CD Inlay Cards

Strangely enough ,I've just got a Unitilite and was wondering the same thing!!,if I connect an iPod to the front USB socket I get the artwork etc. ,but not from the CD player or iRadio.

When streaming from a UPnP server to a Naim player, there is only the provision to show one piece of art, which most people would choose to be the album/cd cover.  I always use the .jpg format, and the file must be named folder.jpg and placed in the same folder as the music files.  There is no provision to see more -- multiple images, etc., aren't possible.

The artwork is stored on your server's hard drive.  Thus, there is no way to see artwork when playing a cd or using internet radio.

The nStream app does provide more information; when you click on the little i in a circle icon, you will see album information that comes from an online database that Naim subscribe to.  But this is mostly written information, written by a third party.  It's not the real liner notes, etc.

Thanks Bart, that's just as I thought. I might be writing to Naim encouraging them to improve this feature!

I'm on nServe with a UnitiServe, but have the same isues.

Sold my CD5xs and have the Serve and nDac combo. Wow - best move I ever made - listen to far more music, wider variety of my cds and can accesss the lot via phone, pad etc.

BUT, the lack of info compared to the cd cover drives me insane...Used to love perusing the covers with full info and artwork. All cds in storage now,  could never find a particular cd before anyway.

Don't know the solution. I doubt there is a digital source containing the same info as is on the cd cover {:-(

Chrs

dis

A Jason says, a click on the 'Info' button in nStream opens up a little artist wiki book (Jason, you're turning Norwegian ). The info button quickly opens up a hi-res image of the album cover and behind that a virtual booklet with extended information - provided by Rovi - on the artist and album, that provides at least as much information as the front and back inlays of the CD. You also get a review of the CD, generally well written, and links to the artist's other albums, and to Amazon, for a spending spree, without leaving nStream.

The Rovi booklet is not however the original booklet that comes with some CDs. I still prefer paper for reading, and one day I'll remove all the booklets from my (mostly baroque) CDs just to have them at hand. 

Speaking of paper (if Richard will allow the link), this is priceless:

http://vimeo.com/61275290

(if the link doesn't appear above, look up vimeo dot com, and add 61275290 after the / )

Jan

Thanks for your replies. Yes I have seen the rovi information, most of which contains images that have nothing to do with the original CD. Also I'm not sure I see the point of reading a review of something I have already purchased. For me the album artwork is an important piece that is missing from the experience. Work goes into it, and I'm sure that the designers of the artwork would appreciate it being seen, rather stuck in a dusty box with the original CD. You may also correctly perceive that i am from the LP era and therefore appreciate album artwork. I am quite happy to get the inlay card images and put them in the flacs myself, if n-stream could view them.

To M : The first image Rovi finds should be a hi-res one of the CD front inlay. If not, there's the "Not this album?" button, though I've never had to use it. Agreed though, that it's a poor cousin of the LP sleeve. The only label that I have found to offer full PDFs of the cover art and booklet is Analekta.

To J : It's not the spelling, rather the construction ; I can see the Norwegian phrasing in "little artist wiki book". Repeat it with the Norwegian sing-song accent

Jan

Hi Jan, I see

I guess this is an issue with the supplier of the music info (Rovi) and not Naim. This probably includes a whole host of copyright issues to do with the artist and the music company who own the rights to the cd info, including promo photos, cover art and the rest of the gumph included in the cd sleeve.

So to avoid all this legal hassle and cost Rovi and others arrange their own reviews etc, I assume they still pay some copyright monies somewhere, for the cover art and publicity photos, for example. 

All in all, you still get the 'cover' art plus much more historical a factual info both on the album and artist, personally I think that is much better (more useful) than record companies trying to fill out cover sleeves with unnecessary and spurios art and cd promo photos. On some cd's you may not even have that, so at least this way you generally get a good standard of interesting info, part of the reason one goes digital.

I guess one of the consequences of the digital age is the loss of 'object' desirability, such as LP's and now CD's. We can now drown in the plethora of digital refuse rather than drowning in real world object refuse, perhaps it's better for the environment?

Jason