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Logitech Squeezebox album art issue

Howdy again from Fort Worth, TX!!

Well, finally purchased two Logitech SBT's. Setup and everyday usage generally go without a hitch, except when sometimes my Windows box autoboots when it had been turned off. That's not a Logitech issue, and the autoboots are not on any sort of preset schedule, but they're probably a Windows Update or antivirus something or other. Restart the offending [SBT] client and we're back up and running.

It took me about a year to rip my legacy music collection. I used iTunes not only because of its ubiquity, but, believe it or not, it actually was the best out of a really bad field in parsing metadata.

This is a real headache when you want to play an entire album and there's an artist who doesn't play on the whole album (say, Brahms' VnC over three songs and his Double over three others). Since you can't edit Artist metadata from within the SBT UI, you have to go back into iTunes, edit the Artist field so that it's consistent over all selections on the album (the original CD in my example is DG 289 469 529-2), then go back into Logitech Media Server, check the Use iTunes checkbox, then do another media scan.

I have a funny feeling that if I used e.g. RealPlayer, Winamp, dBPA, or whatever, I would've been left high and dry. Anyway, I don't drill down the Artist or Album fields to find an album; I use the Search at root, usually typing a composer name for classical or an artist name for pop or jazz. Works well, and when I stumble across a metadata issue as above, on an as-discovered basis, I do the iTunes thing and scan again.

The other big issue is, what to do about the album art. On legacy material, the coverart doesn't come into the SBT UI on anything, whether or not the art was picked up by iTunes. The problem, I've been told, is that the iTunes UI saves the album art to a separate folder instead of embedding it in the songfile. Logitech service says it's working on a fix for this, but for now, Logitech directs me to some third-party scripts; so far I've been only able to find scripts for Macs, not Windows boxes.

I'll try this on my [pre-Intel G4] Mac laptop, but, as I mostly use my stationary Dell PC, I'm more interested in keeping a library there.

Eventually I'll move from an external drive to a NAS, and put all my music on the NAS, so I can create identical multiple libraries, one for each, on my PC, my Mac, and whatever iDevices or Androids I might subsequently own.

On non-legacy content, e.g. downloads (mostly from HDTracks, some from Classicsonline), the imagefiles come into the SBT just fine, even when i use iTunes to copy the Classicsonline songs from my local download folder to my music drive, which is an external HDD off my Windows box. I store the HDTracks, which are [non-iTunes-compatible] FLAC's, on another local download folder. I also get other FLAC's from other places, no problems there either.

I do have some musicfiles local to the Mac, so I'll download one of these scripts, try it, and report the results back to the group. If successful, I'll connect the SBT to another library on the Mac (which references, through iTunes, the external Windows drive) rescan the Logitech media server on the Mac, and see what shakes.

But in the meantime, has anyone out there figured out a way to get the artwork into an SBT when it's connected to a PC?

Thanks much for reading, John
128x128distant_replay
6 responses Add your response
sbleam
35 posts
 
I have not used the Logitech Squeezebox, I have a Sonos setup going, but there is a batch file script on Sonos's sight that embeds the iTunes artwork so it shows up in the Sonos controller (iPad, Touch, iPhone). It takes a while to run -- so only use every few months to refresh all artwork. The file is called EmbediTunesArtwork.EXE.
I have also gotten into the habit of repasting the artwork into iTunes (highlight each track and use the Get Info option to reapply the artwork) when ripping Apple Lossless from a new CD - this accomplishes the same thing one at a time.
wolf_garcia
6,695 posts
 
Try this:

http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Squeezebox-Players/Album-Art-display-on-SB-Touch/td-p/561826
distant_replay's avatar
distant_replay OP
10 posts
 
Thanks to user Sbleam for your suggestion. I did download that script from the Sonos site and got the artwork for about 30% of my albums. Since it's an iTunes script, I'd figured it'd work for my Squeezeboxes as well.

However, it usually doesn't embed the artwork in the Albums browse field (Home > My Music > Albums) but it does so in the Now Playing field, but often not for every song in the album. Also, if an Album has 10 songs, it might embed the artwork in the first 5 or 6 tracks, then go blank (the CD image) for the remaining tracks. Then again, it might embed all 10. That's probably something in the script, perhaps an incompatibility with CPU cycles or Windows or whatever.

Also, the script can't get the artwork from much of my classical repertoire, where non-English (extended ASCII) characters are more likely to be used in titles. This should not be as much an issue on a Mac.

My Dell runs Vista with the most recent service pack; perhaps in order to squeeze more useful life out of it (AFAIK Microsoft is dropping support for the OS's up to and including Vista, or soon will do so) I'll throw Linux on it and then hack away at the script. Or just download a newer script.

But anyway, it's a start. Thanks much.

:<) John
bondmanp
1,808 posts
 
I am a pretty low-tech guy, but here's what I use: I have a SBT, and for a server, I bought the Vortexbox Appliance (currently $429 for the entry-level 1TB model, but there are bigger and audiophile versions available). The Vortexbox uses FLAC, and includes a ripper with DVD drive, and runs Linux. So, no iTunes at all. For tagging, I use the the free MP3Tag program. I, too, had issues with album cover art, and some other ripping issues. Others suggested I purchase and install db Poweramp on my computer and use it to rip instead of the Vortexbox. The advantage is that dbPA lets you review and edit the metadata before the rip. It also allows you to choose album art before the rip. On custom CDs, for which dbPA doesn't retreive cover art, I add it using the MP3Tag. It is a slow process, and I make it slower by carefully reviewing the metadata before ripping the next CD. But, my library is very navicable. I prefer to use the composer as the artist, composer and "album artist" in the metadata. Unless you like sorting by the performer, orchestra or conductor, this works pretty well.

Whatever you do, remember to buy a USB drive and back up everything on a regular basis. I have had to restore my library from my backup drive twice in the past year.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,180 posts
 
I rip to .wav mostly using Windows Media Player. WMP is pretty good with metadata and album art. Album art gets picked up automatically 90+% of the time prior to ripping.

I add missing album art when needed by finding a .jpg file online then copying to the directory ripped to as cover.jpg along with the .wav files. After a library rescan with Logitech Media Server, the cover art then shows.
lewinskih01
909 posts
 
Like Mapman, I rip to wav (but using dBpoweramp), and add missing art just like he does. Cumbersome if you need to do 200 CDs the first time, but a non-issue after that.
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