Foobar vs JRiver?

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But - all the music I have purchased from Acoustic Sounds also shows up in Foobar...only not always with artwork.
generally tweaking art shows can be found in foobar under File > Preferences > Advanced > Album art.
but in any case, picture should be embedded in audio file or located in the folder which contains audio files as it shown on the second picture.
if picture in a folders, it should have same name (in my case "front") in every folder.

001.jpg

002.jpg
 
generally tweaking art shows can be found in foobar under File > Preferences > Advanced > Album art.
but in any case, picture should be embedded in audio file or located in the folder which contains audio files as it shown on the second picture.
if picture in a folders, it should have same name (in my case "front") in every folder.

View attachment 22969

View attachment 22970

Oh man! That's it.....

I had the album art in the same folder as correct album...but I had them named (as an example Alice Cooper Goes to Hell.jpg)

So, I simply named it front.jpg and it worked.....GEEZ!

Thanks a bunch for that tip.
 
OK, cool. Thanks. Seems odd to me that a generic name like that would work. I mean - I can only imagine the nightmare if somehow those got separated from their specific folder....
 
OK, cool. Thanks. Seems odd to me that a generic name like that would work. I mean - I can only imagine the nightmare if somehow those got separated from their specific folder....

I know what you mean, but I think the most common/practical approach to storing your music online is an /Album/Artist/Track directory hierarchy. It's easier to manage from a human standpoint and probably easier for some software to deal with. In that case, the identical names shouldn't become an issue.

Squeezebox/Logitech Media Server has some provision for all artwork to be stored in a common folder with some kind of name tying it back to the music, but that sounds like a nightmare to me!
 
I know what you mean, but I think the most common/practical approach to storing your music online is an /Album/Artist/Track directory hierarchy. It's easier to manage from a human standpoint and probably easier for some software to deal with. In that case, the identical names shouldn't become an issue.

Squeezebox/Logitech Media Server has some provision for all artwork to be stored in a common folder with some kind of name tying it back to the music, but that sounds like a nightmare to me!

I have a large libraries of ALAC,FLAC, DSD, and AAC tracks. I keep my music drive organized pretty much exactly as you describe (except the AAC and ALAC have their own root directories based on their iTunes libs). This turns out to be important for managing across multiple players.

But I still find that any album-art scheme that is used instead of just embedding the art in the files using tags to be inferior for a couple of reasons. Yes - you eat a bit more space by having the art embedded in each track - BUT
1) I found bugs all over the place in mixed-album playlist rendering in multiple players.
2) God help you if you use more than one player and they use differing non-embedded album-art schemes. I use JRiver for playback on my main AV system, Logitech Media Server for playback on my squeezebox-duet-based screened porch system, and then I have two hot-rodded (240GB) iPod classics for the cars and a Fiio X5 portable DAP for other mobile uses. The combined support on these systems for folder-based cover art is error-prone and sometimes buggy. Yet they all deal perfectly with embedded album-art.

If you are already going to the trouble to rip titles for playback, it is one small extra chunk of workflow to find and download the art (which you can do while the disc is ripping), go into your favorite tool, highlight/multi-select all of the tracks to which that art applies, and embed it. It will then display properly just-about everywhere, including most near-future players that you don't yet have, with minimum of muss-and-fuss when you are done. You can do this when you are cleaning up the other tags - filling in blanks, correcting errors, and (if you are inclined as I am) setting the genre where YOU think it belongs ;-) In general, if you make a short investment at the end of each rip in ensuring that the most important tags, including album art, are accurate and complete then it comes back to benefit you in multiple ways later.

If you want it to be really easy and are willing to pay - get something like PerfectTunes (there are other excellent tools too - some free). I happen to be partial to PerfectTunes because it has the added benefit of making a pretty large collection of high-quality, higher-resolution (1400x1400) art available from their own servers in addition to searching other internet sources for it. It can also do large batch jobs on your entire library like "find all the low-res art and suggest replacement art" or "find all the tracks in my lib that have no embedded art and suggest art". You can then review/revise the suggestions and then "apply all" and the entire library gets cleaned up in one shot. I found it extremely useful in overcoming "technical debt" of a large library that I had previously not been consistent in handling.
 
2) God help you if you use more than one player and they use differing non-embedded album-art schemes. I use JRiver for playback on my main AV system, Logitech Media Server for playback on my squeezebox-duet-based screened porch system, and then I have two hot-rodded (240GB) iPod classics for the cars and a Fiio X5 portable DAP for other mobile uses. The combined support on these systems for folder-based cover art is error-prone and sometimes buggy. Yet they all deal perfectly with embedded album-art.

Thanks for the well-considered argument for embedded art. The only thing that's kept me from doing this is the extra (and redundant) storage use, as you also mentioned. Have you ever calculated, or could you estimate a percentage number for the additional storage space used on your setup with this scheme? Also, what size do you use for cover art? Just curious.

-- Jim, running low on disk space for drives A: thru Z:
 
I have a large libraries of ALAC,FLAC, DSD, and AAC tracks....

If you want it to be really easy and are willing to pay - get something like PerfectTunes (there are other excellent tools too - some free). I happen to be partial to PerfectTunes because it has the added benefit of making a pretty large collection of high-quality, higher-resolution (1400x1400) art available from their own servers in addition to searching other internet sources for it. It can also do large batch jobs on your entire library like "find all the low-res art and suggest replacement art" or "find all the tracks in my lib that have no embedded art and suggest art". You can then review/revise the suggestions and then "apply all" and the entire library gets cleaned up in one shot. I found it extremely useful in overcoming "technical debt" of a large library that I had previously not been consistent in handling.

Thanks for this tip on PerfectTunes.

