it's just VERY busy chewing on all the files, I guess.

It's not so bad if it was only the 1st time, but it doesn't seem to cache the images since the next time I come back to the View By Albums, it hangs for another 3 minutes, doing it all over again...

Hope this helps others-
-Ren

[gplasky]

That may becaue it is on a mapped drive. I have mine on the Sage server and do not see that. But then agaon Sage is running 24/7 so once in Sage I never exit.

Gerry

[laurenglenn]

I just used iTunes on my PC to insert an album picture into my MP3. It works just fine and it's free. Just bring up a file in iTunes, right click on it, select Get Info -> Artwork, and then add a picture.

I added a JPG to one song in my album folder and it shows the Album picture for all the songs in Sage. It's a little tedeous compared to having it automated, but iTunes interface is fairly nice for a free program.

Lauren

[pbennington]

I'm fairly new to sage and have a question, if you have to embed the jpg within the mp3 does this increase the file size or does the tag point to a jpg file?