Album Art and ID3 Tags

[BobbyRS]

No problem. Try removing all audio tracks or reformatting (will lose all files, not just audio). Then go about removing all album art from the audio files on the computer from the process listed in the link I posted earlier, and then finally resync or copy over the files. The Zen should not have any album art at all at this point, let alone show the same album art for multiple files.

[CrowdAds]

[Bluemaxboy]

Really like the Zen 32Gb, the design, size and sound.
However, the file transfers and library are more cumbersome and less aesethtic when compared with say itunes. It is a shame that itunes cannot be synced with the zen. So easy to synch and drag album covers from sat the website album art to the library if it dosn't download automatically.
My question therefore is does the zen have a similar set up as I don't see in the software I have set up. The onlt thing resembling itunes is the Audible manager, but that seems to be just for podcasts or books?
Is there another programme I could use to synch the zen similar to itunes and still use MP3 without converting to the MPA files as for WMP11?
I have heard that the WMA are not as good a quality as MP3 files and although I have heard that album art is easy with Windows Media Player and downloads album art from the web automatically.
I would like to see my library of Zen albums similar to the way in itunes or WMP?
What are the options please?

[BobbyRS]

I think WMP11 is very album art friendly. However, I prefer using MP3Tag for all of my ID3 tagging and album art; Extremely easy. This FAQ will walk you through.

When you chose to use an MP3 player/software that isn't what you are used to, you will be forced to learn something new. Doesn't mean it is worse or better; just different until you get used to it as well.

[lolinmycake]

I understand threads like this are already on this forum, but i havent found anything useful yet. I am completely useless with technology and will accept there is no easy solution to this problem if that is the case. (by easy, I mean really, childlike technophobically easy, and i definitely am not going to be able to download things and make them interact with my ZEN somehow!)

why when i right click and edit track details like the name, album etc do i get the same names appear twice in the lists on my ZEN? I understand ID3 (whatever that means) is involved and means the zen doesnt listen to my names but uses some computer generated names or whatever...if thats the case why do some of my name changes work and others dont? how can i tell which name changes will work and which ones will fail and create duplicates? is there any way i can remove duplicate names easily?

- i use both cd ripping to get music and dragging on mp3 files, the mp3 files dont seem to create duplication problems (yet). its mostly the CD's that do.

[WalkGood]

You certainly identified the problem correctly, ID3 tags. To fix your issue, you need to remove all the music from your player and tag it correctly on your PC and re-load tunes. You might want to try a free software called mp3tag, which will allow you to edit the metadata and rename files the way you want to appear on your player. The help files on it are very good to learn and we also have a tutorial here on the forums.

[BobbyRS]

Hello lolinmycake. Welcome to ABI. Walkgood is spot on. MP3Tag is your friend here. Check out these links for more information on ID3 Tags. The Tagging FAQ here may help as well. Good luck!

Oh, you may want to check out the Zen FAQ sometime.

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by Bluemaxboy

Is there another programme I could use to synch the zen similar to itunes and still use MP3 without converting to the MPA files as for WMP11?
I have heard that the WMA are not as good a quality as MP3 files and although I have heard that album art is easy with Windows Media Player and downloads album art from the web automatically.
I would like to see my library of Zen albums similar to the way in itunes or WMP?
What are the options please?

WMP handles MP3 just fine -- I don't have anything but MP3s and use WMP11 (formerly 10) exclusively. WMP has an "Album" view, too.

[BobbyRS]

Originally Posted by Bluemaxboy

Is there another programme I could use to synch the zen similar to itunes and still use MP3 without converting to the MPA files as for WMP11?

Yes, WMP11 is pretty good. I've heard that MediaMonkey and WinAmp are good as well.

Originally Posted by Nicole

WMP has an "Album" view, too.

WMP does have a good tag editor.

[lolinmycake]

thanks for the help, just to confirm.

saving the music from CD's and normal mp3 downloads on my computer first

then editing the artist/album etc details and saving them on my computer

then moving those files to my freshly wiped ZEN

the information will appear as i specified without duplicates

is that correct?

[WalkGood]

Originally Posted by lolinmycake

thanks for the help, just to confirm.

saving the music from CD's and normal mp3 downloads on my computer first

then editing the artist/album etc details and saving them on my computer

then moving those files to my freshly wiped ZEN

the information will appear as i specified without duplicates

is that correct?

Yes, as long as you do it correctly

[BobbyRS]

I would also make sure you use just one sync manager software. Say, if you use WMP for syncing your files, keep using WMP. You will usually end up with duplicate files when you start transferring files multiple ways or with different sync programs.

