I was wondering if there was a way to store album art in Wavpack files, so that a software audio player could read it and display it. If this is possible, what audio players support it, and how can it be done?
Thanks

There's no technical reason this can't be done because the APEv2 tags can support large binary items like images.

However, I don't know which taggers allow putting those kind of things in tags, and I don't know which players that support WavPack also support image display.

If you find out (or if anyone else knows) I would like to hear about it...

According to this page, the latest Godfather beta (0.71 beta 2) contains "Cover art support for APEv2 tags (using the exact same format of the ID3 APIC frame)."

Assuming the software works as promised (and the Godfather has a good track record as one of the better tagging programs out there), the only hurdle left would be to find a player that will identify the image in the tag and display it correctly.

Halfway there . . .

You can put Wavpack in Matroska also, but I don't know how is the suport for it in audio players....

I just tried it, and the Godfather 0.71 beta will embed a cover art image in a Wavpack tag. The bad news is that none of the WinAmp cover art plugins on my PC could read the APEv2-embedded image. I suspect that APEv2 support generally isn't a huge priority for most mainstream media players, much less image support.

You might try asking the foobar2000 gurus if there's a way to display a cover art image from an APEv2 tag, but the answer is probably no (the idea of embedding cover art in tags is a bit controversial if you're a purist, as many foobar2000 users are).

If you want to have album art in your lossless files, you might want to consider migrating to Apple lossless, which uses the same tag structure as iTunes AAC. iTunes will detect and display any cover art saved to an Apple encoded file, and so will WinAmp if you install the NowPlaying plugin (I don't think there's an Apple lossless plugin for WinAmp yet, but I could be wrong).

>"Cover art support for APEv2 tags (using the exact same format of the ID3 APIC frame)."

That is a good idea, we will support the same (an album art for APE2 should be specific to the tag rather than audio format it is stored in).

I see... but it looks like it's only for lossy codecs... am i mistaken? it didn't say wavpack anywhere on the page

apple lossless does not do nearly as many things as wavpack though... i chose wavpack for its flexibility. plus, I really love using replaygain on my files, as they are all at the same volume now! it's great, i know, and i don't want to leave it.

I see... but for winamp, i think the support for each file type's tags is determined by the input plugin... i don't think they have a unified apev2 tag supporter, though it would be nice... anyway, this means wavpack would have to support embedded album art in its provided winamp plugin, not winamp or apev2.

Okay... I got the GodFather, and I got all the info for an album, including the Album Art, and I'm ready to start tagging, but I can't see a button that will tag using the selected information. I used freedb for info, and amazon.com for album art. I just need to tag-- but how?

As pointed out by guruboolez the Winamp WavPack plug-in doesn't allow tag editing and david has PM'd me for the winamp plugin with tag editing--I am accepting patches!, so isn't this a jolly good time to implement that and what's been requested in this thread ?

Any developers? Sorry, I'm not one (I'm a network admin).

You may want to check out these two samples: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40860


The samples (ape and mpc) have embedded cover art in APE v2 tags. I used J. River Media Center 11.1 for adding the cover art. The program has an option for using embedded or linked cover art. Matt Ashland (from J. River) developed this system for Monkey's Audio files years ago. I suppose they use identical tagging for Musepack files too.


BTW, there is no WavPack decoder plug-in for MC yet. It has been requested a few times at J. River Forum. A Media Center user Scot Thompson made recently an excellent new FLAC encoder/decoder plug-in set, but WavPack support exists only through DirectShow filters without tagging support. Would you be interested to help if someone would like to start a WavPack plug-in project?


Edit: added Quote & BTW, Edit 2: typo

It seems that the GodFather developer has chosen a different tag.

Tag displays from Media Center 11.1:

MC 11.1 embedded cover art

The GodFather embedded cover art

Just by looking the tag names "Cover Art (front)" makes more sense to me than "APIC". "Cover Art (back)", "Cover Art (inlay)" etc would be natural extensions to it. Since APE tags have nothing to do with ID3 I think the choice is free.

If there are no players that support APIC in APEv2 tags yet then the tag name that was invented by the original creator of APE tags should be considered as a standard. At least it is the only existing standard for Monkey's Audio files and perhaps for Musepack too. Because JRMC has had embedded APE v2 cover art support at least three years probably a lot of files around the globe are tagged with that standard.

Godfather 0.71 beta is a beta and probably the author would be willing change the tag if needed for getting better compatibility.

I have found a way to display Album Art in Winamp... but it doesn't utilize APEv2 tags to get the image. I put the cover pics in the album folder and downloaded a winamp plugin that can make use of that. I did the same for foobar2000.
here they are:


Winamp: http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=138586

Foobar2000: (i don't remember where i got it, but it wasn't at hydrogenaudio... the link was broken when i tried it.)

