Cover Art & WAV Files

Posted by: endlessnessism on 15 March 2012

I have got an HDX and have ripped all my CDs.  The preferred format for the HDX is WAV so that's how the files are kept - I'm not aware that you even get a choice.  The cover art displays perfectly well wherever I choose to look at it - the HDX itself, Desk Top Client, Ipad or Ipod.

 

I have also converted a lot of my vinyl to digital via Audacity.  This program gives you a choice of file types and I selected WAV because that seemed the thing to do, given that all my other files were WAV.  (The converted vinyl is in a shared folder on my NAS, separate from the folder that the HDX rips to).  For cover art I just copied something from the internet to the same folder as the music files.  I found I had to use Media Monkey as an interim step to ensure that tracks were properly grouped in the right album but, having done this, I found that Desk Top Client integrated everything and displayed a seamless music collection.

 

Most importantly for what I am about to ask, I was able to get the same display of cover art for my converted vinyl as I had for my ripped CDs.

 

As an interim step, I have bought a Sonos streamer to use in another part of the house (I'm gradually installing a Naimnet system but can't afford it all at once).  The Sonos plays all my music perfectly well, both ripped CDs and converted vinyl, but it only displays the cover art for the ripped CDs.  I have played around with this but have not found a solution and, when I contacted Sonos about it, I got a strange answer: according to them, it is "impossible" to display cover art for WAV files because these files are "too primitive" and cannot be tagged.  Their advice was to convert everything to FLAC.

 

Are Sonos right about WAV files and, if so, how can it be that I don't have a problem on my Naim system?  I'm definitely not going to convert all my files to FLAC so has anyone got a work-around for Sonos?   

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Nagoya

Sonos are wrong. I don't use it myself as I generally stick to FLAC, and I'm too tight to buy it, but I'd suggest using dBpoweramp to tag your WAV files and for cover art. It definitely works — splendidly. And I'm sure others can confirm this presently. Thanks!

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Peter W

I used dbpoweramp to rip my CDs in WAV stored on QNAP NAS with TwonkyMedia server, but my NDX and n-Stream can only display track titles. Artist name and Album title become "Unknown", and cover art is blank

 

I am eager to learn how you manage to get your n-Stream to display LP cover art properly.

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by endlessnessism

I have an HDX rather than an NDX - I'm not sure if that makes a difference.  Here in any case is what I do:

 

I convert vinyl to digital using Audacity, then export to a share on my NAS.  One folder per artist (Bob Dylan), within which one folder per album (Blonde on Blonde), within which all the relevant tracks.  You have to name the tracks 01 - Rainy Day Women, 02 - Pledging My Time, etc to ensure that the HDX will play them in the right order.

 

The cover art for each album (downloaded from wherever you can get it on the internet, or scanned from the cover itself) gets saved as a jpg or a png in the album folder (Blonde on Blonde.jpg).

 

For reasons unknown, this is not enough to enable the HDX to see tracks as part of an album.  To resolve this I use Media Monkey.  Scan the relevant album folder into Media Monkey, then select "properties" and complete the relevant information.  All you really need to enter is album artist, album name and genre.  Media Monkey automatically sees the cover art that you have put into the album folder but this is not the final solution (see below).

 

The next step is to open Naim Desktop Client.  (This may be the difference between the HDX and the NDX - the latter may use a different desktop interface).  You may need to prompt a rescan of the relevant share but once you've done this, the album that you've converted should be fully integrated in your library and all the details should be correct (artist, album, genre, etc).  The only thing Desktop Client won't immediately see is the cover art.  To get this, you have to go into "properties" and upload the relevant jpg or png from the album folder and then you're done.

 

I hope this helps.  Someone may have a more efficient way of getting to the same point.

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by endlessnessism

PS, with the HDX I use n-Serve rather rather than n-Stream but I don't do anything in n-Serve to achieve what I've described and it automatically picks-up the correct data and cover art once I have done the necessary in Audacity, Media Monkey and Desktop Client. 

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Ikoun

I think it is possible with the Naim Desktop Client software. Now i am not sure it is possible for a track stored somewhere else than in the internal disk. Didn't tried already.

Anyone?

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk

What a question.. WAV is certainly not primitive - its one of the most flexible file types using the RIFF structure - which perhaps is also its weakness.

 

WAV contains, as part of its standard, meta data attributes, that are contained in the INFO chunk construct tha is based on the EXIF data construct.

 

HOWEVER... EXIF is limited to a defined set of attirbutes and does not contain clip art. So a new valid - but not yet standardised extension to WAVE called the ID3 chunk  has been used by an incrasing number of WAV creation programmes. This uses ID3v2 that was developed for MP3 and inserts this as a construct into the WAV as a valid RIFF chunk called ID3. It is this ID3v2 that contains a more diverse set of attributes and album art. So a WAV decoder that only handled standardised chunks would skip over ID3 and decode the INFO chunk with the standard attribute subset - Label, Artist, Album Name, TRack Title etc - but NOT include the amlbum art. A more progressive WAV decoder that wanted to decode ID3 would be able to read custom attributes and album art.

 

Programmes like dBPoweramp write both INFO and ID3 into the WAV file for interoperability and flexibility. Alas there are many very poor WAV decoders out there  that can't even decode INFO contructs, and only recognise the header and data contruct discarding all the other info in the WAV file.

 

Simon

 

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by Peter W
Originally Posted by endlessnessism:

I have an HDX rather than an NDX - I'm not sure if that makes a difference.  Here in any case is what I do:

 

I convert vinyl to digital using Audacity, then export to a share on my NAS.  One folder per artist (Bob Dylan), within which one folder per album (Blonde on Blonde), within which all the relevant tracks.  You have to name the tracks 01 - Rainy Day Women, 02 - Pledging My Time, etc to ensure that the HDX will play them in the right order.

 

The cover art for each album (downloaded from wherever you can get it on the internet, or scanned from the cover itself) gets saved as a jpg or a png in the album folder (Blonde on Blonde.jpg).

 

For reasons unknown, this is not enough to enable the HDX to see tracks as part of an album.  To resolve this I use Media Monkey.  Scan the relevant album folder into Media Monkey, then select "properties" and complete the relevant information.  All you really need to enter is album artist, album name and genre.  Media Monkey automatically sees the cover art that you have put into the album folder but this is not the final solution (see below).

 

The next step is to open Naim Desktop Client.  (This may be the difference between the HDX and the NDX - the latter may use a different desktop interface).  You may need to prompt a rescan of the relevant share but once you've done this, the album that you've converted should be fully integrated in your library and all the details should be correct (artist, album, genre, etc).  The only thing Desktop Client won't immediately see is the cover art.  To get this, you have to go into "properties" and upload the relevant jpg or png from the album folder and then you're done.

 

I hope this helps.  Someone may have a more efficient way of getting to the same point.

Thanks very much for sharing. I will give it a go later.

Posted on: 15 March 2012 by garyi

If its music you have ripped yourself onto a nas, get the album art from google as a jpg and rename folder.jpg and stick it in the folder with the music in.