Can someone please help me before I go insane. I have an archos av400 but I cant get the album art to work on it. I use media player 10 to sync the archos and all my music when played in media player displays the album art correctly yet when I put that music on to the Archos it doesnt display the album art. Please help me as I am getting so pissed off with it I really am going insane. All help would be great
There are at least 2 different ways players recognise Album Art when playing mp3 or wma files. The usual is a jpeg in the same folder as the tracks called AlbumArt*.jpg or folder.jpg. The AV400 series uses a second lesser-known method, which is to display a picture that is actually embedded in the mp3/wma itself (in the id3v2 tag). To set this up, connect your Archos to Windows Media Player, highlight all the tracks in a particular album, right-click and choose Advanced Tag Editor. Now click on the "Pictures" tab and choose "Add", and choose the JPEG file you wish to display (preferably a file of around 75xx73 pixels) then hit "Apply". This embeds the picture into the mp3s and when you disconnectb your Archos and play the files in the built-in mp3 player, the album art will be displayed on the right-hand side of the frame. NB, if you find this doesn't work, it may be that your mp3/wma files are set to "read-only". To unset this attribute, use the attrib command at the command-line as follows: attrib -r -a -s G:\*.mp3 /s /d or attrib -r -a -s G:\*.wma /s /d ...where g: is the drive letter of your Archos.
Hi, ive tried using the Advanced tag approach but when the Archos is disconnected there is still no pic. Being a bit computer iliterate, where do you enter the atrib command? As I think I need to try this. Thanks S
Click on the start button, find the "run" icon and in the run box type "cmd" and press return. A command window will open. Run the attrib command from there. In fact, run "help atttrib" first and make sure you understand how the command works before proceeding! If you still have problems though,y You may have more success if you copy your mp3s onto your hard drive and work on them there before copying them back to the Archos.
I've got exactly the same problem. Tried editing the files on the Archos and also editing the files on my PC and then transferring them to the Archos - still can't see them.
I've been doing this for a while and have had good results using a tag editing program called "Tag&Rename, version 3.1.7." When you click on a file, you can edit (press F5 to open edit mode) it as you like. It allows you to attach a Jpeg to the Mp3 file. Click Save and you are done. There is another Mp3 tag editing program out there that does the same thing but I can't recall the name off hand. Both are newer programs that have the image association built into them. Most of the other tag editors lack this Jpeg insertion feature. I also like to set the image to around 1" square which is about 107 x 107 pixels if the screen is indeed 320 pixels wide. I put a small black border, maybe 2 pixels wide, around the image to set it off but it isn't necessary. I'm using Paint Shop Pro to do this too. Also, you can get the album cover art off the Amazon.com website (the editors I mentioned will do this but I like to do it manually as I get some cover art off the Google Image search engine too). I double click on the cover art image on Amazon to open a larger one without the 25% discount Amazon watermark in the lower right corner. Those larger images are around 400 x 400 pixels (approximate) and may need to be cropped square if you want to use all of the Archo's Mp3 art window. If you run the image through your Paint program to resize it, do it im multiple passes with a Sharpen filter between each one. If you do the Resize once down to 107 pixels (square), it'll be soft and fuzzy and all pixleated. The mutiple pass shrink, sharpen, shrink somemore, sharpen, etc. down to 107x107 will result in a better image on the Archos. I wrote a script file in Paint Shop Pro that does this automatically so once I run the script the image is converted. Anyway, try it either way (single pass or multi-pass with a Sharpen between each one) and see the difference. Casey
When I ripped the CDs using Media Player, it puts a (hidden) picture in each of the albums directory, the Archos doesn't appear to see these. I thought of doing it by pasting a picture into each folder, guess that'll be the only way to get it working.
So - I am having the same problem - I must be missing something really simple. media player 10, connecting to the archos. NO ALBUM art displaying. I tried the code thingy... still no art. I tried inputing the art in advanced tag editor. still to picture. I can see some album art when i go to the picture folder, but i can link them to the album/music folders. help.... Im a tattered wreck...
Here is a recent link to Microsoft for Album Art: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/AlbumArt.aspx I might try it later and see what happens although I don't like Media Player as it seems buggy, morso for web stuff. I am using "Tag&Rename" tag editor following what I've outlined above and it is working great! Just did another ten songs last night of Natalie Imbruglia cover art that I got off Google's image area. Just make sure that you are around 107x107 pixels square and around 11K or less for the jpeg file (a non-progressive jpeg file too which might be some of the problem and 100x100 might be better with a 10K saved file) to add in. I seem to recall the space restrictions allowed for art was around 10K for mp3's but all mine are working at 107x107. I find the images look a little better if they are darker too on the editor before I put them into the Archos (I boosted the Paint Shop Pro gamma from 0.80 to 1.00 recently to darken them). Here is another piece of software you can use to see your cover art (I don't think you can add images, only view them in the mp3 file with it) -- and it's free! http://www.vadino.com/windows/audio/cd-mp3/abander-mp3-image-extractor.html As mentioned, I do not use Windows Media player as I find it doesn't alwaya work right even for other stuff. I prefer WinAmp over it for listening (no art support though unless someone knows of a plug-in). Casey
Just tried Media Player 10 (ugh!). I could see the cover image art but it appears that it doesn't attach itself to the mp3 file. It does show up in the right pane of Media Player 10, [bold]but it is not part of the mp3 file.[/bold] I could add an image to the song with Windows Media Player 10's Advance Tag Editor and see it though. Using the Image Extractor freeware (link above) I can see the Mpeg Image in the mp3 file I manually placed with it, but it does not appear automatically in the ripped version from Media Player 10. It seems the image is stored elsewhere and linked so that it shows up in Media Player 10 or Windows Explorer (their file manager). Just won't work right if you want to place it in your Archos (verify it with Image Extractor freeware I mentioned above before you do it). Back to using "Tag&Rename" -- or Advanced Tag Edit in Media Player 10 if you are inclined to work with that. Casey
Glad it worked for you! There is another "freeware" tag editor called "TagScanner" version 4.9 that has a Lyrics and Image insertion tool in the "Tag Editor" window (you need to pull the handle down on the right side to find it). Just be certain you run a good anti-virus or Trojan checking tool on the freeware TagScanner version. Mine went off on the Uninstal000.exe file (or something named like that). If you uninstall it, who knows what it leaves behind? It is pretty neat to see your images come up with the songs.
O dear, I have noticed a small problem - I have ripped approx 2500 tracks on to the device, but when i play by "track" listing in the menu it can only lists 1150 tracks. Have you ever had this happen - I haven't tried to re-install the music yet, just in-case its a stupid tick box i haven checked in "tag & rename"
Haven't ahd that problem as I don't have that many loaded. Is there some limit on the number of mp3's a folder can have on the player? Seems there was some talk of that limit thing and I don't know if it was a problem with Windows based systems seeing as how the new PMP 100 (??) runs Linux.
