Dale Preston's Web Log
  
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
 

Windows Media Player and Album Art
One of my biggest frustrations with Windows Media Player is its handling of album art. Apparently, I am not alone in this. Frustration with album art is a common topic on the Windows Media Player newsgroups.

I just wrote a rather detailed response to one post on the newsgroups about how to use custom album art in Windows Media Player only to have the Microsoft web-based news reader tell me that the server timed out when I submitted my post. All that typing down the tubes. Refresh and Back didn't save my work, either. So, it is apparent, I need to just write it down here so I don't have to keep typing the same things.

What got me started working on projects around album art in Windows Media Player was using Windows Media Player 8 and then 9 with Album Art visualization. I liked it because I could look quickly at the album art to visually get the artist and album for whatever track was playing. The problem was that the album art was so small - a paltry 200x200 pixels - that it was not viewable across the room. In fact, it was barely usable while sitting at the PC. My solution was to scan all of my CD covers and store them as 480x480 pixel images named Folder.jpg in the album folders. Now, when I played them in Windows Media Player with the Album Art visulization, I could see the image from across the room.

I was very angry when I upgraded to Windows Media Player 10 and my custom album art was immediately replaced with low quality, 200x200 pixel, and often incorrect album art from Microsoft's faulty online CD database. After some effort, I discovered that if I configured every option, under Tools->Options, to disable any access to the Internet, then Windows Media Player 10 would leave my album art alone. So, I restored my art from backup and was pretty happy for a while.

Next, I discovered Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. The screenshots I saw on the web showed the very cool album art navigation and a larger album art display while playing. It seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I have Dish Network satellite TV with TIVO and there's no good way to integrate the TV into Media Center but I thought the album art navigation and displays were pretty cool. It seemed to be exactly what I wanted for playing music on the PC but the reality was very disappointing.

The first problem was that Media Center - which mostly is dependent on and follows your Windows Media Player settings - totally disregarded my Windows Media Player settings and replaced my album art! And did it with the same 200x200 pixel, low-quality, often incorrect album art that Windows Media Player 10 had previously done! I was furious!, as you can imagine. First, I tried playing with file permissions to prevent Media Center from screwing up my work but that was way too much work; playing music on the PC was supposed to be fun, not work. Finally, I settled on completely blocking my Media Center PC's access to the Internet. I changed the default gateway to an invalid IP address on a non-existent network (10.10.10.10 on my network). Finally, Media Center left my art alone.

The next problem with Media Center and album art is that, after replacing my high quality album art with their low quality substitute, Media Center then stretches the art back up to 380x380 pixels for displaying in the album art view! That is just about the craziest idea I have ever seen. Besides the obvious problem with reducing the art just to stretch it out again, the stretching process absolutely destroys the image - and these Microsoft provided images were low quality to begin with. Try it on any image. You can reduce size with limited loss of quality but you can never increase the size without destroying the quality.

I was told, in the Windows Media Player newsgroups, among many other illogical reasons, and by a former member of the Microsoft Windows Media Player product team, that the reason Media Player uses such small art is that it is not practical to reduce larger images on the fly when needed by Windows Media Player. And yet they enlarge the image on the fly. Go figure.

This was finally just more than I could take. I embarked on a replacement for Windows Media Player. Unfortunately, I found out that there are no real replacements. While there are dozens of players available, none of them do album art any better - if they do album art at all - than Windows Media Player.

I finally wrote my own application to provide a view of my album art and of what is currently playing in Windows Media Player that was viewable from across the room: http://www.dalepreston.com/mp3manager.htm

When I saw the very cool looking use of album art in Windows Media Player 11, I thought that maybe my work writing my player was all for naught; Microsoft was finally going to come out with a good media player! Well, that just doesn't seem to be in the works.

I installed Windows Vista on a new PC and, knowing the risks, I immediately configured WMP 11 to not touch the Internet. Next, I copied all my media from my Media Center PC to my Vista PC. To my amazement, just as quickly as the album folder was created and the first track copied into the folder, Windows Media Player 11 reduced my art to 200x200 pixels!

I wasn't prepared to block my Vista PC from the Internet so I thought I'd try to live with the embedded art when working in Windows Media Player and to use my player for actually playing with viewable album art. In every previous version of Windows Media Player, when I embedded my custom album art in the files using Advanced Tag Editor, WMP would display my custom art when using the album art visualization.

