[ukracer1]

I am having problem with my PB Album Art. All albums on the PC have album art 'tagged' to them and can be verified by Media Monkey, Windows Media Player and Windows explorer.

When I transferred my media files to my Playbook, some appeared correctly, others had the wrong art with the wrong song when viewed on the Playbook. However, when I opened the Playbook in widows explorer (while connected to the PC through USB) and checked the files in explorer, the album art that was displayed was correct for the track/album but was different to what was showing on the playbook!

e.g. Rebecca Ferguson does NOT sing 'My Kinda Town' on her album Heaven and the PC (through windows explorer) tells me that Frank Sinatra is tagged to the track on the PC and the Playbook but the Playbook shows me Rebecca Ferguson as the Album art!!!

After 3 days of trying to solve this, can anybody 'point' me in the right direction?

Many thanks in advance,

Bob

[SlcCorrado]

Unfortunately I don't have a solution. Just wanted to add that I have this issue too, and it sucks. Definitely makes the media player seem janky, especially when the folders DO indeed have the correct album art. My CASH albums are all over the place, seein as how they're all covers

[chrism_scotland]

Same problem here, I've also noticed it on my Bold 9900 so I'm beginning to wonder if its the Blackberry Desktop Software....

[FMB8900]

its something to do with the desktop software. I have the same problem syncing my music from itunes.

What happens is two completely different artists might have an album with the same name, and the Desktop Manager sync will identify these as part of a compilation cause of the same album name, but different artists (even though it is NOT a compilation) and then it will choose one album cover for all the songs.

Like for example, if I had an Beetles album called "Anthology" and a Neil Diamond album named "Anthology" and an AC/DC album named "Anthology", in iTunes all 3 albums display the correct album art.

However on my 9900 and PlayBook, the Beetles "Anthology" album artwork becomes the artwork for all the other "Anthology" Albums....

This kinda sucks and I haven't found a solution yet, but hopefully this issue will be resolved with a new version of DM or OS 2.0.

[FF22]

I've not run into the problem. But if what folks are writing - I simply use drop/drag to copy files from my computer to the pb (and bb phones). I do not trust or like syncing software - I can do it myself and not have a computer decide that since I eliminated one copy, all copies should be erased.

[SlcCorrado]

I've not run into the problem. But if what folks are writing - I simply use drop/drag to copy files from my computer to the pb (and bb phones). I do not trust or like syncing software - I can do it myself and not have a computer decide that since I eliminated one copy, all copies should be erased.

Same... Who uses sync?? haha

Yeah, I just stick with good old drag n' drop since it's part of what I love about BlacBerry

[FMB8900]

Same... Who uses sync?? haha

Yeah, I just stick with good old drag n' drop since it's part of what I love about BlacBerry

This method does not work well with transferring huge playlists you already created once on your computer.

[PanaSama]

This method does not work well with transferring huge playlists you already created once on your computer.

The problem persist even if you use the drag and drop method.

[chrism_scotland]

I'm pretty sure I even tried syncing directly from Windows Media Player so that I could get my Playlists and it still did this so maybe its not just Blackberry DM related.

[pigdude]

I have had this problem since RIM has had the ability to sync a BB to Itunes - first with my storm, then now with my current torch, and the playbook.

[Frank Castle]

I strongly recommend using Mp3tag. I validate all the info (and edit as needed), apply the cover and save before moving to PB / BB.

I also only use drag and drop through windows for moving my content around. Now if Playbook could ever support OTG? I can just connect my 1TB USB drive. That would be sweet!

[ukracer1]

On the one hand its good to know this problem is not isolated on the other hand, it shows a lack of awareness on RIM's part to understand that users are not merely 'apes' but often times intelligent, educated, people!

I have carried out more research and today used Desktop manager (rather than drag and drop which has been my preferred course of action) with ITUNES and upon completion I had all the albums on my PB along with a new item called MUSIC which is an ITUNES created Playlist. When viewing the albums and tracks in BB Media Player often the album art is wrongly displayed in ALL SONGS, ARTISTS, ALBUMS and Genres. However the PLAYLIST 'MUSIC' is displaying everything correctly!!

I think this confirms that RIM need to re-work the code for their media player.

See attachment which shows Billy J Kramer 2.17 with album art relating to Adam Faith as one example of many. This screen capture is from the ARTISTS Selection.

The Scond Screen Capture is from the Playlist 'MUSIC' which shows the correct art for the 2.17 track The Cruel Sea.


