Recommendations for a digital audio player

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

If you decide you need to embed your artwork in addition to having folder.jpg, do the following to automate it. (test on a folder or two to make sure you understand what's happening before running it on your entire collection).

Garym,

That's superb. I really do appreciate you taking the time to compile that.

I will have a try out early this evening ...

What a great forum this is!

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Just out of interest, did cover art work on your original Sony DAP using folder.jpg?

Hello Oggy,

I honestly cannot remember as it was over a year ago now. Also, if 'artwork' was an issue then I do not think I would have addressed this problem because the 'lack of volume' (capping) took absolute precedence throughout any discussions relating to the device.

Paul

[garym]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

If you decide you need to embed your artwork in addition to having folder.jpg, do the following to automate it. (test on a folder or two to make sure you understand what's happening before running it on your entire collection).

1. run the dbpa program BATCH CONVERTER
2. select the top directory of your music (to embed in all) or any subdirectory (to test on a subset of files)
3. Upper left, click on CONVERT
4. Under encoding dropdown box, select ID TAG UPDATE
5. Click on the MANIPULATION tab
6. under ALBUM ART section, under "import from" select "folder.jpg"
a. (I personally set size to maximum 500x500 and no limit on size....this is because I'm doing this for my mp3 copies for portables. but in your case I'd still limit size because you still have the full size folder.jpg in the folder to be used by other players that can use it (e.g., foobar). And some players only deal with smaller art size (not the 1000x1000), so the 500x500 usually works on such players that have a problem with large artwork.
b. I also tick the box for convert all to jpg.
7. bottom right, click CONVERT
8. when done (which could take hours depending on number of files), click FINISH.

Now you have both folder.jpg and embedded art in all your files. AGAIN, do your testing to be sure that embedded art is actually the solution to your problem first. otherwise, no need to embed artwork.

[mville]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

If there is an automated method of transferring all of my artworks from 'folder' to 'embedded' then that would be fantastic.

Use the ID Tag Update utility codec or MP3Tag, both methods will import artwork, simply and easily.

Whether you need to embed artwork though... is another matter.

[Oggy]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Hi Paul,

Just out of interest, did cover art work on your original Sony DAP using folder.jpg?

From DAPs, full-size and in car, missing cover art seems a massive issue as there are no standards, and different manufacturers implement this differently. Folder.jpg or Embedded, maximum/minimum pixel size often in tandem with different maximum file size, and now Baseline DCT!

No wonder there are issues.....

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Hi,

A quick random tester using a piece of typical artwork from my collection:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YHdrW0dslrdrsYWyeD5NoWvzPWoa3DRp

Cheers.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

I agree with garym in that you don't know if you need to embed the album art. I reread the HeadFi posts, and the only definite action they took was to re-encode the jpg, to make it baseline. It is difficult to determine if everyone embedded the album art. Something you can do is to find a folder.jpg that is not displaying on your Sony. Go to the following site and click on EXIF Editor. https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/exif-info.php
Click on Choose File, select the folder.jpg, click Open, then click OK. In the display that is presented under File Info look for Encoding Process. If it says Baseline DCT, I think you will have to embed the album art. I checked 10 folder.jpg files in my collection and found one folder.jpg that was progressive. It was from a vinyl rip where I used the cover provided by the vinyl ripping software. The majority of my covers are from PerfectTunes, and I checked 10 of those and all were baseline. I believe your next step is to determine if your folder.jpgs are baseline or progressive.

That's great GaryG, cheers.

I will check this out in-depth tomorrow.

But right off the bat I can confirm that my artwork has been compiled from different sources. For some I have simply gone with what PerfTunes has presented; others I have scanned the original CD sleeve (front and rear); and the remainder were sourced from either Bing or Google Images.

Thanks.

