Q: How do I understand what are the dimensions of the picture file for the album artwork for each file in my library?
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Feb 10, 2013 5:35 AMby turingtest2,Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I've reworked the script in such a way that it should manage to continue after an error processing the artwork details and record "Unknown" in the Embedded column. I just threw 3,000 tracks at it without an error so I'm still in the dark as to what was actually causing a problem. Download the updated version and let me know how you get on. If you do get any unknowns I'd be interested to know if you can spot any pattern.
tt2
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Feb 18, 2013 9:22 AMby thecucuzza,It's the same error message as the screenshot I posted a while ago. If I remove the file from the library, it will continue, but will hang on a different one. I try to see a pattern between the ones that hang, but there is none... Not really sure how to resolve other than trial and error of removing the ones that will cause the script a problem... It's a shame because you're script does great work for the files that DO work.
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Feb 20, 2013 5:20 AMby thecucuzza,It worked this time! Thanks! This is an extremely useful script.
My only question... where is it pulling the metadata from? It outputted some files as having artwork of something like 217x344 when I know for a fact the embedded art was 500x500. I checked the embedded art and confirmed that it was, in fact, 500x500. I do remember that the art in there before I corrected it to its current state of 500x500 was 217x344. The 500x500 artwork is embedded in the file. Does this mean that the art was not fully embedded in the ID3 tag? How do I ensure it is fully embedded?
I'll give you another example/question: Some of my MP3s do not have anything written in the "Comment" field, but when I run them through a program like MP3TAG (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/), it still shows me that there is a comment in the comment field. Another example is that the genre shown in iTunes is not how the genre appears in the 3rd party program. I also notice that, when looking in the Windows folder the mp3s are contained in, and looking at the mp3 tags within the Windows folder as you add custom columns, it sometimes does not match what is in iTunes. Is there some relation?
How do I ensure that what is in iTunes is written in the very fabric of the ID3 tag because I know my iTunes library is right (as you could probably tell, I prune it carefully)? Sorry if I am a bit confusing with my questions, let me know if you need any help. Also, thank you very much for all your help. To some, these issues may seem trivial, but I'm curious as to why this stuff happens.
Thanks!
Joe
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Feb 20, 2013 6:54 AMby turingtest2,I can't say I know all the answers. The script works by going through each selected track in turn. With each track it pulls something called the ArtworkCollection from the iTunes object model. This is the artwork that iTunes claims it knows about. The collection consists of one or more artwork objects. Each artwork object has properties that describe whether it is downloaded or embedded and what format it is in. The script attempts to save a temporary file in the correct format, then uses a Windows component to load the artwork file and read off the dimensions. This is the information that gets output by the script.
Because I haven't been able to work out exacty what was causing problems and I've thrown the "skip on error" code in a bit hastily there is, I suppose, the slim possibility that after an error in accessing or generating the artwork the wrong information is processed on a subsequent pass.
The other major problem with files in mp3 format and iTunes is the handling of files with multiple tags. Files may have both ID3v1 and ID3v2.x tags, and if I read the ID3 specification correctly there is also support for multiple ID3v2.x tags each coded for a different language. When there are multiple tags iTunes behaviour can sometimes be unpredictable. In some cases edits to the metadata can be written to one tag, and visible in Windows Explorer, but iTunes insists on reading back unchanged values from the other. In such cases you can use Convert ID3 Tag > None several times followed by Convert ID3 Tag > V2.3 and whatever iTunes knows about the file will be written to it, but embedded artwork is erased so needs to be reattached. My script CreateFolderArt used before and after tag conversions is one way to workaround that part of the problem.
Certain pre-defined genres are represented by a code rather than text so that they can be presented in the local system language. There is always a possibility that Windows and iTunes have slightly different values in the look-up tables for some of these.
tt2
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Feb 21, 2013 7:28 PMby thecucuzza,So I found out what was causing the issue that yielded the script errors. There was one line item in my list of songs that actually did not point to a file. In other words, the file was added at one point, but then was deleted from the original path, however, the line item stayed in iTunes. I think the edits you have done to your script were great though, because what if there was another error? The script should not stop just because it found an error in one item (especially if it's early on in the list). I'm doing a bit more analysis of my library, so if I have further questions, I'll be sure to post here. Thank you for all of your help!
