Rockbox Technical Forums
Support and General Use => Theming and Appearance Customization => Topic started by: ryan2632 on October 19, 2006, 11:01:30 PM
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For all of you who still are using iTunes for syncing your iPod and are afraid of the daunting task of copying all your embedded artwork to use with Rockbox, worry no more.
This is the quickest and easiest way i have found to get this done:
EXTRACTING AND RESIZING THE ART
1) download MediaMonkey (http://www.mediamonkey.com/)
2) grab the Album Art Tagger Script from here (http://trixmoto.net/mm/scripts.php?id=1). (about 1/3 way down the page)
3) install both, and launch the app
4) click on your iPod in the left pane, and let the song list load. select all (or whichever you want) and go to Tools -> Scripts -> Album Art Tagger
5) select option 4 "Extract artwork and resize external image"
6) in the text box below type in "D:\art\" replace 'D:\art\' with wherever you want it to extract the images. make sure you have created the folder first.
7) click go and let it do it's work. after it scans, it will popup a confirmation dialogue. press OK, and it will pull all the art and resize it into that folder.
CONVERTING FROM JPG TO BMP
I normally use Irfanview for my batch conversions, but it was giving me a lot of trouble with this many jpegs. So, i found a free program called Faststone Photo Resizer (http://www.faststone.org/FSResizerDetail.htm)
1) download from here (http://www.download.com/FastStone-Photo-Resizer/3000-2192_4-10349167.html) and install
2) under the 'Conversion' tab, Navigate to the folder with your extracted JPG's and press Add All
3) Set the output format to BMP and click Options. Make sure it is still at 24 bit
4) Choose your output folder
5) Press Start and sit back.
LASTLY......
1) Move all the BMP's into IPODDRIVE:\iPod_Control\Music
2) Make sure you are running the latest version of the Album Art + BMP Resize Patch
Hope you all find this helpful.
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The forums are not the place to put information like you have. If it really needs to be said, use the wiki. That is what the wiki is for anyway.
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my bad, sorry for trying be helpful.....
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I realize you are trying to be helpful, but I am just saying that forums are not well suited to this kind of thing. This thread will be onto the next page tomorrow or the next day. As there are very few of us that read every single post (people looking for this type of information will most definitely not and will only come when looking for help), this will not get read that much.
I am not trying to dissuade you from helping people or scold you for doing so. Like I said...If you feel that it really needs to be put out there, use the wiki. Pages on the wiki do not "disappear over time" like forum topics do.
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I added this procedure to the album art wiki page : see here (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/AlbumArt#Using_embedded_iTunes_cover_art).
Please correct it if you know a better way :)
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I am pretty sure this only works for mp3s, and not .m4a's
Well I just copied and pasted all my album art from iTunes and it took less than 10 minutes for 5000 songs.
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How were you able to do that Mr530? Did you resize each of the images? I have 350+ songs and I have to resort to resizing in photoshop-->saving as bmp in ms paint-->and then placing each album art to its corresponding folder.
Does the theme you are using have a build that scales your images?
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ahhhhhh . can u guys help me with one thing?
its in these steps
6) in the text box below type in "D:\art\" replace 'D:\art\' with wherever you want it to extract the images. make sure you have created the folder first.
7) click go and let it do it's work. after it scans, it will popup a confirmation dialogue. press OK, and it will pull all the art and resize it into that folder.
I went and created D:\art. So in the text box i put D:\art\ then clicked go.
when the confirmation popup comes up. it shows this
(http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/4756/untitledpi4.th.jpg) (http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/4756/untitledpi4.jpg)
so i check all of them and click OK.
but when i go to D:\art theres only one picture!
what am i doing wrong?
MIDGEY EDIT: Please crop your images or link to them in the future. It looks nicer and doesn't mess up of the page layout. I've modified this post to use a thumbnail instead.
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exceloskarplus11, please crop your image to display only that part that is relevant to your question, or else re-do your screenshot using only the active window and not the entire display.