A question: Can PerfectTunes run in a batch mode to auto update all my tagged/embedded cover art with my own folder.jpg images in each album's folder?

I'm looking for something that will batch update all FLAC files in a folder to the folder.jpg image in that folder and to do that recursively for my entire music collection (I.e. 1 click solution).

Originally I used 300 x 300 images for my album cover art (based on info from my first media player). Later I discovered I could use larger sizes so then started using 400 x 400. Recently I've moved to 600 x 600 as my folder.jpg but I have not re-tagged (re-embedded) my original FLAC files with the larger art, so I have a mixture of 300, 400 and 600 sized embedded art but with mostly 400 and 600 folder.jpg files.
 
Thanks for the well-considered argument for embedded art. The only thing that's kept me from doing this is the extra (and redundant) storage use, as you also mentioned. Have you ever calculated, or could you estimate a percentage number for the additional storage space used on your setup with this scheme? Also, what size do you use for cover art? Just curious.

-- Jim, running low on disk space for drives A: thru Z:
It depends on the size of the source file (jpg, etc.) being used. You DO eat JPGSize x TrackCount in space for each album. If you do what I do, using reasonably-high-res album art (1k x 1k and above in most cases) then it can eat a lot of space. But given that the cost of an additional 1TB drive is, well, diddly-squat these days...I just keep adding storage. That said, for the AAC stuff, where the files are specifically meant to be small so they fit well on the portable players for other family members, I get smaller cover art files - often just the 500x500 images available on Amazon.
 
...

A question: Can PerfectTunes run in a batch mode to auto update all my tagged/embedded cover art with my own folder.jpg images in each album's folder?

I'm looking for something that will batch update all FLAC files in a folder to the folder.jpg image in that folder and to do that recursively for my entire music collection (I.e. 1 click solution).

I've written a simple Windows program that auto Scans a folder and all its sub folders/directories for FLAC (or MP3, Alac etc) files:

1. Optionally, Re-tags/re-embeds cover art with the current 'folder.jpg' into from each directory into each music file
2. Optionally, creates a CSV file listing each album: showing tagged artist, album title and bitrate(s) and sample rate(s)*
3. optionally, creates CSV file listing every folder/directory's music files: showing file name, tagged artist, song title and bitrate/sample rate of each file

CSV files can be imported into Microsoft Excel.

I started by just wanting something to update my embedded album art picture. But always wanted something to list all my albums. The last list might find some anomalies in file naming/tagging and/sample rates etc.

If anyone wants to give it a go let me know. I will test some more tomorrow, so I can email the files to anyone interested in next couple of days.

Any ideas for additional functionalist welcome.

* some user compilation 'albums' may contain tracks of differing bit/sample rates
 
I have it in my head that LMS can at times have issues with embedded artwork...though I very rarely use it, so maybe I'm confused. Or maybe the problem was fixed long ago.

It was indeed a problem - fixed when they go their, ummm, "stuff" together on their iOS control app a couple of years ago. The "experimental" support for embedded artwork in iTunes (AAC) files has been working great for a long time now - even if it is still officially "experimental".
 
There's always iTunes. I'm playing CCR 1st in 24/192 ALAC right at this moment using iTunes. Sounds excellent. If I had known i could play 24/192 using iTunes I might not have ever spent $60 or so on JRiver.

I can also sync the music to the iPad, although not at 24/192 resolution since the iPad will reject it.

Oh, yeah, this is just for stereo.
 
When you are playing from iTunes.

But that does not mean that some other player or DLNA server can USE that embedded art.
Sometime a couple of years ago, LMS FINALLY added the ability to use the embedded art from iTunes - in LMS. (not in iTunes - which is indeed a no-brainer as you point out.)
 
Hey all - I have recently added some FLAC files to my music collection, those same files cannot be seen by my Foobar Library....I can "add them", and play them...but they never show up in my library. The files are in the exact same place as other files that Foobar Library can see. Any thoughts? Am I making sense? :)
 
HEre are a couple screen shots showing that I'm playing it in Foobar, yet can't see the folder in Foobar Library.

Surfs UP 1.JPG

Beach Boys Library.JPG

And, here is the folder where Made In The USA resides, which as you see is showing in Foobar Library...??

Beach Boys Library 2.JPG
 
HEre are a couple screen shots showing that I'm playing it in Foobar, yet can't see the folder in Foobar Library.

When this happens to me it's usually a tagging issue. Foobar is arranging its display of your stuff according to the tag info it reads from the files, and not from the actual file locations. I dunno what software program you use for tagging, but Foobar can do tagging too - just "add" the files you're having trouble with, then select an album's worth and right-click on it, then click on "Tagging" in the popup menu (or just press Alt + Enter after selecting). You may find that the album has some missing/misnamed tags, which would explain why it isn't showing up where you expect it to. Foobar will let you fix the tag info right there. If you've selected multiple songs/files, you'll be fixing the tags on all of them simultaneously. This is handy for info that's common to all the selected song files (artist, album, etc.).

-- Jim
 
When this happens to me it's usually a tagging issue. Foobar is arranging its display of your stuff according to the tag info it reads from the files, and not from the actual file locations. I dunno what software program you use for tagging, but Foobar can do tagging too - just "add" the files you're having trouble with, then select an album's worth and right-click on it, then click on "Tagging" in the popup menu (or just press Alt + Enter after selecting). You may find that the album has some missing/misnamed tags, which would explain why it isn't showing up where you expect it to. Foobar will let you fix the tag info right there. If you've selected multiple songs/files, you'll be fixing the tags on all of them simultaneously. This is handy for info that's common to all the selected song files (artist, album, etc.).

-- Jim

Wow, you are actually spot on. It worked! Thanks a bunch...stuff like this is just maddening!!
 
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