Album Art Issues in WMP12

[Blk02]

I just setup dbpoweramp using the guide and I have already ripped several CD's but I am having an issue with the album art. Is it better to disable WMP12 from inserting its own album art information?

I am using WMP12 to play my FLAC files because I want to have integration with Windows Media Center on my HTPC. I installed MadFLAC v1.10 and WMP Tag Plus in order to get WMP12 to play nice with the FLAC format. Everything seems to be working great, but when WMP12 adds a new CD rip to the Library the album art is missing sometimes. Naturally, I right click the album and tell WMP12 to "Update Album Info". Whenever I do this the Folder.jpg that dbpoweramp included in the album folder disappears. Now I did some more research and it looks like WMP12 by default will add its own album art and update any missing album information. If you want to restore the original Folder.jpg and get rid of these album art hidden system files you must re-rip the CD. However, the first thing you need to do is delete the album from WMP12 library and then delete the physical files. If you only delete the physical files from Explorer the extra album art hidden system files will reinsert themselves into the new album folder. Now I assume that it is better to not allow WMP12 to add its own album art files because they will not transfer to portable players (am I correct in this assumption?).

After WMP12 updated the album info the information below showed up as hidden system files inside the album folder. Notice the reason Folder.jpg disappeared was because WMP12 converted it into a hidden system file and downsized it to 200x200.
Control Panel>Appearance & Personalization>Folder Options>View (Tab)
"Enable" - Show hidden files, folders, and drives
"Disable" - Hide protected operating system files

AlbumArt_{F22E6559-1EE9-48AD-9189-EE26FE4F2D21}_Large.jpg
AlbumArt_{F22E6559-1EE9-48AD-9189-EE26FE4F2D21}_Small.jpg
AlbumArtSmall.jpg
desktop.ini
Folder.jpg

I figured out how to stop WMP12 from adding these extra files by
Tools>Options>Library (Tab)
"Disable" - Retrieve additional information from the Internet
"Disable" - Rename music files using rip music settings
"Disable" - Rearrange music in rip music folder, using rip music settings
Tools>Options>Privacy (Tab)
"Disable" - Update music files by retrieving media info from the Internet
"Disable" - Display media information from the Internet

[Blk02]

Re: Album Art Issues in WMP12

In addition to the above information I also found out that if you are in a homegroup and share your music folder with another computer the WMP12 player on the other computer will attempt to insert the album info hidden system files when you start streaming music. Really the best thing to do is unshare the music folder and make sure all the WMP12 players on your homegroup are setup not to retrieve information from the Internet.

[Spoon]

Re: Album Art Issues in WMP12

>Is it better to disable WMP12 from inserting its own album art information?

Yes

It could be that the addons you mention to enable WMP to play flac, is not compatible with reading all arts. Having WMP get its own art, is unstandard (nothing else will use those 2 files).

[Blk02]

Re: Album Art Issues in WMP12

Spoon,

If I understood correctly I believe you are correct. I noticed that after I disabled the auto album art in WMP12 the album art started working in WMP12 (WMP12 started using the artwork embedded in the dbpoweramp ripped FLAC files). I think the files from dbpoweramp and WMP12 were getting mixed up with each other, which caused WMP12 to not find some of the album art. Everything seems to be working great now. WMP12 now plays FLAC like a native file (seek works, track time elapsed works, all the album art is where it is supposed to be, and best of all it all shows up inside the Windows Media Center interface on my HTPC streaming from my server)

Thanks