Album art download problems

[Tholfsen@discussions.microsoft.com Mike Tholfsen]

Is there a setting to force MCE to cache all of the album art it downloads?
Whenever I view My Music by "Album" (and I have 1000+) MCE goes and tries to
re-download the album and and title, starting with "A". So I can't ever
switch to a later letter in the alphabet (like "M" or "T") because nothing's
been downloaded yet. I actually switched through every single album to
download all the album art, thinking it would all be cached and this would be
a one-time task. But I switched away and came back later and it started
downlading everything all over again.

This seems like a terrible design. Am I missing something? Is there a
setting to cache all album art and titles? Otherwise the "Album" selection
in My Music is absolutely worthless to me.

thanks
-mike

[Andy Vanosdale [MCE MVP]]

How are you thinking it is downloading everything again? If you are just
seeing a lag in displaying the album art, this is normal as it has to search
the directory where the album art IS cached and display it. Once it is
downloaded, it is residing in the folder where the album is stored.

--
Andy Vanosdale
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP Media Center Edition
Student Ambassador to Microsoft - University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Microsoft Associate Expert
Expert Zone - http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/ExpertZone

"Mike Tholfsen" <Mike Thol...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4CEF305D-264C-4C77...@microsoft.com...

[Mike Tholfsen]

So basically, the entire album art feature doesn't work is you have more than
a few hundred albums...? Whenever I switch to my Albums folder:
a) Everything has to re-load again starting with the "A" albums
b) Even if I wait 10 minutes for further downloading, I can't switch to the
albums via albetical sort. It only downloads the albums that are on the
actual screen.
c) I have to repeat this cycle anytime I switch to "Albums"

Does this sound about right or am I missing something?

thanks
-mike

[Andy Vanosdale [MCE MVP]]

Media Center does reload all the albums after Media Center closes and is
reopened. However, once the album art is download, it should remain. Can
you tell me your sequence of events that leads you to say that you are
downloading the album art each time you go into My Music?

--
Andy Vanosdale
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP Media Center Edition
Student Ambassador to Microsoft - University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Microsoft Associate Expert
Expert Zone - http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/ExpertZone

"Mike Tholfsen" <MikeTh...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4D078E42-6C96-4DE4...@microsoft.com...

[rcolbeck]

Mike:

To be sure that the album art has been downloaded, check in the mp3 album
directories (do you have your files sorted by album?) and you should see
files called Folder.jpg with a picture of the album. Note that this may be a
hidden file and you need to make sure you are viewing hidden file types. If
these .jpg s don't exist, then I don't think the album art has been permanent
downloaded. I found that I had to go to Mediaplayer and did a bit of fiddling
to download the album art (I can provide more info if you need it). Now I can
also see the folders with album art in Thumbnail view in Windows (File)
Explorer.

..Roger