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Aww, he was just trying to show us he's using Vista! lol ;)
No really, to capture the active window just do alt+printscreen. I think ctr+printscreen captures the whole desktop. Or the best bet might be to do like Febs says and just crop your capture to show what you are specifically trying to show.
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ahhh sorry for uploading the image so big
and yea vista is awsome lol
but can anyone answer my question?
its just that when i press ok it only sends ONE image to the folder i sent it to. even when i check all the images on the popup box
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You may have figured it out by now, but using "C:\art" will not work by itself. The reason that is happening to you is because the batch script is naming every single JPG with the same name, so it's seeing them all as duplicates. Use this instead:
C:\art\<album>
Also just a general tip for all; if you use the FastStone photo resizer, make sure you uncheck the "Rename" option (mine was checked by default) otherwise it will change the name of the files when you convert and it won't work when you copy the BMPs to your iPOD. It's also a good idea to make the output folder a different folder than the one you extracted your JPGs to, so it's easier to select all BMPs when you're copying to your iPOD. That, or you can just set "IPODDRIVE:\iPod_Control\Music" as your output folder.
Hopefully someone can add these updates to the wiki page.
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This only extracts the art from the id3 tag... not actually from the ipod artwork thumbs.... anyone know of a way to do that?
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Yes.
This following method should provide you with the jpegs (not sure about pngs) from your iTunes 7+ database, but you're gonna have to match 'em with the right files/directories when you're done.
Download jpegextractor from this page (http://www.geocities.com/marcoschmidt.geo/jpeg-extractor.html). Extract it to a folder on your desktop.
Open your OS' finding app--if in XP you can hold down the Winkey and press F. You want to search your local drive for all files that end in itc, so.. *.itc is what you should enter. (Assuming you use iTunes 7+ these are the encrypted album artwork files and will be stored in a nested structure in your iTunes music folder.) Copy everything you find to the jpegextractor folder you made on your desktop.
Open a command window and navigate to said folder. Enter "java jpegextractor -p cover -d 3 *.itc" without the quotes and press enter. The -p switch stands for prefix, so all of the output files will start with "cover". The -d switch is for digits--it will pad the digits at the end to 3 places (ie 001, 002, etc).
Enjoy.
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Ahh great for if you use itunes exactly...i dont.. im a Linux user.. sorry i know.. i meant purely extract the information from the ipod thumbnail database.. i use amarok so twould be great but.....
this might be wandering off subject thread but hey....
Many thanks for help provided already
SZ
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This is an amarok script that might work for you. I haven't tried it.
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/amaroK-Scripts/Rockbox-Cover-Generator-11517.shtml#
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Ahh great for if you use itunes exactly...i dont.. im a Linux user.. sorry i know.. i meant purely extract the information from the ipod thumbnail database.. i use amarok so twould be great but.....
If understand you, you're asking about querying Apple for covers without using iTunes.
For a while, there were third party tools that were capable of this, but as of ~ October 2006 (if I remember correctly), this is no longer possible--due of course to Apple using a form of encryption in concert with iTunes 7 that has yet to be .. well, cracked. As far as I know, there hasn't been a new tool released to deal with this yet and the only way to get at Apple's high quality covers is to download them from iTunes 7.
There are other options besides Apple's database however.
I successfully use http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art to query multiple album art websites and AlbumArtDownloader XUI (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=51896) (a mod of the previous project) looks promising.
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why dont you want to use itunes 7? thats what i did, and it works fine...
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Since he said he's a linux user, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're asking me that for some reason. So why not... here's my answer.
As an all-in-one solution for music management, I respect the awesome accomplishment that is iTunes 7. I absolutely love the way album art is dealt with in iTunes. Not being an apple firmware user however means that isn't really of much use to me. And there's no way in heck you could force me to use iTunes for transferring music to my iPod what with it's utterly retarded filetree obfuscation-crap.