[Palmerholic]

I always notice that this seems to be a huge issue with XP and Vista, especially if you're ripping files from Windows Media Player. For some reason it doubles up on the artist name or you end up getting the guest artist as the main artist. I think it may be a Windows flaw, not a Creative flaw.

[BobbyRS]

Maybe not necessarily with Windows, but more so with sync programs that contain their own database (like WMP).

[msa]

i found out that when you use the import wizard to copy songs to the zen, it will instantly create a .alb-file for the album-art if a cover is embedded in the tags.

when you just drag'n'drop the mp3's, it may or may not create .alb files. seems to be random to me - it created album arts on most my mp3's, but a few were left out, although they had an album art in their tags.

but it works just fine with the import wizard...

[BobbyRS]

when you just drag'n'drop the mp3's, it may or may not create .alb files. seems to be random to me - it created album arts on most my mp3's, but a few were left out, although they had an album art in their tags.

I've noticed this to be the case as well; hit or miss....

[SqueakyG]

Hi I'm new here.

I currently have a Zen Vision:M, and I'm looking to replace it with the Zen 32GB. I must say, problems with album art is one of the concerns I didn't expect to have when I started researching this Zen. It came as an unwanted surprise to hear people say that it doesn't accept album art above 200x200 pixels!

I am very meticulous with my mp3 metadata, especially when it comes to embedding album covers into every file with Mp3Tag. Most of these album covers are bigger than 200x200. The Zen Vision:M has no problem displaying these album covers at all, it just scales them down. A media player would have to be terribly old-fashioned if it can't do that.

So basically, I'm asking for strict clear confirmation: Does the Zen not display embedded album jpgs above 200x200 pixels? I wish there was a poll, and every Zen owner had to answer it. That would make trawling forums for the answer so much easier!

I'm afraid that I won't buy the Zen if it means having to manually re-size and re-embed all my album art. I have already spent a few mind-numbing monotonous weekends of my life manually sorting out album art (I haven't trusted a media player to do it automaticlly, because they tend to save album art locally rather than embedding them). I really can't do it again.

[msa]

Originally Posted by SqueakyG

So basically, I'm asking for strict clear confirmation: Does the Zen not display embedded album jpgs above 200x200 pixels?

it does.
i used 300x300 pixel album arts in my mp3-tags, and all of them are showing up just perfectly fine.

[BobbyRS]

Yes, it will support a higher resolution than 200x200 for album art. However, the 200x200 size comes from being the max size for the screen size/resolution of the Zen and anything beyond that size would not really be beneficial for viewing.

Originally Posted by Valdr

Additionally I think it's useless to drop album arts larger than 200x200, the largest view you'll get on ZEN is 3/4 of the height of the display and that's around 180px.

Originally Posted by Valdr

you really won't see 300x300 cover on 240 px high display. 200x200 is probably the max size.

Thanks Valdr!

[SqueakyG]

Okay, so I have a Zen! And I'm loading all my music onto it now (after so many tests). I'll give you my experience with album art:

First of all I didn't install any software, I just dragged and dropped to the Zen in Windows Explorer. But no album art showed up at all! It simply wasn't generating .alb files, which seem to be required for album art to show.

Then I tried synching in Winamp (I dare not use Windows Media Player, I hate it, it totally messed up how my music is ordered). It's pretty cool that Winamp has a synching feature. And it transferred album art! I discovered that Winamp was converting everything into Artist/Album/ folders on the Zen, changing filenames, and generating an .alb file in each folder. But somehow it was resizing all album covers to 160x160. That's even smaller than the 200x200 the Zen is capable of displaying, and it doesn't fill the screen in the bigger view mode.

So I gave in and installed Creative's software. Like the Vision:M before it, it suffers from huge bugs, such as crashing if I transfer more than a few hundred megs at once, and having to unplug/replug the device after every instance of drag-and-drop. On the plus side, it drops mp3s into the Music folder, unchanged, and generates .alb files! Yay! And it doesn't seem to have any problem showing art bigger than 200x200 on the screen.


So I think it's all about .alb files, which I didn't know existed until now. I guess they were hidden files on my Zen Vision:M.

[BobbyRS]

First of all I didn't install any software, I just dragged and dropped to the Zen in Windows Explorer. But no album art showed up at all! It simply wasn't generating .alb files, which seem to be required for album art to show.

I believe when just drag-and-dropping, the command used for the Zen's database to create the file based on the embedded album art within the ID3Tag is not sent/received. Only when using a sync manager that interacts with the Zen's database is when this is done (sometimes even incorrectly done).

I guess they were hidden files on my Zen Vision:M.

Keep in mind the ZVM can also handle album art by the files corresponding .jpg file (i.e. folder.jpg file).