Bulk embed folder.jpg into mp3 album art???

BGH · **18th May 2007, 09:18 AM**

I have my mp3 collection set up great and tagged perfectly. However I have always handled album art by just including folder.jpg. This has been ok in the past but after switching from XP MCE to Vista MCE it doesnt seem to be handling the album art that well so I think I might make the switch to embedding the album art in the file. Does anyone know a tool that will bulk embed the album art from the folder.jpg file I have in the folder already? Please no suggestions about using xxxx program to download the mp3 data/album art from online and embed it. I already have the file I want embedded and dont want a program downloading and screwing up my tags.

Alternatively can someone explain how Vista handles folder.jpg? In XP MCE it was just fine, album art came up no worries. In VMC all the album art is displayed when viewing the album covers (ie selecting music by album) but then when it actually starts playing the album art isnt displayed. At first I thought it may just be the bug where only the first song of an album has album art as my system was showing this sympton, but now it shows album art for some tracks that arent track 1. I've got no idea why it shows the art sometimes and not others. Although I didnt want to have to resort to it, I think I am going to have to embed all my album art in the file to see if this resolves the issue, hence the original question.

PS. I have WMP set to NOT donwload any info at all. I have my mp3 tagged perfect and I'd like them to stay that way. That goes for the album art as well.

jollster101 · **18th May 2007, 09:58 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BGH

I have my mp3 collection set up great and tagged perfectly. However I have always handled album art by just including folder.jpg. This has been ok in the past but after switching from XP MCE to Vista MCE it doesnt seem to be handling the album art that well so I think I might make the switch to embedding the album art in the file. Does anyone know a tool that will bulk embed the album art from the folder.jpg file I have in the folder already? Please no suggestions about using xxxx program to download the mp3 data/album art from online and embed it. I already have the file I want embedded and dont want a program downloading and screwing up my tags.

Alternatively can someone explain how Vista handles folder.jpg? In XP MCE it was just fine, album art came up no worries. In VMC all the album art is displayed when viewing the album covers (ie selecting music by album) but then when it actually starts playing the album art isnt displayed. At first I thought it may just be the bug where only the first song of an album has album art as my system was showing this sympton, but now it shows album art for some tracks that arent track 1. I've got no idea why it shows the art sometimes and not others. Although I didnt want to have to resort to it, I think I am going to have to embed all my album art in the file to see if this resolves the issue, hence the original question.

PS. I have WMP set to NOT donwload any info at all. I have my mp3 tagged perfect and I'd like them to stay that way. That goes for the album art as well.

Tag & Rename will do it. It will allow you to select a folder (presuming you have your album in a folder) and then you can select to Edit All Tags for all files, from there you can untick the use Folder.jpg option and tick the Embed into the File Tag option and it goes and does it.

There is some manual intervention though unfortunately, it isnt going to go away and just do every folder.

The joys of switching unfortunately. It is worth it though as my music collection now looks sweet in Vista and works exactly as advertised.

MSurge · **18th May 2007, 11:28 AM**

I can't vouch that they work under Vista but I use MP3Tag and AlbumArtFixer which are both freeware and work well.

While most of the time I know adding a file of folder.jpg fixes the album art I have found that the AlbumArtFixer also creates some other image files in the folder when it runs so this may also help you with your Vista issues.

I also like to open up MediaPlayer and delete the database that it has built by scanning the metadata and forcing it to rebuild it from scratch. This doesn't delete the MP3 files or affect the metadata but I have found that it has fixed some double entries etc.

jollster101 · **18th May 2007, 12:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSurge

I also like to open up MediaPlayer and delete the database that it has built by scanning the metadata and forcing it to rebuild it from scratch. This doesn't delete the MP3 files or affect the metadata but I have found that it has fixed some double entries etc.

You can achieve the same effect without having to delete the database each time and recreating.

If you go to the Library and remove the relevant watched folder / drive that contains the music and hit ok then go back and add the same folder / drive to be watched again it cleans up the db but in a lot less time.

This is especially useful for me as I have 60GB of tunes and it used to take a little while to recreate the db every time.

MSurge · **18th May 2007, 01:08 PM**

Jollster,

This is supposed to do it, but then it should also update it on its own in the background since it's a watched folder but I've found that it's not so reliable and still found errors which I assumed where old redundant entries in the database. Under MediaPlayer it gives a few options about the levels of scanning files and I assume that the way you describe under MCE really only does a basic scan like the lowest (quickest) under MediaPlayer.

It's not something you want to do regularly because it can take a while but once you start it going it just runs in the background anyway. Currently at about 80G of MP3's (1000 plus albums) and still have to go through some more CD's to burn.

The trouble I have is that it takes so long to scroll through the albums, but once all the metadata and album art is sorted I've found MCE great for sitting on the couch with the remote and looking through things I forgot I even had. There's some there that make me cringe now but it all adds to the eclectic collection I have so for now I'm not looking to thin it out - well maybe a few albums eventually.

The way it builds the database is great as it lets it get sorted so many different ways. I know people get frustrated with it and want it just to build the music directory purely based on the folder structure they have their MP3's under (a bit like 'My Videos' I guess) but once I started seeing how good it is with the proper metadata I thought it was great.

jollster101 · **18th May 2007, 01:58 PM**

I only ever look at my albums by album. I tried it by playlist (I have deleted them since as it was toooo slow and laborious) and also by artist but that too takes so long to do anything.

Now that every album is sorted and the art is correct for them, VMC behaves pretty well and is quick when navigating the album covers to select something.

All in all now, it works well.