[GaryG45]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Paul,
I agree with garym in that you don't know if you need to embed the album art. I reread the HeadFi posts, and the only definite action they took was to re-encode the jpg, to make it baseline. It is difficult to determine if everyone embedded the album art. Something you can do is to find a folder.jpg that is not displaying on your Sony. Go to the following site and click on EXIF Editor. https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/exif-info.php
Click on Choose File, select the folder.jpg, click Open, then click OK. In the display that is presented under File Info look for Encoding Process. If it says Baseline DCT, I think you will have to embed the album art. I checked 10 folder.jpg files in my collection and found one folder.jpg that was progressive. It was from a vinyl rip where I used the cover provided by the vinyl ripping software. The majority of my covers are from PerfectTunes, and I checked 10 of those and all were baseline. I believe your next step is to determine if your folder.jpgs are baseline or progressive.

Gary

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

You dont need two rips. You can have embedded and folder.jpg both in same folders/files. You can automate embedding the art if you need to do this (even making the embedded a smaller size). A few mouse clicks and come back in a few hours and all the art embedded. Not clear yet but whether you need to do this.

Evening Garym,

OK, that's really handy to know actually - and will have saved me a great burden for sure. Actually, I don't mind having TWO formats of artwork per album. I do remember you once saying that you are very strict about carrying around any unnecessary MBs (or even kbs) on your storage devices. The SanDisk SD-card (inside the Sony Walkman) is 200GB, and my music (once finally ripped) should amount to no more that 165GB. So I have plenty of headroom.

I don't think I need to edit the 'size' of my artworks. They all appear fine in foobar. Although I admit I could have made a better job of some of them on certain albums. But this task is something I don't mind returning to at a later date, should I really feel it necessary.

If there is an automated method of transferring all of my artworks from 'folder' to 'embedded' then that would be fantastic. The main thing is though, now we know the reason why it was not showing.

Would you completely blow-out the 'Sony Music Center' s/w now?

Paul

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Hi again,

I have just changed the artwork from 'folder' to 'embedded' on a Miles Davis DOUBLE-CD. The Sony Walkman is now correctly displaying (as does foobar on my PC) both front and rear artworks alongside their respective tracks. Again, this was performed by bypassing the useless 'Sony Music Center' s/w.

Sony Tech Support have been trying to fathom this out for 3 WEEKS now! And so I really do appreciated everyone's time and help here.

Paul

[garym]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

You dont need two rips. You can have embedded and folder.jpg both in same folders/files. You can automate embedding the art if you need to do this (even making the embedded a smaller size). A few mouse clicks and come back in a few hours and all the art embedded. Not clear yet but whether you need to do this.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Yes, you made me look at an audio file. Open that on a file or better, an album's worth of files (select all the FLAC files for that album, right click and click on edit ID tag). Scroll to the bottom of the window that opens, you'll see "album art", if there is any embedded art, you'll see it. You'll see under the window (which will be empty if there is no embedded art) "Load from File" If you click on it, you should see the file "folder.jpg" if that file is in the directory. If there is no embedded art, and you click on that file, it will embed that art in the tags for that file. Then open the file in the Sony app and see if you can now see the art. If so, that is your issue with the art.

I can't speak for the possible issue with type of jpg file or tag. If you see titles and artists on the Sony, I'd assume it can read the tags you have embedded.

If embedding the art works, you could of course, open the directories one-by-one and embed the art, but I'm sure you can do the whole thing at once either with a DSP in dBpoweramp music converter or in mp3tag. I'd have to look to determine the details, but you should be able to figure that out yourself. Two thoughts, back up your whole library before you start (if you haven't already) and try it on a few directories first to see if it is doing what you want. And be aware, with a good sized library, it will probably take a while, like hours.

Well, I should have looked first, that directory already has embedded art, unless you just did that. I do note it is 1000X1000 pixels, which is rather big. Possibly the Sony has some (undocumented?) maximum resolution it will display?

Hi Schmidj,

OK, PROGRESS!

I bypassed the stupid 'Sony Music Center' s/w and just dragged&dropped straight to the SD-card inside the Sony Walkman.