Thoughts?
Bob

[FF22]

I just used Tag&Rename to add album art directly to files on the pb (now I should recopy those files back to the computer)

[SlcCorrado]

This method does not work well with transferring huge playlists you already created once on your computer.

What do you mean? Any playlist (.rsp?) file I had on my computer I just moved to the PB. Now my PB has those playlists... What am I missing?

[SlcCorrado]

I strongly recommend using Mp3tag. I validate all the info (and edit as needed), apply the cover and save before moving to PB / BB.

I also only use drag and drop through windows for moving my content around. Now if Playbook could ever support OTG? I can just connect my 1TB USB drive. That would be sweet!

Gaining root access to the PlayBook allows OTG

[FourOhFour]

The media indexer on the Playbook will extract artwork that is embedded in your MP3 files. However, for efficiency reasons, it will not bother doing this for an Artist + Album combo that it has already processed. (you can confirm this yourself).
Alternately, it will accept folder.jpg files which are placed in the directory that the MP3 files are placed in. I'm not sure which takes precedence (presumably the latter).

I suggest you take a look at the Artist Name and Album Name ID3 tags in your tracks and report back. If you have a specific small example set (eg. 2 or 3 songs) which misbehave it may be easy to find a solution.

[FMB8900]

What do you mean? Any playlist (.rsp?) file I had on my computer I just moved to the PB. Now my PB has those playlists... What am I missing?

No i meant .m3u playlists.

I was talking about HUGE playlists. I have a big music collection, and they are all organized in folders by albums folders (songs in folder), then artists folders, then into Genre folders.

So its annoying trying to go and pick individual songs to remake my huge playlists (100+) songs, when its easier to sync those Playlists from iTunes already made and ready to go.

[FF22]

I think the issue with playlists is that the pb (and the bb phones) does not care about folder organization nor does it need it.

[FourOhFour]

I think the issue with playlists is that the pb (and the bb phones) does not care about folder organization nor does it need it.

It's just a decision made by the music player app. If anyone else wants to write a music frontend (or photo, or video, etc.), there are loads of goodies (including folders) to explore in /accounts/1000/db/mmlibrary.db.

[FF22]

It's just a decision made by the music player app. If anyone else wants to write a music frontend (or photo, or video, etc.), there are loads of goodies (including folders) to explore in /accounts/1000/db/mmlibrary.db.

What program examines its contents? I copied it out to my documents folder - more curious since programming skills waned substantially after IBM360 Cobol and dbaseII!!!

[FourOhFour]

What program examines its contents? I copied it out to my documents folder - more curious since programming skills waned substantially after IBM360 Cobol and dbaseII!!!

It's an sqlite3 database file.

[FF22]

Well, the contents are interesting but I'm not sure I can do anything with it!

I found a viewer/browser for it, here:

Download SQLite Database Browser from SourceForge.net

[FourOhFour]

It would be useful if you were writing an app and wanted to know what audio/video files were indexed on the device along with the associated metadata and thumbnails.

In the OP's instance, it would provide some clues as to why his mp3 artwork is mixed up.

[rockitnyc]

The issues with album art and artist,song title or album not showing up is 100% due to the mp3 ID3 tags not being completed. Mp3 files are not just audio it also has data embedded called ID3 tags. If the info is not filled in when you rip the music from a disc then the tags are empty. There are many ID3 tag editors available for free on the web. I prefer to use dbpoweramp. It is as easy as right clicking on a mp3 and clicking edit ID3 tags. I also put the album art in the same folder as the mp3 files and name it "folder.jpg" and I noticed that it is best to do this before transferring the files to your blackberry. You can also link images in the ID3 tags but I prefer putting the image in the folder with the songs like I just described and it always works.. If there are various mp3 files from different albums in one folder and multiple images for each album than I suppose linking the images in the ID3 tags would be best or the mp3 and its corresponding image would have to go in a sub folder for each ie: artist > album > songs with album art. I hope this helps someone.
Happy New Year People....


Best regards,
R


p.s. The file format also plays a part. wav files don't fully support tags and sometimes file conversions from one format to another can sometimes corrupt or lose the tag data completely.

[FF22]

I may have mentioned it but Media Monkey is pretty good at helping identify which tags are missing and you can do a kind of global tag for certain things like genre or 12 tunes from a certain album. It can sort by all of the separate tag info and those with NONE in a category show up clearly as missing a type of tag.

BUT care - I tried using its playlist feature and it immediately starting moving all of my well-ordered music out of individual folders into one massive mess.