Not so in Windows Media Player 11. When I embedded my custom album art using Windows Media Player 11, Media Player reduced my custom art to 200x200 pixels as it embedded the image! According to a former member of the Windows Media Player product team, unofficially since he does not represent Microsoft when posting in newsgroups, making WMP 11 reduce even embedded album art was "closing a loophole" that existed in previous versions that allowed you to have larger than 200x200 pixel album art.

Luckily, I had previously written an application to embed album art, ID3 Embed Pictures, to my library in bulk for use on my wife's PC because she only uses iTunes. In fact, she refuses to use Windows Media Player at all. Anyway, I was able to embed album art into my Vista library using my program and Windows Media Player 11 did not follow behind and reduce the art. I suppose that will be the next loophole fixed; they'll probably be checking all existing embedded art and reducing it in WMP 12.

In the Microsoft Windows Media Player newsgroups, I endeavored to find out why the 200x200 pixel limit existed. First I was told that it was because Windows Media Player could not resize art on-the-fly when smaller art was needed. When I asked why not store Extra Large in addition to the current Large - yes, the Windows Media Player product team calls 200x200 pixel album art large - and Small (75x75 pixels) album art I never got a response.

Next I was next told that the reason for the small art was that there might be some portable devices that had been built based on some released statement from Microsoft that the maximum size for album art should be 200x200 pixels. Of course the fellow from Microsoft was unable to provide any reference to such a document or identify any players that were built based on any such document. Besides, just because there may have once been some unidentified, and probably un-manufactured, portable device that you may or may not own, I certainly do not own it. In fact, I doubt that any one does. So why are hundreds of millions of Windows Media Player customers stuck with this limit in the days of portable devices with displays many times that resolution?

To be honest, what I believe is going on here is that the Windows Media Player product team has sold out their customers in the interest of better relationships with the content providers and have limited us to low quality artwork in an attempt to protect copyrights of the music producers. Of course they totally ignore the fact that if I own a CD, I am well within my rights to create an image of my CD and display or use it as I please. Let alone the fact that, for all they know, my custom artwork could be totally custom art that is my own intellectual property and yet they destroy it without any warning, without creating any backup, and without ever giving me the choice to opt out.

Other than Windows Media Player, programs that intentionally destroy your files without asking or telling you that they are going to do so are called viruses.


The bottom line, or how to use custom art in Windows Media Player 11

So Windows Media Player is almost a very cool program but they stopped just short and ended up giving us a very frustrating to use program. But what can you do to make album art livable in Windows Media Player?

First and foremost. Never, ever, ever, ever let Windows Media Player touch your original or only copy of any custom album art. Make a backup and only work with backed up images when adding custom album art to Windows Media Player.

Next, open Windows Media Player and configure every Internet setting (they are on the Library, Player, and Privacy tabs under Tools->Options) to block Windows Media Player from updating your files or adding missing or incorrect information. Now close Windows Media Player and leave it that way until you're completely finished customizing your album art.

The next thing to resolve is to get good quality album art. The options are, as I see it, to create your own using your favorite graphics program - definitely not an option for me; I am graphically challenged. Next, you could download from Apple's iStore or from Amazon or other web sites but this is questionable both ethically and legally. Check the copyright notices or other use licensing information on the sites you may get album art from. The last way, and my chosen method, is to simply scan my CD covers and save the scanned image as a jpg file.

Apple's iStore, if you have access, can provide you with 600x600 pixel album art. Amazon.com has 500x500 pixel album art. All of this sure makes you wonder why Microsoft limits you to 200x200 pixels, doesn't it? I generally keep my original scanned image, which is usually around 2800x2800 pixels coming from my scanner at 600 dpi but I make a reduced copy at 480x480 pixels. That works best for me but in any case, I don't suggest going larger than iStore's 600x600 pixels. While Windows Media Player is able to reduce your album art on the fly while embedding it in your media files, they chose not to code it to reduce album art to fit the screen. If you use an image larger than the available empty space in WMP's Album Art visualization Windows Media Player will not shrink the image to fit.

Now that you have appropriate album art and have backed up that album art, you're ready to work on adding it to Windows Media Player.

Place a copy of the appropriate album art in each album folder and name that image Folder.jpg, replacing any existing 200x200 pixel, low-quality, Microsoft-provided album art. I usually store another copy of the image in the folder named differently so it is readily available when the next change to Windows Media Player fixes another "loophole" and my art is destroyed.

After you have added the artwork to each folder, go back to your parent library folder - like My Music; the folder should list all of your artists. Press F3 to search your library for *.jpg. When the search is complete, click on any of the results to set the focus and then press CTRL-A to select all of the tracks. Right-click on any selected track and choose Properties from the context menu. In the properties window, set the files to Read-Only.

