Finding and uploading album art

[Andrew Denny]

Is there an FAQ or 'get started' or 101 on how to find album art and upload it to my B2 library? 

I've seen various references to how to upload it, but they all seem to assume that you already have the album art to start with. 

I have no idea how to get it to begin with, and the instructions on here so far seem to do an awful lot of assuming that we are already familiar with the process. 

Thanks 

[Tony]

If you are ripping via the web UI,  there is a button that will cause the b2 to look for album art on the CD.   It's very slow and there is no indication when it's done.  Annoying if it fails to find anything.

If the b2 web UI doesn't find anything on the CD,  you'll need to find a jpeg image online and download it. (Hint: google's Images tab).  Rename the image as coverart.jpg and move it to the folder on the b2 where the album tracks are stored. You can either use the NAS feature of the b2 to do that or use sftp via the console interface (command line).

Another way to get an image is to simply scan your CD cover (or use your mobile  phone camera) and then use the steps I've listed above.

HTH

 

[Andrew Denny]

Oh, I meant I've got albums already on the B2, some (only a very few) ripped, but almost all of them transferred from my iTunes as AAC or MP3. 

Will B2 automatically look for cover art for already-ripped CDs, or do you have to do it at the time of ripping? 

I'm thinking, tbh, it's just too much effort to manually add the art later, and certainly not to painstakingly find a jpg & upload it. 

[Tony]

The b2 will not look for cover art for you on the internet..   It's limited to pulling art from the CD (you could put your CD's back in and just look for art but that would be painful).

There is a thread in this group that discusses some other options : Album Art  You may want to review that?

[Andrew Denny]

Ah, thanks. I didn't see that thread when I searched for 'cover art'.

I didn't know CDs had cover art in them. 

Oh dear, looks like it's too complicated to bother with. 

[Jasper Warwick]

There is software out there which makes the process much simpler. Google "Album Art Downloader" which is the software I use. It analyses you music collection then searches the internet for artwork.

I did my collection of 100+ albums and it took a couple of hours but much much faster than doing it manually. I have my B2 set up as a network drive on my Windows 10 computer to enable it to work.

[Andrew Denny]

Thanks, that's great! 

[Jasper Warwick]

Sorry should have said 1000+ albums

[David Gardner]

I'm wondering why the b2 doesn't automatically pull in album art where available. I find having to click the button slows down the ripping process and also is not possible if you rip directly from the buttons on the b2. Maybe it is because not everyone wants the album art although I can't think why it would matter.

Martin, can you comment on that?

[mcg]

I don't know what Martin would say, but I'll point out that the B2 has nothing resembling a database of the music it has ripped or has otherwise been loaded on it.  It has a flat text file with a list of ripped albums and tracks, and a file called "jbvdb.csv" which is a CSV file I can't determine the purpose of.   Otherwise, all the meta-data is stored in the files themselves or in the file/directory structure.

One could implement pretty easily a background task to find and load album art, but you'd need some mechanism to fix it when it got it wrong -- and the obvious way to do that would be with a database.

[Vinegarjoe]

I have all the album art in my iTunes database.

How do I get it onto the Brennan??

[Jasper Warwick]

From my quick look at the problem it appears iTunes stores the images in an encrypted format which cannot be used outside of iTunes. I don't think you will be able to do it. One of the many reasons I am not a fan of Apple products,,,,

This from the web;

What is an ITC2 file?

Files that contain the .itc2 file extension are album information files that are used by the Apple iTunes digital media player. This player allows users to play audio files of album recordings on their computer. Files that contain the .itc2 extension store information about a music album that has been saved on the user's computer hard drive. 

ITC2 files contain the album's image artwork and the associated metadata for a saved Apple iTunes album. ITC2 files are very similar to ITC files except for the fact that ITC2 files use a different type of encryption format. The ITC2 file format is proprietary to the Apple iTunes software program.

[mcg]

Attached is a Visual Basic script that will extract the album art from selected iTunes track and extract each to a file.  You should only select one track per album or you'll get duplicates.

