sonos and cover flow

[admin_exported]

Hi,

Happy new year to you all

My wife has bought me a sonos for xmas of which i am well happy with even tho i have an old cottage with thick walls it has no problem it came with monitor audio br1's of which sound very nice off the zp120

What i seem to have a problem with is the cover flow, My itune library has almost all covers on but the sonos only picks up some.

My music is on a netgear duo nas so why only some artwork gets picked up?

Is there something i can do to sort this

Thanks

 

[The_Lhc]

I think it'll probably be due to the tags, have a look at the tags on a track that works and one that doesn't, compare the two and see if there's any logical difference between the two artwork tags. It might be that the ones that work have the art in the same shared directory and the ones that don't have the artwork somewhere else that iTunes can find them but Sonos can't, Sonos can't escape the confines of the shared directory it's reading to find artwork, iTunes can.

 

[PJPro]

I find that cover art embedded in the music file is the bullet proof approach to ensuring the album art is always displayed across multiple devices. I'd bet that the files which do display cover art have the image embedded in the music file.

I find this extremely annoying as you have to unnecessarily bloat your music files and store the cover art for as many times as there are tracks on the album. However, I am in the process of bloating my collection to ensure the cover art displays on all devices.

 

[The_Lhc]

PJPro:I find that cover art embedded in the music file is the bullet proof approach to ensuring the album art is always displayed across multiple devices. I'd bet that the files which do display cover art have the image embedded in the music file.

I find this extremely annoying as you have to unnecessarily bloat your music files and store the cover art for as many times as there are tracks on the album. However, I am in the process of bloating my collection to ensure the cover art displays on all devices.

I'm guessing from the cover flow comment that the OP has the new Sonos controller. I only have the old controller but all my album art (that I've bothered to get hold of, gave up after a while) is NOT embedded in the music files themselves, it's all in a sub-directory (so Sonos can find it because it's in the same share), with the tags referencing that sub-directory and filename, that seems to work ok for me.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your replies,

I do have the new controller,

I also went on sonos site and have carried out the problem solver for attaining artwork through embedding(way above my pc knowledge), Approx 6 hrs later some still not there

Another qu please when an album has artist featuring someone how do i make this part of the album not separate song, i have highlighted and got info clicked compilation am i missing something?

Again thanks for help

 

[Anonymous]

Hi

I would recommend posting your issue on the sonos forums. They will be the experts in this. I use FLAC and don't use I tunes so can't help. As far as I know I tunes Embeds album art but I could be wrong.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Sonos )

Cheers

Jay

 

[The_Lhc]

iamthetimberman:Another qu please when an album has artist featuring someone how do i make this part of the album not separate song, i have highlighted and got info clicked compilation am i missing something?

Sorry, is this within Sonos or somewhere else? The Album info is part of the tag, if the track was ripped as part of the album it'll show as part of the album, if it's been downloaded as an individual track or single then it may not have the album part of the Tag filled in. You need to pick up some kind of tag editing software and have a look at the tracks in question.

 

[Anonymous]

iamthetimberman:

Thanks for your replies,

I do have the new controller,

I also went on sonos site and have carried out the problem solver for attaining artwork through embedding(way above my pc knowledge), Approx 6 hrs later some still not there

Another qu please when an album has artist featuring someone how do i make this part of the album not separate song, i have highlighted and got info clicked compilation am i missing something?

Again thanks for help

I am in the same situation and spent a couple of hours last night copying and moving JPEGs of album artwork into various directory and folders. I did the "folder.xxx" (xxx being the file extension) thingy that Sonos recommend doing on their website/forums, but it is still not working for me (despite me reindexing all my music). I don't mind spending the time and effort to get all the missing artwork but this is having me stumped.

 

[The_Lhc]

momo72:I am in the same situation and spent a couple of hours last night copying and moving JPEGs of album artwork into various directory and folders. I did the "folder.xxx" (xxx being the file extension) thingy that Sonos recommend doing on their website/forums, but it is still not working for me (despite me reindexing all my music). I don't mind spending the time and effort to get all the missing artwork but this is having me stumped.
You still need to update the tags on the files to point to the album artwork. What I did was to create a Coverart sub-folder within my music share (my share is flat, all files sit in one folder, not in individual folders), put the various jpgs in that sub-folder, then, using a TAG editor (I can't remember which one but I found one that scans you music directory, lists all the tracks and then let you edit multiple tracks at once, so highlighting all the tracks from an album will show you all the common tag entries, such a Album Art, which is probably blank at this time) changed the tag for AlbumArt to point to the appropriate jpg in the Coverart folder.

It IS a PITA, I gave up after I'd done about twenty, I wasn't that bothered, I just wanted to see if I could get it working. I struggled to find a number of the album covers on the net. Then you need to re-index in Sonos (I think, this was a while ago) and it picks up the album art.