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So what is the proper method to tell someone their wikki is incorrect? Â You cannot always put the bitmaps in the base folder. Â It doesn't work. Â I have some that I have manually gone through and added and they work just fine but the album art does not work with the Rockflow theme if the song is two subfolders down from the art. Â
I just found that the hard way. Â I extracted, converted and loaded 3500 bitmaps into that directory only to find it doesn't work. Â I've tried every automated method I can come up with to extract album art into the specific folder including BUYING "xport". Â I'm to the point of giving up if I have to load ~1500 images by hand into each folder. Â
Folder structer:
Music>>artist>>album>>mp3
Any clues how to make this work from anyone? Â
ALL of my album art was/is emedded. You guys don't realize how bad some people need embedded support. I don't have itunes file structure anymore so I can't go back to that without even more hassle. I spent the better part of a month of free time EMBEDDING the files so I would always have the album art with me. I didn't use Rockbox at that time.
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Folder structure:
Music>>artist>>album>>mp3
Why not Music>>artist>>album>>mp3s+cover.bmp?
This is what I have and it works a dandy.
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I have always used this method for my album art and it works wonderfully! Here's a quick tip that I don't know whether or not has been mentioned before:
Instead of putting "D:\art\!album!" for example, put in "D:\art\!album!.100x100" for 100x100 album art. (Replace ! with <)
In this way, you can generate out different sizes of album art with ease!
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Why not Music>>artist>>album>>mp3s+cover.bmp?
This is what I have and it works a dandy.
OK so tell me how to batch rename every bmp in the music directory to cover.bmp. Â Because I've already crossed that bridge. Â That's how I got the few I mentioned to work. Â (by manually changing the names of the extracted files from "xport". Â It exports the image fine but doesn't name them the way I need them to be.
SOOO....I already know that works like a dandy. Â ::)
So I have the file structure and I have the .bmps in the file but they aren't recognised by the name the extraction program gave them.
To clarify I have:
Music>>artist>>album>>mp3+(wrong name).bmp
x 1500 files
The name isn't really wrong, but it has too much information in it and it isn't recognised.
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Are the files consistently named - or are they (pseudo)randomly named?
EDIT:
Ok, I'm off to bed.
The reason I ask is because I believe you can use the "find" command from a "DOS" prompt in Windows to find all files named xport.bmp and rename them to cover.bmp
The exact details of how to use the find command should be available on google.
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They are named by xport as:
artist-album.mp3
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I'm not certain the DOS (or XP Command Prompt's) "find" command is up to this without a bit of extra help.
The equivalent from a linux bash prompt though would work :
find /Music -name "*.bmp" -execdir mv \{\} cover.bmp \;
That would do the whole lot.
I've just checked on Google, and a version of the GNU version of find (which is what linux uses) is available for windows from here : http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ (Downloads are here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=9328&package_id=9393&release_id=490307)
You could then use the above command like this (slightly modified to use a Windows path, and the Windows 'move' rather than linux 'mv'). Replace the I:\Music with wherever your Music directory actually is on your computer :
find I:\Music -name "*.bmp" -execdir move \{\} cover.bmp \;
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So what is the proper method to tell someone their wikki is incorrect? Â You cannot always put the bitmaps in the base folder. Â It doesn't work. Â
Where is the wiki incorrect?
For:
They are named by xport as:
artist-album.mp3
(I'll assume you mean artist-album.bmp) (Bitmap, not jpeg - but that is another conversation)
Artist-Album.bmp is not one of the supported naming formats as described in the wiki.
Edit #1:
I understand you've spent a lot of time on this.
I understand you're frustrated.
But now, after three posts, it appears clear the problem is very different than what you originally described.
Please, take the time to clearly and completely state your problem, post with as clean of grammar as possible - and proof-read your posts for spelling and other mistakes.
Edit #2:
but the album art does not work with the Rockflow theme if the song is two subfolders down from the art. Â
The wiki only claims that album art works in the ./ (current) and ../ (parent) directory.
