RE: Ripping Level Question (help?)

[garym]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Thanks for confirming Gary. Which factor swung you towards favouring external over embedded, please? Paul

although relatively speaking I may not save that much space (although it is not trivial across 7,000+ albums), it seemed sorta silly to me to have the exact same picture embedded in every track of an album when I could simply have a single picture in the album folder. Plus, if I ever want to change the picture (something better comes along), I can replace just that picture with one simple step.

EDIT: Do note however that when I create a mirror copy of my library converted from FLAC to mp3 (for use on my portables, iphone, ipad, ipods, etc.), when doing the conversion I embed the art in each track (and also downconvert the size of the art to 300x300). This is because my mp3 library on portable devices may just be a mixture of tracks, etc. and I want to make sure the artwork is always with each track.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

I only worry about front cover art and do all mine as external as well.

Thanks for confirming Gary. Which factor swung you towards favouring external over embedded, please? Paul

[garym]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Thanks very much. Well I have gone for EXTERNAL so I hope I made the right choice. I don't think I want to spend the time sourcing and applying front & rear artworks for a single CD. It's time consuming enough finding a decent front cover a lot of the time. So I think I can do without the extra donkey-work for now. Foobar seems to be great and now now my home PC is reading and writing to the Dell external-HD. And I have made a back-up on a SanDisk micro SD card (which will eventually be slotted into the Sony Walkman, or whichever playback device I end up settling for.

Rome wasn't built in a day! Cheers, Paul

I only worry about front cover art and do all mine as external as well.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Embedded art is a tag like any other, except that it contains image info rather than text. If you have embedded art, you'll see either a small version of it or, if the selected files have differing images, a CD image and a note stating that there is more than one image.

Exactly. Edit ID-Tag doesn't concern itself with your foobar art setting. It just deals with tags in whatever audio file(s) you've given it to examine.

Unless you are processing files with embedded art. Again, the foobar setting has no bearing on what Edit ID-Tag presents. If there is embedded art, it will let you know. If you don't want the art, you can delete it.

The setting of embedded vs external is a preference and not absolute. It simply determines which art foobar uses when both are present. If your setting is to prefer external art and only embedded art is available, foobar will show that.

Thanks very much. Well I have gone for EXTERNAL so I hope I made the right choice. I don't think I want to spend the time sourcing and applying front & rear artworks for a single CD. It's time consuming enough finding a decent front cover a lot of the time. So I think I can do without the extra donkey-work for now. Foobar seems to be great and now now my home PC is reading and writing to the Dell external-HD. And I have made a back-up on a SanDisk micro SD card (which will eventually be slotted into the Sony Walkman, or whichever playback device I end up settling for.

Rome wasn't built in a day! Cheers, Paul

[garym]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

I use Excel for, among many other things, keeping track of my ripped CDs and digital downloads. Nyahh.

Seriously, use what works best for you. I prefer Notepad when I don't need text formatting. Plus, I can open it, copy text, and close it in the time it takes Word to start. Horses for courses.

I can load up all my files in mp3tag and create an automatically create an excel file that contains a complete artist/album/track listing for my entire library, using tag info. (I also like the program for advanced tag editing, and it does way more than just mp3)

Then again, I can track the number of albums I have just from info reported by my music server. As of today it is:
7170 albums with 96250 songs by 13629 artists.

I only have 2,086 artists if I count only artists for which I have at least one album. The other 11,053 artists are artists that only show up on a compilation CD (maybe only one song) and do NOT otherwise have an album in my collection.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Photo images take much more storage space than text. Depending on the size of the images, you might have trouble reading the text. And some CDs don't provide much info on the disc. Text for the win!

I'm tracking my rips in Excel because, once I'm done, I'll finally know exactly how many CD titles I have.

JH, It may be a job for later on down the road, but for now I have enough to contend with. One day soon I might actually sit down and listen to some music! Cheers, Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Good on ya! And you didn't have to process 17,000 files, like I did. I'm almost jealous.

