Album Art Standardized Naming???

[Agrajag]

Okay, I just got done going through one of MM's "Files To Edit" entries for inconsistent album art.

Several thousand needing fixing. I've now got zero entries in there and everything seems to have a single image.

Now, however, I've noticed Monkey Rok displaying a bunch of red ? symbols for many of the entries I edited. On doing some checking I find it's apparently looking for a file named folder.jpg where a lot of my images are named album name.jpg (obviously where album name is the name of the album).

I also suspect that with the editing I probably have some that have NO file and have the image just embedded in each file (FLAC files).

So, at this point now I'm curious:

1. What is the best naming convention that seems to be somewhat universally accepted (or is there no such thing)?

2. What is the best way using MM to get all of these using that singular approach without having to spend days (or preferably even hours) manually editing everything?

Thanks.

[nohitter151]

Now, however, I've noticed Monkey Rok displaying a bunch of red ? symbols for many of the entries I edited. On doing some checking I find it's apparently looking for a file named folder.jpg where a lot of my images are named album name.jpg (obviously where album name is the name of the album).

I don't think so. MonkeyRok uses its own image cache to show album art images, it doesn't look for folder.jpg. Check your MonkeyRok options at and change the "Cache mode" to "Full".

[Agrajag]

It was on Full but something else could be up as I just re-installed XP from scratch (after ditching Win7). After several reboots I haven't seen a ? for a few rounds now.

Still curious as to what the "standards" are, if any.

[nohitter151]

It was on Full but something else could be up as I just re-installed XP from scratch (after ditching Win7). After several reboots I haven't seen a ? for a few rounds now.

Still curious as to what the "standards" are, if any.

There aren't any, really. Windows likes "Folder.jpg" but really its up to your preference. Personally, I think it's much easier to save the art to the file tags rather than keep the extra stray .jpg files.

[Agrajag]

Does anyone have a sense for the pros and cons of each approach?

I mean as I see it there are three options:

1. folder.jpg

2. albumname.jpg

3. Embedded into each file

Do many sources not read #3? Are there other approaches?

I wouldn't mind actually having duplication of #1 and #3. However, I'm not sure what the impact of that would be.

[jcfogerty]

I am struggling with this myself. 'Tis annoying to manage cover art when you have over 10,000 files. I try to standardize the process by placing the cover art in the folder for the album using 'folder.jpg' as the name.

One big problem with using scripts for batch cover art is that they rarely select the best image in terms of quality/clarity, and in many cases they select the wrong cover entirely.
The only real solution is to manually locate the art files and select them yourself. The script "Auto-Tag from the Web" works ok, but I prefer the open source "Album Art Downloader" http://sourceforge.net/projects/album-art/ because it gives you multiple choices so you can select the best quality image.

Cover art is a pain, and since it is so tedious, I want the best art possible.

[Lowlander]

Embedding album art is the best option in my opinion. The bad side is that you end up storing the art in each file and thus it requires more space. You also might end up with different art for different tracks on the same album. The pro is that you will never run in the issue of loosing the link between the song and the album art.

External art has the problem of loosing the links to the art. When you move tracks to you have to remember to move the album art along. You will save some hard drive space though.

[AJMP S]

I embed all the art I can, but often it doesn't show in MM track window, although it does show in the Cover window. Also sometimes different images are showing for the same track in those two windows, where the picture in the Tracks window is wrong, and always the same picture. Any ideas about what may be wrong? I don't know if anyone else ever had this problem.