Example if you are playing:
D:/Music/The Beatles/Abbey Road/03 - Maxwell's Silver Hammer.mp3
Album art belongs in ./Abbey Road
or ../The Beatles
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@blueskip
if you are looking for the DOS command you want to get a DOS/command box and navigate to your X:\music directory/folder then type
for /R %a in (*.bmp) do ren "%a" cover.bmp
Or if you are of a nervous disposition (or just naturally cautions about taking advice from strangers on forums) copy all the BMP files to a temporary directory (create c:\temp\music, change to it, XCOPY /S X:\music\*.bmp, then do the above)
All this is from memory but I've done something similar and it worked.
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(I'll assume you mean artist-album.bmp) (Bitmap, not jpeg - but that is another conversation)
Artist-Album.bmp is not one of the supported naming formats as described in the wiki.
You are incorrect. Â It exports them as jpeg that I have to further batch convert. Â I had GREAT difficulty finding a batch conversion that would not make the files in sequential order with the same name. Â IE. cover(1).bmp, cover(2).bmp, cover(3).bmp and so on.
So I had to settle for a method that didn't change the original names of the files. Â
I found a program to FURTHER batch convert them after my last post to cover.bmp for each folder. Â
Thank you Multiplex but I've managed to accomplish this with another program.
I still have some repair to do because I would guess 20% of the files didn't export using "xport". Â I'm positive they have artwork in the file though. Â The reason I know the artwork is in the file is I batch DELETED all of this artwork I'm putting back now for Rockbox months and months ago. Â HENCE my dislike for the lack of embedded album art support. Â
Where is the wiki incorrect?
You quoted the problem. Â ?? Â You CAN'T always put .bmps into the BASE folder. Â THE BASE folder...BASE. Â Not the folder the .mp3 resides in.
For example If you have:
Music>>Artist>>Album>>name.mp3
You cannot put a bitmap with the artist, album, or mp3 name in the MUSIC folder and it actually work. Â It won't. Â Been there and done that. Â Doesn't work, at all, ever. Â Not in any way. Â
MUSIC is the BASE folder. Â
NOW if you ammend the wikki to say the ITUNES formatted music BASE folder, it may work....I don't know, as I converted my music FROM itunes to use it in rockbox for drag'n'drop from any computer. Â This way I can actually read the file names.
Still annoyed that I have to go through and manually find as many as 200-500 songs with no method of knowing which has artwork and which don't without looking in the folder. Â BECAUSE when I view them in every program I know of EXCEPT rockbox the embedded artwork shows up. Â SO now I have to hunt for a program that will not view embedded album art but WILL tag them to cut down on time. Â
Does any such animal exist?
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You quoted the problem. ?? You CAN'T always put .bmps into the BASE folder. THE BASE folder...BASE. Not the folder the .mp3 resides in.
From the AlbumArt wiki:
"The pictures can be stored in the same directory (.) as the track or in the parent directory (..)."
Base folder?
In your situation this means the .bmp has to be either in the Album folder or the Artist folder.
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You quoted the problem. ?? You CAN'T always put .bmps into the BASE folder. THE BASE folder...BASE. Not the folder the .mp3 resides in.
For example If you have:
Music>>Artist>>Album>>name.mp3
You cannot put a bitmap with the artist, album, or mp3 name in the MUSIC folder and it actually work. It won't. Been there and done that. Doesn't work, at all, ever. Not in any way.
MUSIC is the BASE folder.
The wiki page for album art uses no such term, so I've no idea what you're talking about here. It quite clearly states where you can put your album art files :
The pictures can be stored in the same directory (.) as the track or in the parent directory (..)
There is no mention of the word "base" there, and in any case the term "base folder" that you use is one you've just invented - it has no definition in computing.
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Finishing up
Move all the BMP's into the base directory of your music library.
Make sure you are running the latest version of the Album Art + BMP Resize Patch
I guess I was the only one to read to the BOTTOM of the page. Directory or Folder. It makes no friggin difference. I'm greatly resisting the urge flame a couple of you at this point. I READ the wikki or I wouldn't have commented.
