Hello, thank you for the great software.
I would like to suggest adding the ability to save cover art as baseline JPEG, as progressive ones are not displayed on various MP3 players (for example, older Sony NWZ models).
Of course, I would also appreciate the option to perform this conversion from progressive cover art to baseline cover art individually for each file, as well as for each folder or the entire library.
Best regards,
see here on a different approach to deal with progressive jpgs:
Thank you very much. I have read that topic before posting. I think it is a last resort but far from being a practical solution for most users. I hope the feature I requested comes to light soon.
The function "Adjust Cover" produces baseline covers also in jpg format.
Another Way To Avoid Progressive JPEGs
That's a very good tip but it doesn't address the detection problem, which to me is the bigger nuisance.
Over the years I have developed my own routine for cover art that avoids both issues and which minimizes other tedious tasks related to cover art. Many of my music files are "singles" that each have their own artwork. And I have thousands of them, so efficiency is important to me.
I use a screen capture program called SnagIt. This app has a mode called Fixed Region, a mouse-movable capture window which can be preset to a specific size. In my case the size is usually 500 x 500 pixels. SnagIt can be set to create serially-numbered capture file names that are saved to a named folder. All of these settings can be preserved in SnagIt "profiles" for convenient reuse. The output JPEG type is always baseline.
After making numbered captures for the current group of music files (usually ten at a time from one download source), I simply load all ten music files into Mp3tag, select them all, and invoke my saved cover art action for the current download source. Done!
More on How My System Works:
I have configured SnagIt to create image file names that begin with numbers that correspond to the track numbers of the target music files. That suits Mp3tag's "Import cover from file" action. I also assign each download source to its own cover art folder, its own SnagIt profile, and its own Mp3tag "Import Cover from File" action.
In my Cover Art Action paths, track number is a variable. For example:
E:\Music\DOWNLOADS\British Bands\JackPayneFan\Label Graphics\%track%-Payne.jpg
This Action will load my label graphic 3-Payne.jpg into the music file with track #3, when that file is included in the selection in Mp3tag. Loading images into 10 tracks takes less than a second.
Screen capture is particularly useful with music video downloads because I can capture any moment in a video for use as cover art for the extracted audio file. And with stills of any type found on the Web, my screen capture guarantees that the image format will always meet my requirement for baseline JPEGs only.
I use a rather old version of SnagIt because it now requires at least Windows 10 (or macOS Big Sur) and a 64-bit processor. However my impression is that captures work much the same in the current version. Unfortunately SnagIt is not free (and not cheap) although there is a free trial available. It is a powerful "professional" tool with many other functions. You can read about them below.
No doubt there are less expensive capture programs that could work as described above but I have not investigated them.
What exactly do you mean with "detection problem"?
Is it the lack of information about baseline/progressive in Mp3tag's cover art section?
(Where you see the size in KB, the dimensions etc.)?
Or is it the possibility to add a column with the type of cover art and filter for tracks with such a cover?
Where does your process address "the detection problem"?
I could have been clearer. As far as I know, detecting progressive JPEGs requires downloading and then checking each file, one by one. That disrupted my work flow and so was both a problem and a nuisance.
My system avoids this. My cover art procedure is semi-automated and gives me exactly the JPEG type and size I need that I need, every time. I don't have to detect formats or convert anything. And I don't have to worry that my cover art won't display on my phone or elsewhere because a progressive JPEG slipped passed me. That used to happen and it was very annoying.
That's an interesting idea and might well help many users. But I am now able to prevent progressive JPEGs from getting into any music files that I create.
It does not address it directly. My process works around the problem because my screen shots always create baseline JPEGs.
Perhaps you can avoid the necessity to use external programs ...
if you use a web source script that also downloads the cover picture.
And then you run an action of the type "Adjust cover" to resize the picture to your favourite dimensions and while resizing the picture, it will also be transformed to a baseline jpg.
With that workflow you save the steps to
create a screenshot,
save it somewhere,
run a routine to get the right format and dimensions,
import the cover.
Thank you for the suggestion but the bulk of my downloads come from youTube and Soundcloud. I am not aware of web source scripts for either of those. But for people who do use sites that support such scripts, your suggestion is certainly a reasonable one.
An advantage of my system is that it works with audio and video files from any source. From a maintenance standpoint, I prefer to work with one external program rather than to maintain a variety of web source scripts, each unique to one site and subject to change. Moreover, since the bulk of my downloads start out as videos, I usually have to create my own cover art from the video or elsewhere.
As for your steps to be saved list, the second and third items are pre-saved in my SnagIt profiles for each download source. My typical routine is to:
- Extract the audio portions of ten videos and load the M4a files into Mp3tag.
- Assign track numbers to the M4a files and prefix those numbers to the video file names.
- Select my SnagIt profile for the download source.
- Queue the ten video files in Pot player, sorted by track number.
- Play each video, pause it, and take a screen shot (of the record label, when available).
- Run my Mp3tag action for the current download source to import the JPEG screen shots as covers for the corresponding M4a files.
Done, no adjustments are needed.
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