Now, if you want embedded art, it is very simple to use my ID3 Embed Pictures program to embed your custom Folder.jpg images into each track. Be sure to configure ID3 Embed Pictures to remove existing art so you can get rid of any of the low quality stuff from Microsoft.

There you have it. If you're careful about how you use Windows Media Player, and until the next patch or version fixes more loopholes, you now have higher quality and easily viewable album art.


- posted by Dale Preston @ 4/17/2007 07:33:00 PM
Comments:
I seem to be the only one in the world who dislikes organizing my music by album. I rip only the songs I like, and group them by artist, not album. If I did it by album I'd have 300 folders with only one file!
# posted by Anonymous John H : April 19, 2007 1:02 PM
 
Dale,
Thank you so much for your postings. This on about WMP and album art helped me realize I'm not insane...others out there have the same problems. Also THANK YOU for your WMP 11 FAQ posting, esp the part about getting WMP 11 to open in Now Playing view instead of library. I used your fix and voila....WMP like it OUGHT to be....would that more people like you actually worked in MS development so they would turn out completely useful items, not partly disabled ones.
# posted by Anonymous dennis_nagy@sbcglobal.net : May 15, 2007 10:47 AM
 
This is kind of like therapy. Sorry for your pain but it's nice to know that someone else has suffered through the same problem! My problem was that WMP would constantly change the artwork AND the album name along with name of the song! You see, I keep the songs with the album on which they originally appeared. Not some "Greatest Hits" compilation. Even if I rip the song from a "GH" CD. By the way, I figure that if I've paid for the song, I'm entitled to use the correct album art. I'd love to scan my old LPs but a scanner that big is industrial strength! Also, why not just use iTunes to embed the artwork? Right click the song, Get Info, Artwork tab. Works every time.
# posted by Anonymous John Holliday : July 03, 2007 4:18 PM
 
I don't like my album art stored as a jpeg. I prefer it to be embedded. What can I do to tell MP11 to use the embedded artwork and not create all these new jpegs which clutter my collections?!
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : November 02, 2007 11:11 AM
 
I keep getting the error: "alue does not represent a valid COMMframe" any idea why? This has happened on multiple folder attemps. Please advise, thank you.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 18, 2007 7:09 PM
 
Email me one of the tracks that is giving you the invalid COMM frame error. My email is dalepres then the at symbol and then msn and finally dot com.
# posted by Blogger Dale Preston : December 19, 2007 9:04 PM
 
WMP11 seems to do alot of work when you embed artwok. It actually creates 4 jpeg images in the directory as hidden system files, two in 75x75, and two in 200x200. It then embeds the 200x200 in the id3 of every file.

I have a feeling this is actually done for compatibility with alot of things. 200x200 is the MS stated file size for artwork on PlaysForSure devices. I'm not sure about other players, but my Creative Zen:Vision M can only use embedded 200x200 tags, because MS told them that was the supported size when WMP10 came out. The hidden jpegs allow older WMP and MCE apps to access the artwork if you share the drive on a network or portable. In the long run this behavior probably helps MS with alot of trouble.

Also... you have to remember that sharing copywrited album art for any purpose other than advertising or identifying the product would be illegal. Since Microsoft no longer has a music store of their own unless you own a Zune... Well I'm suprised they offer art at all.

I guess the answer would be to add a third size in the tag or the JPEG's in the folder. Maybe in WMP12.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : December 30, 2007 6:37 PM
 
You have got to be kidding. I shouldn't even respond to an anonymous comment that shows so little intelligence or understanding of the facts but I am going to anyway.

First off, creating those 4 files has absolutely nothing to do with embedding artwork. Windows Media Player creates those files whether or not you embed artwork. It does not embed any artwork in any tags unless you specifically tell it to embed artwork.

And how could you possibly presume to know why Creative used 200x200 pixel artwork or what conversations went on between Creative and Microsoft? I am confident that the limitations were more hardware related. You just can't put 640x640 pixel artwork in a pocket sized MP3 player. Any agreement between Microsoft and hardware vendors for MP3 players to provide 200x200 pixel album art would not be expected to imply that no art larger than 200x200 pixels would be available. Your assumption is ludicrous.

Besides, I don't have a Creative Zen. So let them limit your album art size, not mine. In fact, about 600 million people have Windows Media Player and I bet less than 10 million have Creative Zen MP3 players; probably less than 1 million have them. So why limit album art for 590 million people for the sake of a few million?

Also, the word is "copyright" not "copywrite". It is about "rights" to the content, not about putting the content in print media of any type.