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This procedure was posted by ryan2632 on the forums (original topic here). I haven't tested it so I can't guarantee it will work as expected.
Yep - that method is out of date.
I might have worked with the original album art patch, but will not work with the album art implementation found in stock builds.
Why (instead of getting increasingly short tempered and inflammatory), didn't you explain exactly what lines you were following - and discuss the contradictory statements found in that wiki page in a constructive manner? For that line clearly contradicts the description found earlier in the page of where album art is to be placed.
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I guess I was the only one to read to the BOTTOM of the page. Â Â
That was taken from something someone posted in the forums and has a pretty clear disclaimer at the top saying it isn't guranteed to work... Just sayin'...
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So are you guys saying that this album art extraction method doesn't work with the latest build? I have ALWAYS used it and it works fine with the current stock builds that I always use...
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So are you guys saying that this album art extraction method doesn't work with the latest build? I have ALWAYS used it and it works fine with the current stock builds that I always use...
I think it's just the described location for the album art that "doesn't work".
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Putting the album art in the Music directory IS the parent directory (..\) if the files are stored in Apple's weird obfuscated structure. I think that's the hitch here. If you try this with a Music\Artist\Album\*.mp3 structure then the Music directory is too many levels deep. With the original iPod structure you have e.g. Music\F01\*.mp3.
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If you look at the original post that the info in the wiki was gleaned from, it actually says this:
1) Move all the BMP's into IPODDRIVE:\iPod_Control\Music
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If you look at the original post that the info in the wiki was gleaned from, it actually says this:
1) Move all the BMP's into IPODDRIVE:\iPod_Control\Music
Thank you very much MarcGuay for tracking down the source of the confusion.
I have made an attempt to clarify the wiki entry and explicitly remind readers of the limited places Rockbox will look for album art.
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I added another useful tip using this technique on the wiki:
Generating Album Art of different sizes
1. Instead of putting in
D:\art\
you can put in
D:\art\.100x100
2. Change the album art size in the same window to the album art size you inputed in the step above. This will generate out album art images with a name such as "cover.100x100.bmp".
3. You can do this multiple times and generate out different sizes this way for pictureflow and different WPS'.
Hopefully that helps someone.
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I like to think of the Rockbox website as a digital version of my imaginary Uncle's cluttered basement and of myself as a detective from a 1950s pulp novel trying to piece together all the clues. (Minus all the sassy dames).
blueskip: I hope there's no hard feelings, I know how frustrating it can be to manuevre this mountain of ever-evolving information. I think the key is to move very slowly, watch your step, and of course fix any mistakes you come across along the way (at least that way you don't feel like you're part of the problem).
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Why (instead of getting increasingly short tempered and inflammatory),...
Two days three hours each, after working 8 hours and driving 3.5 hours to work and trying diligently to straighten this out only to come to a dead end and getting a comment like this....
There is no mention of the word "base" there, and in any case the term "base folder" that you use is one you've just invented - it has no definition in computing.
if you still have patience, you're a better man than me. I think we can all agree "base" is the term that was used now.
I didn't make it up.
I think the right way to word the wikki would be to say "the .bmp file cannot be more than one directory above the .mp3 file or rockbox will not find it."
Unless I'm mistaken that is how this works.
My .mp3 files are in iPod_Control\Music\artist\album\ and my .bmp files were in the Music folder so if I understand correctly everything that has been said the wikki is still misleading even after the change if users are not told the .mp3 files cannot be more than one subdirectory down from the \Music folder.
That said...
I cannot put the .bmp files into the \Music file unless manually move the contents of ~1500 files and delete the artist folders. So I have exactly the setup described earlier as working perfectly:
Music\artist\album\.mp3 + .bmp
There's only one glitch. I don't have album art in many of these files because for whatever reason they didn't export. The art is there embedded however whether it was exported or not.