Do you have any more sample files (with say a PNG image embedded in it)?
I actually wrote some code to extract the cover art based on using an APIC tag, but it definitely makes sense to support the JRMC approach.

The structure of the tag seems very simple, it seems to be the filename, then a null seperator, then the actual data of the file (a JPG in the case of your sample files)
But another sample file with, say, PNG would be very useful to double-check this is all that is required.

I added gif and png samples: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40860.

If you are on Windows, you may want to try the function by yourself. JRMC has a 30-day try out period. The latest release candidate of v. 11.1 is available at the user forum, currently v. 11.1.105: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3.0. (A word of warning: It may cause addiction.)

Thanks for that, they're all done the same way as JPG (as expected).
Good choice of PNG image

>"Because JRMC has had embedded APE v2 cover art support at least three years ......with that standard"

Agreed, that seems to be the one to support, anyone told TGF author?

Speaking of other lossless formats, what is the standard for FLAC files? (embedding art).

I did. ( http://com1.runboard.com/bthegodfathermp3f...tsquestions.t20 )

Storing the album art files in the same folder is one solution, and some people are okay with mixing jpegs in with their music. However, this approach only works if you're careful about naming the pictures properly, or you keep your music directory organized in certain ways (e.g., by CD).

The average listener just wants to play a song and see the cover art pop up automatically, without fiddling with multiple files. Embedding the art in tags is the easiest way of doing this, even if you do lose a (very small) amount of disk space from inserting the same picture multiple times.

After all, if lossless codecs like Wavpack or Monkey's Audio are ever going to broaden their appeal beyond a small community of enthusiasts, they need to offer the same (or similar) features as more popular lossy formats like MP3 or iTunes AAC. Embedded cover art is an example of such a feature.

Therefore, it's good to see the developers hashing out the details of cover art in APEv2 tags right now, while lossless audio is still in its adolescence, instead of letting this idea sit on the back burner any longer.

I set up the program so that it will display any picture in the folder. In my case, there is only one picture per folder, so this works quite well. I also keep my music organized by "My Music\Artist\Album\##. Title.wv". This is very organized, and winamp's media library loves it.

I actually did embed album art in each file, in addition to saving the picture in the folder.

Wavpack is very versatile, as shown in the wiki. That's why I chose it. I only wish it had player support! I'd buy one... and besides, APEv2 is the component that needs to support album art, not the codec itself.

I think it should be up to APEv2 developers to embed album art in their tag, and I think that the lossless codecs should just implement the latest version of the tag, rather than codec-specific developers working on a tag system. That way, all codecs would have the same support for the same tags, making the efficiency and features of the codec the only thing the codec developers need to worry about, imho.

No dev having a look into this yet?

Album Art is already possible for Wavpack when being put into matroska container (MKA).

Christian
matroska project admin

matroska with wavpack does not playback in foobar. Do you know if this will ever be fixed?
I am not aware of directshow players that support album art embedded in matroska. If you know of any, please point them out.

'Somebody' had to code a wavpack packet decoder for Foobar, adding the wavpack codec ID to foo_matroska would be trivial.

About DirectShow players, after installation of the latest matroska full pack 1.1.2 every Wavpack file (.wv or .mka) will play in every DShow player, including album art.

Soon we will also have Wavpack support in TCPMP, the Core Pocket Mediaplayer. This will allow playback on all Pocket PCs (PPC), Palm and Symbian units.

Christian
matroska project admin

EDIT : of course, we also add FLAC support to TCPMP .....

Noted, but since .WV files already support APEv2 tags and several audio players support WavPack while few support the .MKA/V container (correct me if I'm wrong) that'd be the longer route to it, don't you think?

Okay, I guess I stand corrected to some extent, but how many mass taggers support .MKV/A files please?
Still since WavPack supports the embedding of all necessary metadata by itself I'm kinda prone to considering an additional container superflous, no disrespect, I'm a big Matroska fan.

Anyone has tested Mp3tag's behaviour in this regard?

Mp3tag doesn't support album art for APEv2 tags currently (because of the "never more than 8 KByte" part on Klemm's APE Tag page).

Furthermore the current version strips binary fields from the tag, but the current internal version already preserves binary fields.

Best regards,
~ Florian

no users ----> no app support
no app support ----> no users

-----> catch 22 !

Christian
matroska project admin

Just FYI: this is fixed with current Development Build

Best regards,
~ Florian

Very nice.
What about The GodFather's direction then?
Sticking with APIC?