' ###############################################################################
' #
' # itunes_extract_artwork.vbs
' #
' # This script will extract the artwork from the selected tracks in iTunes
' # and save it to a file in the same directory as the track.
' #
' # written by: Robert Jacobson (http://www.pobox.com/~teridon/itunesscripts/)
' # Last Updated: 2010-01-22
' # Version 1.1
' #
' # This script is GPL v2.  see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
' #
' ###############################################################################


' Minor modificatons to script to enable use with iTunes 9.x
' Change art output filename from <Track Name>.<Ext> to Folder.jpg
' Prevent overwriting any existing file
' By Steve MacGuire - http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/
' Last Updated: 2010-01-23
' Original script at http://www.pobox.com/~teridon/itunesscripts/itunes_extract_artwork.vbs


Option Explicit

Dim iTunesApp   ' iTunes.Application object used to access the iTunes application.
Dim tracks      ' The tracks collection object of the Library object. 
Dim TrackPath   ' The path to the track
Dim ArtPath     ' The path to the artwork
Dim c
Dim songName
Dim artist
Dim i
Dim track
Dim FormatArray(4)
Dim ExtArray(4)
Dim Artobj
Dim Art
Dim ArtDir
Dim Format
Dim fso 
Dim args
Dim arg
Dim artcount
Dim Title

Title = "iTunes Extract Artwork"

artcount = 0
DIM use_windows

'detect CSCRIPT context & use InputLine
IF Instr(lcase(wscript.FullName), "cscript")>0 THEN     
  use_windows = 0
ELSE    'detect WSCRIPT context & use native InputBox
  use_windows = 1
END IF

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

FormatArray(0) = "Unknown"
FormatArray(1) = "JPEG"
FormatArray(2) = "PNG"
FormatArray(3) = "BMP"
ExtArray(0) = "unk"
ExtArray(1) = "jpg"
ExtArray(2) = "png"
ExtArray(3) = "bmp"

Set iTunesApp  = CreateObject("iTunes.Application.1")

Dim vers
vers = iTunesApp.Version

Dim Reg1
Set Reg1 = new RegExp
Reg1.Pattern = "^9"
if Reg1.Test(vers) Then
  ' yay
Else
  Wscript.Echo "This script requires iTunes 9"
  Wscript.Quit
End If

Set tracks = iTunesApp.SelectedTracks

If tracks is nothing Then
  MsgBox "Please select some tracks first.",0,Title
  Wscript.Quit
End If

Dim outputstring

For i = 1 To tracks.Count
  Set track = tracks.Item(i)
        
  If track.Kind = 1 Then
    songName = track.Name
    artist = track.Artist
    TrackPath = track.Location
    Set Artobj = track.Artwork
    For c = 1 To Artobj.Count
      Set Art = Artobj.Item(c)
      Format = Art.Format
      ' Wscript.Echo "Format is " & FormatArray(Format)
      ArtDir = fso.GetParentFolderName(TrackPath)
      ' Wscript.Echo "Artdir is " & ArtDir
      ' ArtDir = fso.GetBaseName(ArtDir)
      ' Dim RegX
      ' Set RegX = new RegExp
      ' RegX.Pattern = "[/:\\\*\?""""<>]"
      ' RegX.Global = True
      ' songName = RegX.Replace(songName, "-")
      ' songName = Replace(songName, "/", "-")
      ' ArtPath = fso.BuildPath(ArtDir, songName & "." & ExtArray(Format))
      ArtPath = ArtDir & "\Folder.jpg"
      If FSO.FileExists(ArtPath) Then
        ' do nothing
      Else
        ' If use_windows = 1 Then
        '   outputstring = outputstring & "Artwork saved to " & ArtPath & Chr(10)
        ' Else
        '   Wscript.Echo "Artwork saved to " & ArtPath
        ' End If
        ' save to file
        ' MsgBox ArtPath,0,Title
        Art.SaveArtworkToFile(ArtPath)
        artcount = artcount + 1
      End If
    Next
  End If
Next

If artcount = 0 Then
  If use_windows = 1 Then
    MsgBox "No new artwork was generated.",0,Title
  Else
    Wscript.Echo "No new artwork was generated."
  End If
Else
  If use_windows = 1 Then
    If artcount = 1 Then
      MsgBox "1 new artwork file was created.",0,Title
    Else
      MsgBox artcount & " new artwork files were created.",0,Title
    End If
  End If
End If

[Brennan Support]

Hi Andrew

I often just visit Amazon (where I bought the CD) and save the image from their web page.

It will depend on your browser but usually you right click on an image and pick the save image as option.

Martin

[Andrew Denny]

Thanks, I appreciate that. It's a source I hadn't thought of.  

However, it's still doing it painstakingly, one-by-one. I was hoping for a programme that 'sweeps through' my collection and automatically adds missing artwork. 

Others here have suggested ways of trying it, and I'll have a go, thanks. 

But it looks like a fair bit of DIY will be involved, and I have no idea about programming - I want to spend what's left of my life on other things :-)