So what program will ignore the embedded album art and view the non embedded art to fix this? (that's confusing even to me)
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My .mp3 files are in iPod_Control\Music\artist\album\
That is not the normal iTunes/iPod structure, is it?
and my .bmp files were in the Music folder so if I understand correctly everything that has been said the wikki is still misleading even after the change if users are not told the .mp3 files cannot be more than one subdirectory down from the \Music folder.
The wiki clearly states, after my editing, (the change you are referring to)
NOTE: This method does NOT work if your music directory structure is more than two folders deep.
Your structure is more than two folders deep.
Album=1, Artist=2, Music=3
...It was written assuming you were using the iTunes database directory structure.
You are apparently not.
So I have exactly the setup described earlier as working perfectly:
Music\artist\album\.mp3 + .bmp
There's only one glitch. I don't have album art in many of these files because for whatever reason they didn't export. The art is there embedded however whether it was exported or not.
Use any of the programs listed in the wiki, or any of the other programs available to download album art. Most scan the album tags of songs on a folder by folder basis, present you with what the program determines to be the proper album cover, and then allows you to save it (typically as one of the common names, such as folder.jpg).
Now you have a folder.jpg in each and every album folder. Then use the scripted conversion routines mentioned in the wiki and earlier in this thread (IIRC) to convert and rename the files in place. No manual moving, no manual renaming.
Correct me where I am wrong.
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Just forget it.
I'll write an entry if necessary sometime this week that will work for ANY structure being used less I am mistaken. No bought software all freeware. It took me long enough but I finally figured it out on my own.
I orginally was using apple file structure. I'm not anymore. So yes you are correct about that.
I will also explain where to get software for less than $20 to convert apples file structure into a normal format ready for drag'n'drop. I don't know of freeware that will do it - yet. I'll look into that more before I write it.
I'm almost certain this method will work for any file structure in use.
Thanks to everyone.
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I will also explain where to get software for less than $20 to convert apples file structure into a normal format ready for drag'n'drop. I don't know of freeware that will do it - yet.
Foobar2000 for Windows, and most every other free tagging program can rename files based upon their tags.
Files in the iTunes directory structure have tags.
Most taggers allow you to rename them in complex ways, including the creation of directories and subdirectories based upon the music's metadata tags.
Most all the free iTunes replacement software packages can also do this (create a "normal" directory from the iTunes database):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_iPod_Managers
I'll write an entry if necessary sometime this week that will work for ANY structure being used less I am mistaken. No bought software all freeware. It took me long enough but I finally figured it out on my own.
See the "Rockbox art converter script" just added to the wiki by Frederic Hoffmann. http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/AlbumArt#Format_conversion.
A free and extremely easy looking way to batch convert folder.jpgs into cover.bmps.
Should work with any directory structure (once you have the album art as files).
Want album art as files?
See http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=29876 for one of literally dozens of free programs to download album art, for free.
None of these tools cost money - all of these tools are just one free example in each category. I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar there are also free tools (in most cases superior to pay tools) for Mac and for the extraction of embedded album art into folder.jpgs.
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Done. I now have all of it loaded as 150x150 and it works perfectly. I had to recenter in Rockflow and change the default size but other than that no problems.
Thanks for the information Soap. I'll try to put together something easier to understand for the masses. I ran into tons of trouble after my directory was no longer ipod specific trying to get the art to work. I have it now and I'm fairly certain I can make this into a very simple to do process.
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actually winamp also has this batch auto-tagging feature built into it... it's what I've been using to correct my tags.
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Not much of a winamp fan anymore. Too ram intensive. I used to like it.
I'm pretty fond of MediaMonkey these days.
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well i usually go and use winamp cuz they auto-tag my japanese music collection
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That's interesting. I never thought of that. But I think MediaMonkey has a Japanese offering as well.
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wow this goes to slow.. it's a very good techniek, but it' really really slow
I selected all the images that he found, and now he needs to skip all the tracks to find those with a JPG file, which he then extracts
20/min and I have like 2400 songs...
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Thank Thank Thank. ;D
Way ez then the wiki page!