 

[Anonymous]

the_lhc:You still need to update the tags on the files to point to the album artwork. What I did was to create a Coverart sub-folder within my music share (my share is flat, all files sit in one folder, not in individual folders), put the various jpgs in that sub-folder, then, using a TAG editor (I can't remember which one but I found one that scans you music directory, lists all the tracks and then let you edit multiple tracks at once, so highlighting all the tracks from an album will show you all the common tag entries, such a Album Art, which is probably blank at this time) changed the tag for AlbumArt to point to the appropriate jpg in the Coverart folder.

It IS a PITA, I gave up after I'd done about twenty, I wasn't that bothered, I just wanted to see if I could get it working. I struggled to find a number of the album covers on the net. Then you need to re-index in Sonos (I think, this was a while ago) and it picks up the album art.

Thanks the_lhc, I'll look for an adequate tag editor. When I right-click on the files to edit properties, it is showing as dbpoweramp data with a "free trial has expired" msg so that's a double-whammy for me as those ID3 tags can't be edited (for now). I currently have no intention of buying their 'powerpack' or full version.

 

[Anonymous]

Momo

What are you files ripped to? Flac or Apple format or other? What software are you using to rip with? I would recommend using Mp3tag, its free, and is great for updating tags. You can also use this to see what album art you have for each disc.

I use flac and my album art is a folder.jpg in each album folder. I use dbpoweramp for ripping and look on the web for any mising artwork. Amazon or disco dogs for obscure dance music.

Cheers

Jay

 

[Anonymous]

jaybed:What are you files ripped to? Flac or Apple format or other?

I have all sorts: MP3, FLAC, ALAC. Possibly even some WMA ones. That's the beauty of the Sonos system you're not tied to just one type of file so no need to spend time converting the 'rogue' ones. Incidently I haven't really decided between lossless vs MP3 (320) vs uncompressed yet. That's for later when I'm moving to my Big Ripping project.

jaybed: What software are you using to rip with? I would recommend using Mp3tag, its free, and is great for updating tags. You can also use this to see what album art you have for each disc.

I used iTunes for all my Apple Lossless files. I will look into MP3tag, thanks for the recommendataion. Also tried with Dbpoweramp for the few FLAC ones that I have, but that was a while ago and I didn't realise using the free trial version would prevent me from editing ID3 tags later on.

jaybed:I use flac and my album art is a folder.jpg in each album folder. I use dbpoweramp for ripping and look on the web for any mising artwork. Amazon or disco dogs for obscure dance music.

 

[Anonymous]

Momo

I would recommend ripping to lossless. That way you have a bit perfect archive of all of your music. At the end of the day though its up to you to decide. I spent a lot of time on the sonos forums and other sites reading about digitizing music. Your tags are as important as what format you rip to as that defines how easy it will be to search for the music you want to listen too. I thought I did a good job using Dbpoweramp with my tags but once I had my sonos I realised I made typos and some album titles etc needed tidying up. You need to think about how you are going to rip compilations as well. I group by album artist and use the album artist tag to call it various house, various rock etc. The album name then goes in the album field. It seems to keep things neater. Still teaching my missus on how to find her dance mixes though ;o)

I would recommned spending some time on the sonos forums though. The people on their are very clued up.

Cheers

Jay

 

[Anonymous]

jaybed:I would recommend ripping to lossless. That way you have a bit perfect archive of all of your music. At the end of the day though its up to you to decide. I spent a lot of time on the sonos forums and other sites reading about digitizing music. Your tags are as important as what format you rip to as that defines how easy it will be to search for the music you want to listen too. I thought I did a good job using Dbpoweramp with my tags but once I had my sonos I realised I made typos and some album titles etc needed tidying up. You need to think about how you are going to rip compilations as well. I group by album artist and use the album artist tag to call it various house, various rock etc. The album name then goes in the album field. It seems to keep things neater. Still teaching my missus on how to find her dance mixes though ;o)

I would recommned spending some time on the sonos forums though. The people on their are very clued up.

Thanks a lot Jaybed. I'm now using MP3tag and embedding all the cover artwork I can find. It's gonna take me a while but it's worth it. I haven't made up my mind regarding the indexing of all V/A comps but I'll give your method a go. Cheers.

 

[kinda]

I'm not sure all this embedding is necessary.

I rip the files to FLAC with EAC, without providing any cover art. I then download an album image from the internet, (I always stick to smaller than 255 x 255, only because this was a limit for XBMC - not sure if it is for Sonos).

I then stick the FLAC files in their own directory on my NAS, and put the image in the same directory called folder.jpg, and re-index. All the albums are arranged like this, all within a parent folder that my Sonos indexes.

The FLAC files as far as I'm aware don't reference the album art at all, but I've never had any issues with the Sonos controller not showing them. I use the iPod Touch app.

Hope this helps.