Hi, I am just hoping that my Sony Walkman (when it is fixed/returned) will be able to read (display) the external artwork. Maybe I should have waited until I have received it back from them, and tested it out with a couple of CDs first. Anyway, it's too late now! It was 11GB in total (around 35 CDs). It works fine in foobar though (ie. with different artwork beig displayed for each disc in a boxset). Cheers.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Hi JH, Have finally deleted all embedded artwork. So just have external now. Cheers.

Good on ya! And you didn't have to process 17,000 files, like I did. I'm almost jealous.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

I once thought of taking photographs of my CDs rather than using any form of written documentation. But it never happened, nor has a written version.

Photo images take much more storage space than text. Depending on the size of the images, you might have trouble reading the text. And some CDs don't provide much info on the disc. Text for the win!

I'm tracking my rips in Excel because, once I'm done, I'll finally know exactly how many CD titles I have.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

You posted the image of Edit ID-Tag showing different album art in the files you used to test using front and back covers. That's how I knew you had embedded art. (It could also have been the case that you had somehow embedded art in some files and not others; that's still a difference and you'd see the same thing.)

As Gary said, it's no problem; basically, they're just unwanted tags. Use Edit ID-Tag to delete the art from the files. (I was manually deleting tags from my files last week and found I still had album art in some of them. Edit ID-Tag is my friend.)

Hi JH, Have finally deleted all embedded artwork. So just have external now. Cheers.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

It appears that if the artwork is embedded, then - in ID TAG EDIT - the artwork will appear in the lower left

Embedded art is a tag like any other, except that it contains image info rather than text. If you have embedded art, you'll see either a small version of it or, if the selected files have differing images, a CD image and a note stating that there is more than one image.

And same results, it seems, if - as in my case! - the artwork has inadvertently been both embedded AND external.

Exactly. Edit ID-Tag doesn't concern itself with your foobar art setting. It just deals with tags in whatever audio file(s) you've given it to examine.

But if the artwork is set to external, then NO artwork appears in the ID TAG EDIT

Unless you are processing files with embedded art. Again, the foobar setting has no bearing on what Edit ID-Tag presents. If there is embedded art, it will let you know. If you don't want the art, you can delete it.

Whether embedded or external, the artwork appears in foobar. Thanks, Paul

The setting of embedded vs external is a preference and not absolute. It simply determines which art foobar uses when both are present. If your setting is to prefer external art and only embedded art is available, foobar will show that.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

Seriously, use what works best for you. I prefer Notepad when I don't need text formatting. Plus, I can open it, copy text, and close it in the time it takes Word to start. Horses for courses.

I once thought of taking photographs of my CDs rather than using any form of written documentation. But it never happened, nor has a written version.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

As long as its not MS Excel !

I use Excel for, among many other things, keeping track of my ripped CDs and digital downloads. Nyahh.

Seriously, use what works best for you. I prefer Notepad when I don't need text formatting. Plus, I can open it, copy text, and close it in the time it takes Word to start. Horses for courses.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

... am currently deleting all embedded artwork from entire FLAC library, using ID EDIT TAG.

Foobar set to 'prefer external':

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Ripping Level Question (help?)

You posted the image of Edit ID-Tag showing different album art in the files you used to test using front and back covers. That's how I knew you had embedded art. (It could also have been the case that you had somehow embedded art in some files and not others; that's still a difference and you'd see the same thing.)

As Gary said, it's no problem; basically, they're just unwanted tags. Use Edit ID-Tag to delete the art from the files. (I was manually deleting tags from my files last week and found I still had album art in some of them. Edit ID-Tag is my friend.)

Hi JH, Finally got around to havin' a mess with the artworks again.

It appears that if the artwork is embedded, then - in ID TAG EDIT - the artwork will appear in the lower left:



And same results, it seems, if - as in my case! - the artwork has inadvertently been both embedded AND external.

But if the artwork is set to external, then NO artwork appears in the ID TAG EDIT:



Whether embedded or external, the artwork appears in foobar. Thanks, Paul