Windows Media Player 10 Mobile and Album Art

[Darius Wey]

I have a love-hate relationship with Windows Media Player 10's Sync feature. On one end, it works great. Tracks are compressed to deliver the best balance between size and quality whilst simultaneously being copied over to my Pocket PC. On the other end, it's catastrophic when things fail to work properly. One of these involves that mystical case of missing album art. <i>"Where's my album art?!"</i> - This is a question I see being asked time and time again on forums, newsgroups, and even amongst friends. Yes, welcome to the world of album art gone AWOL.<br /><br />You soon discover that no amount of hair-pulling makes it work again, and <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/windowsmobile/faq.aspx">Microsoft's FAQ</a> offers very little help either. Note that <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/windowsmobile/default.aspx">Windows Media Player 10 Mobile</a> has issues dealing with album art embedded in media files, so what other options are there?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20051108-WMP10AA.gif" /><br /><br />Luckily, there's a solution. It's a manual fix, but it works. Whether you use the Sync feature or not, the best way to organise your media is as follows:<br /><br />&lt;Artist>\&lt;Album>\*.*<br /><br />So, looking at a real-world example such as the Extraordinary Ways album by Conjure One (one of my newly-discovered favourites), your music might sport the following folder structure: \SD Card\Music\<b>Conjure One\Extraordinary Ways\</b><br /><br />In that folder, you should have your media (whether it be MP3 or WMA) and your album art (as a JPG file). If you find you have a whole collection of leftover JPG files from a failed synchronisation, find the one you want to keep as your album art and delete the rest. Alternatively, you could pop over to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/">Amazon</a> and download their album art. The most important step now is to rename that album art JPG file as <b>Folder.jpg</b> and ensure that it resides in the same folder as your media (for that particular album). Don't worry about resizing the album art as Windows Media Player 10 Mobile will perform that step automatically. Take a quick look at the screenshot above if you need some guidance.<br /><br />That's it! Restart Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, sit back, relax, and enjoy your album art the way it should be.

[JonMisurda]

I've used that trick successfully.

Over on aximsite, there was a thread a few weeks back for complaints about WMP10. Most of the complaints I've seen focus on button mapping, playlist editing, and album art. Here's how I configure WMP10 so to use it best on my x50v:

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showpost.php?p=864170&amp;postcount=24

&lt;shameless plug>Includes a link to my freeware playlist editor. &lt;/shameless plug>

Jon

[ctmagnus]

Very nifty!

I'm not fortunate enough to have a WMP10-equipped Pocket PC ( :bad-words: oems not willing to step up to the plate to provide a simple rom update, even a ram install) but I just set this up on my Smartphone.

With a decent set of headphones, WMP on my SMT5600 actually sounds pretty good.

[gorkon280]

I can't get WMP10 for my PPC. I know this topic has been griped about before, but this is true. I would likely use my PPC more for MP3/WMA if I had this ONE feature.

[tendomentis]

I've been doing this exact thing successfully since I got my MPx220 smartphone. I actually prefer to use DB PowerAmp to convert my music over to WMA, but then I just extract the album art from my MP3's and save it as Folder.jpg in the new folder with my WMA music.

Kudos to you for putting it in easy to follow instructions for the rest of the class :)

[felixdd]

Slightly OT, but why do people like album art? Don't most of you listen to your music with your screen off?

[capo]

New Conjure One? *ears perk up* How did I manage to miss that? Oh well. Mark me down as another one who's been manually fixing the mysterious missing album art. I just recently got a 2 gig SD card for my x50v and have been trying to get used to using it instead of my Dell DJ in the car. My aging eyes have too much trouble reading the DJ display - especially unsafe while driving - so now I use the x50v and MS Voice Command. My only complaint: 2 gigs really isn't enough room. How long before I can get a 20 gig SD card for &lt; $150? :-)

[Zidane]

Slightly OT, but why do people like album art? Don't most of you listen to your music with your screen off?
The only reason I like the album art is because on my x51v, the screen won't stay off. WMP10 likes to turn it back on in between songs (this didn't happen with WMP10 on my hx4700).

[adamz]

A potentially easier way to do this is by managing your music with Windows Media Player 10 on the desktop. If you right click a track or series of tracks in the Library view, you can choose "Find Album Info". It will (unless it can't find the music in the online database) put the files in the proper folders and add the Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg images to said folder which will sync over to the Pocket PC. They will not sync over if the MP3/WMA files already exist on the Pocket PC though. If you delete the old ones on the Pocket PC, and re-sync, the new album art will show up.