Dunno if it's already been noticed, but as of version 1.2 AudioShell supports cover art in APE tags.

http://www.softpointer.com/AudioShellHistory.htm

Thanx for that link. Toaster is working great displaying my album art on my desktop even when Winamp is minimized.

What was the name of that foobar plugin?

The album art panel works fine but only if foobar is NOT minimized.

Edit: Toaster also has a foobar version on the main download page but it is somewhat dated and won't work for v0.9.

http://www.myplugins.info/update.php?plugi...76&type=install

foo_prettypop is a plugin that is overall similar to Toaster (it pops up a little window with info about the currently playing song and album art). Of course, there are some differences, since they're completely separate plugins.

Thanx for that prettypop link. The only bug for me is the inability to re-size the height but that will be addressed eventually I'm sure.

Interesting. Softpointer has adopted the "Cover Art (front)" tag, which I suggested earlier in this thread.

However, I couldn't make the cover art image appear in J. River Media Center (I suppose there are no other players that can display embedded APEv2 cover art yet). At first I couldn't find a reason for this. The APEv2 tag was apparently identical with a tag made by JRMC, but then I found an explanation. AudioShell adds ID3v1 tags besides the APEv2 tags. If ID3v1 tags are present JRMC reads only them and cannot see the APEv2 tags. As a test I removed the ID3v1 part with a hex editor. This fixed the problem.

Hopefully the Softpointer developer (s?) sees this and removes the redundant ID3v1 tag writing part or makes it optional and not the default behavior (I couldn't find an option for this).

I uploaded three new test samples here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40860

Mighty glad you had a look into this again Alex B, noticed Softpointer Inc. used the tag you suggested.

Any way to strip WavPack files of ID3v1 with different means than a hex editor please?

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
dBoweramp will allow you to edit tags in wavpack files (and .ape and and .flac and .mp3 and .wma and .ogg...)It will also allow you to transcode between all formats that it supports (You can even go from ogg to flac though I'm not sure why you'd want to. All tags are carried over to the new file too.
This trial software though - $28 after 30 days trial period

The dBpowerAMP developer, spoon, posts here consequently the majority of HA users are familair with the app, as well as with a few other means to edit APE tags the most of which are free too, the point here is integrating that functionality into the WavPack plug-in for Winamp.

I am ripping my CD's to WavPack images and LameMP3 tracks (using EAC with REACT2). Can I embed the cover art in the WavPack (wv) file? I don't think I can do this through the wvpack executable. If not, is there another executable to do this, or can I only embed it using foobar after encoding everything.

My Kenwood HD30GB9 can embed art, edit tags (using Kenwood Media Application), and display album art from wav files.

what about tagscanner? http://www.xdlab.ru/en/index.htm Although I havent used it on wavpacks, I have on mp3s and flacs so I can assume it'll fly...you can do each folder individually (as in each cd)...also I like to keep a "Folder.jpg" in each folder to help when viewing via explorer and also to work with a winamp plugin...I dont own an ipod but I do know the video models do show embedded art

Hello all,

I'm currently working on a free generic tool to tag *any* music file with full support of *all* tags (ID3 v 1.0, 1.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, APE v 1 & 2, Lyrics3 v 1 & 2, ogg vorbis comments, mp4 tags and wma tags already work fine).

I've also had a look at the binary data of the "Cover art (front)" APEv2 tag item, but the format is different than the ID3 APIC frame or any native image format. Does somebody know a specification of this tag item format written by AudioShell or JRMC?

Thanks!
Mathias

Never mind, I found out myself.

It's simply a null terminated string (the absolute file name, which is pretty useless), followed by the binary picture data.

I think there really should be an "official" specification of attached pictures and lyrics tags on the APE wiki page

I would suggest to use the same format as the ID3 APIC frame. ID3 tags have nothing to do with APE, but there are two good reasons to do this anyway:

1) The format is a common standard and widely supported by existing ID3 implementations. It would be easy for developers to adopt this format for APE tags because they don't have to re-implement a different tag format.
2) The APIC tag format is capable of storing description text and image type into the same single tag item.

This would help to establish a standard for embedding pictures into APE tags!!

Cheers
Mathias

Except JRMC has been tagging Monkeys audio files with album art for a long time, changing the specification after it is out in the wild serves no purpose.

Well, this is correct of course. Would you say that the "JRMC format" has established as a "standard" format for attached pictures in APE tags? If yes, it would still help to include this specification to the wiki page so that other developers can find this information too and don't implement their own tagging styles for APE pictures.

Mathias

Yes, as Matt who invented apev1 and monkeys audio, implmented the album art.

Just wanted to let you know that the current Development Build of Mp3tag adds support for cover art with APEv2 tags.

Cheers,
Florian