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General => MusicBee Wishlist => Topic started by: ma_t14 on July 23, 2013, 05:56:27 PM

Title: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: ma_t14 on July 23, 2013, 05:56:27 PM
It seems that by default all artist thumbnails in artwork view are of low quality when first populated. This doesn't look very good on bigger monitors where you might want the thumbnails to appear bigger.

I'm not sure why the thumbs are of so low quality but if I had to guess it might have something to do with performance while scrolling or time needed to populate.

If scrolling performance is not affected by the quality of the thumbs after they are populated I suggest to provide an option to automatically download high quality thumbs instead of low quality ones.

Fanart.tv (which is already supported for album covers) is the perfect website for this task in my opinion since it has artist thumbnails for the majority artists and most of the times the most downloaded thumb is also the best looking.

I think of this feature as an automated single function process. Just download the most downloaded artist thumb from fanart.tv for each and every single artist.

I know you can change the artist thumbs manually but it would take forever for a large library and hence having this kinda of functionality would make things so much easier. Please correct me if there is indeed an easy way to accomplish this.

Steven what do you think? Would something like this be easy to implement?

I imagine that there are more people with big monitors, like me, who wish to have higher quality artwork instead of the current low-quality ones. So voice your opinion people!  :)
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Iasc on July 23, 2013, 06:21:58 PM
+100 for me.

this has been asked for before and i think the reason the thumbs are low quality is because music bee only uses last.fm. it would be great if music bee searched fanart.tv before searching last.fm
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on July 23, 2013, 06:31:10 PM
Yeah, it was discussed in greater length here: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=7441

+1 from me (again)
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: dgbx on July 23, 2013, 07:12:01 PM
+1
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on July 23, 2013, 10:01:41 PM
i will have a look at this but one problem with fanart.tv is they use a musicbrainz id in the query, so that means musicbee needs to a search of music brainz first and then query fanart.tv. As well as making it slower it also makes it less reliable. Then the actual image is very large to download.
But i realise this is a popular wishlist request
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on July 23, 2013, 10:30:26 PM
Yeah, I've seen how that occasionally causes trouble with album art.  Is there any way for MusicBee to use the Musicbrainz artist ID from tags, if it's in our files?  Most of mine have Musicbrainz artist IDs, release IDs, etc.
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: outlander on July 28, 2013, 03:22:14 PM
+1
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 09:49:06 AM
this is done for the next update.
it now retrieves artist thumb pictures from theaudiodb.com and fanart.tv
for fanart.tv, if your file has a musicbrainz artist id it will use that id to lookup the artist
additionally you can put your own thumb pictures in the Thumb sub-folder of your artist pictures folder

i will make the link available later today
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 11:19:05 AM
Hello, Steven,

Looking forward to the update. However, I thought we could already add our own artist thumbnails: I've just done that for the first time. Do you mean that the process will be more straight-forward from now on?

Thanks,

David
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 12:08:41 PM
it would paste to the new ThumbNail folder rather than embeding in the music file and wouldnt show the Save Picture dialog
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 12:14:06 PM
What I did before was basically to get a JPEG file, rename it with the name of an artist and place it in the ArtistThumb folder (in the appropriate subfolder acccording to the first letter of the artist name).

You've just mentioned things I'm not familiar with. I don't quite get when you say that, so far, the artist thumbmail is embedded in the MP3 file. I thought the artist thumbnail was just in the ArtistThumb folder, but not embedding anywhere...
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 12:36:32 PM
seems you know too much about the system for your own good!
thats the artist picture cache and its a bad idea to be pasting artwork directly in there. Up until now the artist pictures cache only gets reset if you explity do that from one of the menu commands. Going forward it will get reset automatically in certain circumstances and you would lose the picture. I suggest you take a copy of the pictures you want to keep.