So whenever I rip a CD in Media Player 10, all the songs are automatically saved with their album art. If Media Player 10 on the desktop does not recognize the CD, you can also do the manual adding of Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg on the desktop PC's media library.. then those will sync over to the Pocket PC as well. It's nicer than having to do it manually everytime you want to change the music library on your Pocket PC's storage card.

[Jason Dunn]

A potentially easier way to do this is by managing your music with Windows Media Player 10 on the desktop.

"I have a love-hate relationship with Windows Media Player 10's Sync feature. On one end, it works great. Tracks are compressed to deliver the best balance between size and quality whilst simultaneously being copied over to my Pocket PC. On the other end, it's catastrophic when things fail to work properly. One of these involves that mystical case of missing album art."

Adam, this article is about what to do when WMP10's sync feature DOESN'T work. ;-)

[ctmagnus]

Slightly OT, but why do people like album art? Don't most of you listen to your music with your screen off?
The only reason I like the album art is because on my x51v, the screen won't stay off. WMP10 likes to turn it back on in between songs (this didn't happen with WMP10 on my hx4700).

The same thing happens on my Smartphone. Surprisingly, the Toggle Screen feature in WMP10 does not work on it. So I just let it turn the screen off on its own.

[adamz]

A potentially easier way to do this is by managing your music with Windows Media Player 10 on the desktop.

"I have a love-hate relationship with Windows Media Player 10's Sync feature. On one end, it works great. Tracks are compressed to deliver the best balance between size and quality whilst simultaneously being copied over to my Pocket PC. On the other end, it's catastrophic when things fail to work properly. One of these involves that mystical case of missing album art."

Adam, this article is about what to do when WMP10's sync feature DOESN'T work. ;-)

Oh my bad, I thought it was talking about album art embedded in media files not working in Windows Media Player 10 Mobile...

"Note that Windows Media Player 10 Mobile has issues dealing with album art embedded in media files, so what other options are there?"

...in which case you can also fix those via the desktop computer... which might be a more permanent solution if you're syncing autoplaylists or periodically changing the content on your Pocket PC.

Does my way also not work sometimes?

[Zidane]

Slightly OT, but why do people like album art? Don't most of you listen to your music with your screen off?
The only reason I like the album art is because on my x51v, the screen won't stay off. WMP10 likes to turn it back on in between songs (this didn't happen with WMP10 on my hx4700).

The same thing happens on my Smartphone. Surprisingly, the Toggle Screen feature in WMP10 does not work on it. So I just let it turn the screen off on its own.
Sometimes I wish Microsoft would have just left well enough alone with WMP10. It works great under WM2003SE (aside from the button mapping issue, which looks like it was designed to work specifically with phones and not PocketPCs). Oh well.

[Ed Hansberry]

You know, I get Conjure One CDs just to hear Poe (http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/music.html). :werenotworthy: The rest of the stuff on there is just gravy.

http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/music/poe_haunted.jpg

[Darius Wey]

Does my way also not work sometimes?

No, it doesn't work all the time. I put this through months of testing to finally come to that conclusion. Every now and then, the synchronisation breaks, and no amount of deleting and resynchronising appears to fix it (unless you hack away at WMP's guts and gore). The Folder.jpg trick is a quick, harmless solution for it.

[Darius Wey]

You know, I get Conjure One CDs just to hear Poe (http://www.ehansberry.com/pages/music.html). :werenotworthy: The rest of the stuff on there is just gravy.

:lol:

[bnycastro]

Does my way also not work sometimes?

No, it doesn't work all the time. I put this through months of testing to finally come to that conclusion. Every now and then, the synchronisation breaks, and no amount of deleting and resynchronising appears to fix it (unless you hack away at WMP's guts and gore). The Folder.jpg trick is a quick, harmless solution for it.Same experience here it will work for a time and then suddenly one or two songs will be left out without album art. Folder trick is easy and it works for me as well [i-mate JAM].

[SHC]

Just tried it and it doesnt work for me :(
I can open album art with picture viewer no problem but wmp 10 refuses to see it. Done everything as outlined above and re-built the library. Oh well.

[bnycastro]

that's curious? did you enable pciture support for mobile devices under WMP10[desktop ver] Tools\Options\Player[tab]

[Darius Wey]

Just tried it and it doesnt work for me :(
I can open album art with picture viewer no problem but wmp 10 refuses to see it. Done everything as outlined above and re-built the library. Oh well.