And if Microsoft can get a license for 200x200 pixel art distribution, they can get one for larger files - whether or not they have a music store. And even if they can't get such a license - which I doubt seriously - that does not give them any right to change existing files on my PC to reduce the album art size. The existing files on my PC are, in fact, my own intellectual property.

Just as a photograph you take of a vase that you own would be your own intellectual property, my image of the CDs that I own, taken from my own image capture device - even if a scanner rather than a camera - are my own intellectual property. Any program that destroys my intellectual property without notifying me and getting my approval is generally classified in the category of malware.
# posted by Blogger Dale Preston : December 30, 2007 7:13 PM
 
Hi Dale -

Thanks for all your great info. Most of my mp3s are lovingly copied from my LP and 45 RPM collection. Like you, I forbid WMP from accessing the Internet because its database assumes my music was ripped from currently available CDs - about 20-50 years incorrect in most cases.

Also, especially with the 45's I don't have "album" or even "artist" folders, so creating a folder.jpg and then using that to embed the mp3s wouldn't work. I'm currently using a combination of Media Monkey and WMP's Advanced Tag Editor to embed the correct images in my mp3s and WMAs. I have to settle for separate album art files for all my WAVs.

I'm finding that WMP sometimes doesn't save the album art after I use ATE. I'm wondering if it's balking at the size, or from reading your comments, it may not like formats other than jpg. No problem there: I'll just use ThumbsPlus to convert the art to that format.

There is also a wierd disparity among what displays correctly on WMP, the Zune desktop, and the Zune player. I find myself wiping all the zuneart files so the software will rescan and set the right embedded images, then completely wiping the player and re-loading the entire library after I spend several hours updating the embedded art.

Media Monkey also misses on some album art: again this may be due to the file type. But I wind up with the default MM CD case graphics embedded in the file. Imagine my surprise when that shows up on the Zune player! :c)
# posted by Blogger LorettaYeo : January 01, 2008 10:17 AM
 
Hi Dale -

Thanks for all your great info. Most of my mp3s are lovingly copied from my LP and 45 RPM collection. Like you, I forbid WMP (and Zune) from accessing the Internet because its database assumes my music was ripped from currently available CDs - about 20-50 years incorrect in most cases.

Also, especially with the 45's I don't have "album" or even "artist" folders, so creating a folder.jpg and then using your software to embed the mp3s wouldn't work. I'm currently using a combination of Media Monkey and WMP's Advanced Tag Editor to embed the correct images in my mp3s and WMAs. I have to settle for separate album art files for all my WAVs.

I'm finding that WMP sometimes doesn't save the album art after I use ATE. I'm wondering if it's balking at the size, or from reading your comments, it may not like formats other than jpg. No problem there: I'll just use ThumbsPlus to convert the art to that format.

There is also a weird disparity among what displays correctly on WMP, the Zune desktop, and the Zune player. I find myself wiping all the zuneart files so the software will rescan and set the right embedded images, then completely wiping the player and re-loading the entire library after I spend several hours updating the embedded art.

Media Monkey also misses on some album art: again this may be due to the file type. But I wind up with the default MM CD case graphics embedded in the file. Imagine my surprise when that shows up on the Zune player! :c)
# posted by Blogger LorettaYeo : January 01, 2008 10:20 AM
 
I greatly appreciate your articles about album art and WMP. Thank you! Have you tried iTunes Store File Validator? D:\Downloads\itunes validator\iTSfv - iTunes Store file validator.mht

I suggest trying it.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : January 10, 2008 11:41 PM
 
Hi Dale,

Thank you for the invaluable lesson on WMP and Media Center. I am a new user to Media Center. I purchased a new computer that came with Vista (Home Premium). I wish I had read your blog before I started uploading my music CD collection - it would have saved me a lot of time.

I went through a lot of the same issues you discuss in your article. I finally have all my music files cleaned up and have embedded the high-res album art in each file. In WMP 11 the high-res images work fine.

However, there is still the problem with getting VMC to use the high-res album art. From your article I see you wrote your own application to view the high-res album art in Windows XP Media Center 2005. I do not know if my edition of VMC is the same or different. My MC version is 6.0.6000.20750 - it apparently uses only the 200 x 200 large file.

I added my righ-res images to each folder as the Folder.jpg file but every time I start VMC it resizes the image to 200 x 200. I can restrict acess to the file and prevent VMC from resizing the file. However, the image that appears in MC is still the 200 x 200.

I am not sure if it is using the AlbumArt_{...}_Large.jpg file or if MC is using old art in the WMP r in it's own database.