Now when you right click on a artist picture the "Paste Artwork" menu item will do what i described above. Previously that menu item was only visible if you had a picture copied in the windows clipboard
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 12:53:40 PM
I wasn't dealing with the folder ArtistCache, but with ArtistThumb.

In any case, the new behaviour seems like it'll do what I did before: to copy a JPEG file in the subfolder with the first letter of the artist name. It'll be easier, though, to do it through MB, and I'll make sure I keep a backup copy.

I'll wait for the update to see how it works.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 12:57:07 PM
ArtistThumb is the internal MB cache for the artist thumb pictures displayed in the artwork layout.
everything i said above stands
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: ma_t14 on August 03, 2013, 01:20:57 PM
seems you know too much about the system for your own good!
thats the artist picture cache and its a bad idea to be pasting artwork directly in there. Up until now the artist pictures cache only gets reset if you explity do that from one of the menu commands. Going forward it will get reset automatically in certain circumstances and you would lose the picture. I suggest you take a copy of the pictures you want to keep.

Now when you right click on a artist picture the "Paste Artwork" menu item will do what i described above. Previously that menu item was only visible if you had a picture copied in the windows clipboard

Oops, that's what I was doing as well for artists that were missing pictures. I had no idea that the "paste artwork" menu was there.

Anyway, a huge thank you for implementing this!  :)
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 01:55:21 PM
this has the change:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: ma_t14 on August 03, 2013, 02:10:53 PM
How do I take advantage of the new change? Resetting the cache seems to be doing nothing for me  :-\
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on August 03, 2013, 02:11:53 PM
Hmm, yes.  Testing it now, and most artists are showing no picture at all.  Is there something I can do to troubleshoot?
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: ma_t14 on August 03, 2013, 02:16:41 PM
I deleted the artistthumb folder and restarted MusicBee. Artwork has started to generate right now and it seems that the majority are high quality.

Where can i find the paste artwork option though?
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: ma_t14 on August 03, 2013, 02:43:59 PM
Something is terribly wrong. Many artists have wrong labels in artwork view unless you drill down to view it's tracks.

Video: http://screencast.com/t/qvPmPq77mnT
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 03:03:50 PM
Something is terribly wrong. Many artists have wrong labels in artwork view unless you drill down to view it's tracks.
does that correct itself on the next restart?
dont worry i can reproduce this - the link below should fix it

Hmm, yes.  Testing it now, and most artists are showing no picture at all.  Is there something I can do to troubleshoot?
i dont know why that would happen if you just ran musicbee without deleting any folders before hand.
can you delete the Thumb sub-folder of your personal artist pictures location (by default in the "Artist Pictures" folder of your music library)
and then try again using:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on August 03, 2013, 03:37:14 PM
i dont know why that would happen if you just ran musicbee without deleting any folders before hand.
can you delete the Thumb sub-folder of your personal artist pictures location (by default in the "Artist Pictures" folder of your music library)
and then try again

I won't be able to test on the same computer until this evening, but my portable install is behaving correctly (and looking really good!) after deleting the artwork folders in the AppData folder, with this update.  It didn't even create the Thumb folder until the old thumbnails were deleted, though.

Edit: Yup, very nice work!  Thumbs up!  (Pun intended after the fact.)
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 03:44:11 PM
anyone reading this topic, there should be no need  to (and you shouldnt) delete any folders in the AppData folder.
Just let musicbee run and the first time it runs, it will automatically refresh using higher resolution pictures where available - there was a bug where it didnt automatically do this in some cases but that should be fixed
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on August 03, 2013, 03:47:01 PM
Hmm, strange.  Maybe it just needed another restart, then.  But it was showing me all the old last.fm thumbnails the first time I ran it.
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 05:25:26 PM
I can't find the option to manually change the thumbail. I right click on a particular artist and I don't know what else to do.

Other than that, most of the pictures seem to have higher resolution now.
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 05:37:22 PM
Also, I'd like to make a suggestion.

