Album Art in Folder View - from newbie

[Moverall]

Hi,

I have recently installed MinimServer on my Qnap TS212 and MinimWatch on my Mac. My music has been ripped using XLD, with occasional tag editing with Metadatics. This is designed to serve my Naim Qute.

I recently made the switch to MinimServer from Twonky as I was keen to get the art work right, which was often a problem with Twonky.

When I am using folder view, I only get about a dozen album covers from about 1,200. The album art once I get into the artist folder seems to be ok. The covers that come up are those where there is a single album and the tracks (flac) Are not in a sub-album folder.

I have searched through the forum and read the user guide, but cannot find anything so far.

Thanks for any help.

[simoncn]

(21-01-2015 23:07)Moverall Wrote:  Hi,

I have recently installed MinimServer on my Qnap TS212 and MinimWatch on my Mac. My music has been ripped using XLD, with occasional tag editing with Metadatics. This is designed to serve my Naim Qute.

I recently made the switch to MinimServer from Twonky as I was keen to get the art work right, which was often a problem with Twonky.

When I am using folder view, I only get about a dozen album covers from about 1,200. The album art once I get into the artist folder seems to be ok. The covers that come up are those where there is a single album and the tracks (flac) Are not in a sub-album folder.

I have searched through the forum and read the user guide, but cannot find anything so far.

Thanks for any help.

Which images are missing? Are they the images for the individual files in the folder or is it the image for the folder itself? Do all your files contain embedded artwork?

The problem might be related to the control point you are using (presumably the Naim app). Please try browsing your library with another control point such as Linn Kinsky to see whether you get the same problem there.

[Moverall]

(21-01-2015 23:22)simoncn Wrote:  

(21-01-2015 23:07)Moverall Wrote:  Hi,

I have recently installed MinimServer on my Qnap TS212 and MinimWatch on my Mac. My music has been ripped using XLD, with occasional tag editing with Metadatics. This is designed to serve my Naim Qute.

I recently made the switch to MinimServer from Twonky as I was keen to get the art work right, which was often a problem with Twonky.

When I am using folder view, I only get about a dozen album covers from about 1,200. The album art once I get into the artist folder seems to be ok. The covers that come up are those where there is a single album and the tracks (flac) Are not in a sub-album folder.

I have searched through the forum and read the user guide, but cannot find anything so far.

Thanks for any help.

Which images are missing? Are they the images for the individual files in the folder or is it the image for the folder itself? Do all your files contain embedded artwork?

The problem might be related to the control point you are using (presumably the Naim app). Please try browsing your library with another control point such as Linn Kinsky to see whether you get the same problem there.

Hi Simon,

Thanks for your reply.
The images that are missing are those for the folder itself eg. The Rolling Stones, at the Folder View point, but once I open the blank folder, the various albums are there with their artwork.

I will try with Linn Kinsky either tonight or tomorrow.

[simoncn]

(22-01-2015 09:52)Moverall Wrote:  Hi Simon,

Thanks for your reply.
The images that are missing are those for the folder itself eg. The Rolling Stones, at the Folder View point, but once I open the blank folder, the various albums are there with their artwork.

I will try with Linn Kinsky either tonight or tomorrow.

It sounds like MinimServer is working correctly. If you have a folder named Rolling Stones that contains no audio files but instead contains subfolders for all your Rolling Stones albums, you will not see an image for the Rolling Stones folder. You should see an image for each of the album subfolders.

If you want to also see an image for the Rolling Stones folder, you can put a file named Folder.jpg or Folder.png into this folder.

[Moverall]

Hi Simon,

I did try that with a couple of folders last night, but it did not appear to work. To do this, I copied and pasted the Folder.jpg from the Album folder to the Artist folder and then did a rescan. I will try again this evening.

Thanks

[Moverall]

Hi Simon,

I have tried the Linn app and that has picked up an album image file that I copied into the higher artist folder from the album. So whilst it will take some time, at least I have a work-around, although it is not the best of solutions. Is this how it is supposed to work?

My MinimServer app is not working correctly now as none of the artists are coming up in the right folder. I have tried a rescan, but It does not make a difference. Do you know if there is a re-set I can do,or should I re-install MinimServer?
Sorry if these are basic questions.

[simoncn]

(22-01-2015 22:24)Moverall Wrote:  Hi Simon,

I have tried the Linn app and that has picked up an album image file that I copied into the higher artist folder from the album. So whilst it will take some time, at least I have a work-around, although it is not the best of solutions. Is this how it is supposed to work?

I don't understand your comment about this not being the best of solutions. The ability to set a custom image on any folder is a feature that is not provided by any other media server as far as I am aware.

Quote:My MinimServer app is not working correctly now as none of the artists are coming up in the right folder. I have tried a rescan, but It does not make a difference. Do you know if there is a re-set I can do,or should I re-install MinimServer?
Sorry if these are basic questions.

I presume you mean it is the Naim app that isn't working correctly. This is probably caused by problems with the cached data that the Naim app stores. Try clearing the Naim app album art cache and also clearing the Naim app UPnP cache. This should fix the problems.

If you aren't already running MinimServer 0.8.3, you should install this version. There are some changes in 0.8.3 to fix Naim caching issues.

[Moverall]

Simon,
Yes, I should have qualified my comment by saying that the ability to specify particular album art is a great benefit of this software, as although other providers did pre-populate the main menu view with album covers, they are not always the one you would want. I suppose the best solution would be to get the menu pro-populated, with the option of replacing it with an image of choice, which may or may not be an album cover.

Thanks for the tip on clearing the cache, as this does seem to be a problem with the Naim app, since Linn Kinsky was fine.

Thanks for all your help. I know that Album Art is a tedious thread on all forums.

I look forward to using the Minim software.

[simoncn]

(23-01-2015 09:15)Moverall Wrote:  Yes, I should have qualified my comment by saying that the ability to specify particular album art is a great benefit of this software, as although other providers did pre-populate the main menu view with album covers, they are not always the one you would want. I suppose the best solution would be to get the menu pro-populated, with the option of replacing it with an image of choice, which may or may not be an album cover.

I can make a small change that should help with this. At present, the folder art image is taken from files in the folder (not in subfolders). If there are no files in the folder, there is no folder art image. I can change this so that the folder art image is selected as follows:

1) Search the files in the folder looking for an art image (same as currently)

2) If no files with art images are found, look for the first direct subfolder that has an art image (based on its files and direct subfolders) and use that image

Would this be useful?

[antonmb]

I think that would be a great feature. Now if only we could get Linn to incorporate the ability to grab folder art like this in their main Kazoo display instead of having to revert to folder view.