It should work. I've tested it over and over again on multiple devices and the emulator. So, a couple of things I'd ask you to check on:

(1) Are you using the default skin? Some WMP skins do not support the display of album art, so that could be the reason why you're not seeing anything.

(2) How did you rebuild the library? If you did a standard "Update Library", then that's fine. But I'd ask you to try this: open up File Explorer, tap-and-hold on an empty space and select "View All Files". Next, navigate to your card (which is where I'm assuming your music is stored), and delete the WMDRM and MSMETADATA folders, and then update your library again.

(3) What are the dimensions of your album art in pixels? Also, have you made sure it is a JPG file? Renaming a GIF to a JPG, or a BMP to a JPG doesn't always work. It should be a JPG with the JPG file extension.

[SHC]

Hi
Thanks for the helpful replies. I've done all that, most album art displays ok without this fix. I've got about half a dozen that don't though. These are images put there by WMP 10 so your suggested fix should work.
I havent tried to delete the files you mention though - a bit worried in case the DRM'd albums no longer play?
Will go through your tips again later.
thanks

[JonathanWardRogers]

I remember in WMP9 I could tell it the format I wanted to use for syncing, but that option doesn't seem to work for me any more. Now when I sync WMA files I get whatever bitrate I have on the desktop. Am I missing something?

P.S. I'm using a newly upgraded X50v WM5.0

[bnycastro]

Under Tools\Options\Devices [tab]\
--
Select Device [i.e. Storage Card] click Properties\Quality [tab]
--
Tick Covert files as required by this device
Select Quality level
--
hope this helps

[JonathanWardRogers]

Thanks, that seemed to work after I took it off of auto-select quality. Now my other question is how do I tell it I want them encoded in VBR?

[bnycastro]

I don't think WMP10 for desktop let's you choose VBR or CBR... But I am not sure. Sorry can't help ya there maybe others can?

[Darius Wey]

I don't believe VBR compression via Sync has been implemented yet. You can rip tracks from CDs in VBR, but as far as syncing is concerned, it will copy it over as-is (so if you already have a VBR track, it will just copy it over as VBR), or it will re-compress in CBR.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Thanks a ton. I'm lately replying to this thread but I wanted to THANK you.

Sunny :D :D

[quamp]

One of the problems I'm having witht this is the wrong images show up. An image imbeded in another song or an image that was in my My Pictures folder shows up at random. Anyone know how to fix this?

I'm using XP SP2, Pocket moble ver. 10.3 build 14989, and WMP 10.00.00.3802

I know there's a WMP 11 out, but it doesn't do this, and it really is irritating.

[Darius Wey]

I know there's a WMP 11 out, but it doesn't do this, and it really is irritating.

The version of WMP that ships with even the latest devices is only v10.x. Are you experiencing this album art problem on your desktop or mobile device?

[quamp]

It's on the device only; the images are fine on the PC.

[Darius Wey]

It's on the device only; the images are fine on the PC.

What's the file path of your media? If it's in My Pictures, it may cause problems.

Also, I'm assuming you've tried the Folder.jpg trick for each album folder as specified in my original post?

[quamp]

Yea, I tried it and it didn't work.

I'm not really sure of the file pathway. I added the images to the MP3 via the advanced Tag Editor. Most of the images have been since deleted.

how do I find this out?

Wait a minute... I found a few of them were blocked. However, after unblocking them, that didn't help. :(

[Darius Wey]

I'm not really sure of the file pathway. I added the images to the MP3 via the advanced Tag Editor. Most of the images have been since deleted.

Open File Explorer and navigate to where your media might be stored (e.g., storage card or the device itself), and ensure that the file path of the media isn't mixed up. You can also do this from your PC via ActiveSync or the Windows Mobile Device Center.

Also, the original post outlines a method to copy the Folder.jpg file manually using Explorer. It's best not to use Windows Media Player or any other utility for that.

[quamp]

Oh, I misread that. I thought it said do it on the PC side, not the palmtop side. :oops:

Now I'm not getting any images at all on any of the music files.

[Rabidrat]

Another windows pane (sorry) I have a tytn II and I had the missing artwork problem, so thanks very much for the solution. Although does that mean I have to manually stick a folder.jpg for each of my 160 albums on my pda's storage card?