The PNG I linked last night was the result of me just noodling around and changing the artwork from 'folder' to 'embedded'. I had never done it this way around before. I mean, I have changed 'embedded' to 'folder' about this time last year when, after circa 20 rips, it was recommended by a few members that this format was more widely accepted on playback devices. Anyway, I changed it on a quadruple-CD ("The Way Of The Superior Man"):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Way-Superio...uperior+man+CD

The artwork is indeed now appearing on the Sony Walkman display! (again, I have bypassed the 'Sony Music Center' s/w). However, for this particular album I have used the FRONT cover image (of the CD) only, and not individual pieces of artwork for each disc (ie. 1, 2, 3 & 4) as I do on my Jazz/Classical FLACs. So I need to run the same test now with something like Miles Davis's 'The Complete On The Corner Sessions', which has 6 different artworks.

I don't know if the artwork tweaks I have made now qualify them as being 'progressive' or 'baseline' (GaryG)?; but at the moment the album still has the original folder.jpg within its contents. Would you remove these, or just leave them be, please?

1000x1000 is the MAXIMUM value I entered within the configuration page of 'dBpa' CD-ripper. The artwork looks fine on the Sony Walkman's display for the CD I have just edited. It does not look like anything has been chopped-off.

I am not quite sure how I am going to approach the process of changing the artwork, for 150GB of FLACs, from 'folder' to 'embedded'. It seems like, to me, that I now need TWO versions of rips!; each with a different artwork format. I might wipe the Sony SD-card and then duplicate the parent-FLAC folder on my C:drive, work through them all (saving them to my desktop) and when I have completely finished, transfer them all back to the Sony SD-card using 'Beyond Compare' s/w.

Much appreciated.

[schmidj]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

Yes, you made me look at an audio file. Open that on a file or better, an album's worth of files (select all the FLAC files for that album, right click and click on edit ID tag). Scroll to the bottom of the window that opens, you'll see "album art", if there is any embedded art, you'll see it. You'll see under the window (which will be empty if there is no embedded art) "Load from File" If you click on it, you should see the file "folder.jpg" if that file is in the directory. If there is no embedded art, and you click on that file, it will embed that art in the tags for that file. Then open the file in the Sony app and see if you can now see the art. If so, that is your issue with the art.

I can't speak for the possible issue with type of jpg file or tag. If you see titles and artists on the Sony, I'd assume it can read the tags you have embedded.

If embedding the art works, you could of course, open the directories one-by-one and embed the art, but I'm sure you can do the whole thing at once either with a DSP in dBpoweramp music converter or in mp3tag. I'd have to look to determine the details, but you should be able to figure that out yourself. Two thoughts, back up your whole library before you start (if you haven't already) and try it on a few directories first to see if it is doing what you want. And be aware, with a good sized library, it will probably take a while, like hours.

Well, I should have looked first, that directory already has embedded art, unless you just did that. I do note it is 1000X1000 pixels, which is rather big. Possibly the Sony has some (undocumented?) maximum resolution it will display?

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

It is very easy using the tag editor (right click) with dBpowerramp) to copy the folder.jpg art and embed it as a tag in the audio file. Try that with a few albums and see if the art is now visible.

Hi schmidj,

Do you mean by using EDIT ID TAG, please?:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s-...GB655wggC9mZKZ

Many thanks.

[monsterjazzlick]

Re: Recommendations for a digital audio player

I Googled NW-A45 and Album Art and found the following on the HeadFi forum in a thread for the NW-40 series. It goes along with what Dat Ei mentioned. The Sony devices can only read baseline jpgs and not progressive jpgs. Someone also mentioned potential problems with ID3 V2.4 tags. Here is a link to the thread. Pages 29-31 had the cover art info that I found, and I didn't look further into the thread.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sony-nw-a40-series-nw-a45-a46-a47.854779/page-29

Cheers GaryG,

I really appreciate that. To be very honest I am still finding my feet with all of the 'terminology' etc. "Baseline" and "progressive" are two totally new terms to me!

I will also check your kindly included LINK.

Paul