There is a Microsoft article on how to delete the WMP database if it becomes corrupted, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925718

When I deleted the database and then rebuilt the library in WMP all the album art was still the high res art, but when I opened VMC all I get is the 200 x 200 crappy art.

Does any one know if VMC uses a different database or the same one?

Does anyone know how to make VMC use the high-res art?

Thanks for any help, I appreciate it....Tom
# posted by Blogger Pan_Mila : February 20, 2008 9:16 PM
 
Tom, I don't know exactly how Vista Media Center does it, but I have the same problem. In spite of all I have done to make sure that there is no way Media Center can mess with my pictures, VMC reduces the image to about 200x200 to display in the album view but it does show larger art on the Now Playing view. Unfortunately, the larger art is low resolution. I don't know if VMC is purposefully adding distortion to my larger Folder.jpg file or if it is taking my file, reducing it to 200x200 and then stretching it back large again.

No matter how you slice it, Microsoft is intentionally ignoring my own high quality art and making sure that the album art you see is low quality.

I'm not sure how they expect to be the all-media-to-everyone provider when they intentionally provide low quality media in all forms.

I just refuse to use Media Center - which is a shame because the discovery of Media Center was one of the things that really got me into music on my computer. That initial excitement quickly turned to frustration and disappointment.
# posted by Blogger Dale Preston : February 21, 2008 7:02 PM
 
Hi Dale,

After searching the internet for hours, I decided to post a comment on your blog... Hopefully you have an answer for this 'problem'.

I am using WMP 11 in vista. The album artwork from the music is displayed in the library and in the 'play screen'. Most of the time these two are corresponding, so that the artwork in the library and in the 'play screen' is the same. However from a few albums I downloaded, album artwork wasn't correct or was too large. So when I imported these in WMP, I changed them succesfully. But these changes only appear in the library, but not in the 'play screen'. So some artwork is still very large and ugly in the 'play screen', while it should be modified 200x200 (like the default artwork from allmusic.com).

Have you got any idea why these two doesn't synchronise?

I hope my question is clear. And thanks in advance.

David.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : March 13, 2008 6:34 AM
 
Hi Dale,
Question on WMP ver. 11.

I keep all my songs & album art stored on an external hard. When I connect the drive to a new computer, WMP on the new computer recognizes & plays everything fine EXCEPT the new computer WMP won't recognize all the album art even though those art files are there, on the hard drive. I don't want to manually download all the art again on the new computer.

Any ideas?

Thanks !!

--Mike
# posted by Blogger Michael : March 15, 2008 8:43 PM
 
Where does windows media save the album information? Can it be ported to another computer?
# posted by Blogger Rafael Neto : May 05, 2008 1:24 PM
 
For many years I have avoided WMP because of the way it takes over your computer. I've used WinAmp a lot, but it's gotten kind of annoying, and I went bare-bones with Foobar. For normal playing of music on the PC I like it. But after I got a Creative Zen Vision:M mp3 player, I found that I needed to sync the libraries, and Foobar doesn't have any features for that. I've been using Mp3tag to edit my tags - I really love all its features, and you can configure how your files are written in great detail, including art. I also like the fact that it's fully Unicode compatible and handles my Chinese, Japanese, and Korean music with no problems.

So I started using WMP to sync with the Zen, but still not for anything else. Problem is, when I fix file tags in Mp3tag, be it genre, year, or art, WMP hangs on to the old/wrong info and writes that to the player. Bugs me to have the Aladdin Sane art show on Heroes. Both Foobar and WinAmp have a "refresh" function that will reread the mp3 tag from the file(s) and update the library, but in WMP all you can do is delete the library (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925718) and have it rescan everything. Urgh!

I don't care so much about the size of the artwork, since the only place I ever see it is on the Zen, but I strongly feel that there is only one place that album art should go, and that is in the mp3 tag. There should be no dependency on folder structure or image file name. Mp3 supports embedding of art, so that should be the definitive location for the art. And it is up to the device playing the file (or the user if he/she so chooses) to deal with the image size. As you quite sensibly point out, WMP should not make any assumptions about the capabilities of devices you may or may not even have.

So, no question, just an observation. I found your post very helpful for all the background info and because one of the comments had the link to the Microsoft page I listed. I've been trying to find those frickin' hidden files for quite a while.
# posted by Blogger jd : May 31, 2008 5:39 PM
 
Is there any way to associate album art with a CD? Since Media Player can remember artist name etc. associated with a CD once I enter it, I figure there's a sporting chance I can associate an image file as well. (I'm running MP9 on Win2K.)
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : June 25, 2008 11:06 AM
 
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