I'd like to start by saying that I only use the Artist tag (not the Band the or the Album Artist tag), and there are cases where I have two or more artists or composers on this tag because a particular album is made by two or more people (it's a collaboration). I'm thinking about the soundtrack from The aristocats, for example, by George Bruns and The Sherman Brothers.

So, would it be possible, if the name is not found (as in this case, where the Artist tag is "George Bruns & Sherman Brothers"), for MB to look for an approximation of the name (and in this case, I'm thinking about the first part of the tag, i.e. "George Bruns").

I hope this idea sounds good and can be implemented easily! Thanks!
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 05:42:05 PM
I can't find the option to manually change the thumbail. I right click on a particular artist and I don't know what else to do.
right click on the picture
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 06:09:27 PM
Here's a caption to show that I can't find it:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17615125/foros/Musicbee/artist_thumbail.png
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 03, 2013, 06:12:22 PM
its the "Paste Artwork" option. Its not enabled because you have no picture copied in the windows clipboard
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: vivadavid on August 03, 2013, 06:18:00 PM
You're right: I hadn't copied anything. Thanks!!

About what I suggested earlier: does it make any sense to you?
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: psychoadept on August 04, 2013, 02:32:51 AM
My standard installation is working now, except (I noticed this with the portable, too, just didn't have time to test it) the artwork view loads to a certain point and then stops loading new images until I restart MB.  I haven't seen any pattern yet - sometimes it's a whole bunch of images, sometimes it's just a few.

Also, sort of a tangent, but Artwork view is not holding its spot after restarting.  It always returns to the top.

Hmm, worked the last time.  Maybe related to why the loading stops, some setting wasn't being saved because things were stuck?
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 04, 2013, 08:37:53 AM
i have seen that myself - one of the source websites occasionally locks up and so it waits until timeout. For musicbrainz is 40 seconds so I will reduce that timeout for id lookup's
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: SimonBRT on August 04, 2013, 01:25:41 PM
this is a fantastic addition. i stopped using the artist thumbnails long ago because the last.fm ones were so poor.  its great to be able to use them again.  also want to mention the excellent work on making speed improvements to the artwork view lately.  on my system at least there is a very noticeable improvement. thanks!
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 04, 2013, 02:44:42 PM
this has the reduced timeout:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: SimonBRT on August 05, 2013, 09:57:07 PM
is there some way to force MB to restart the artist artwork search?  i currently have hi-res pics for the majority of the artists in my library approx. A-J but none from K onward.  I have tried resetting the artwork cache from the file menu, and MB has been restarted many times since using last updates on this thread.  Also tried resizing artwork, with and without 'fit to panel' selected.  nothing seems to trigger the hi-res artwork search again?  i have also begun uploading hi-res thumbs to fanart.tv for the artists from my collection that it is missing and would like these to be found by MB...
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 06, 2013, 07:13:54 AM
this increases the artwork layout drawing speed a bit and perhaps for some machines quite a bit:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip

also it hopefully resolves the locking issue
and lastly it now additionally includes htbackdrops.org for artist thumb pictures

@SimonBRT
i will come up with an automated approach but if you want to reset the last.fm pictures, delete the AppData\ArtistThumb folder
if you also want to reset all artist thumbs including the high quality ones, delete the Thumb sub-folder of the artist pictures folder configured in Tags(2) preferences
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: SimonBRT on August 06, 2013, 08:57:19 PM
@SimonBRT
i will come up with an automated approach but if you want to reset the last.fm pictures, delete the AppData\ArtistThumb folder
if you also want to reset all artist thumbs including the high quality ones, delete the Thumb sub-folder of the artist pictures folder configured in Tags(2) preferences
Thanks Steven.  Deleted those 2 folders and the newest version has busily fetched new pics for all artists.  I would say at least 75% of all 400 or so artists in my library now have hi-res pics, it looks fantastic!  really loving this addition.  I think I will work on adding more pics to fanart.tv as MB has successfully added the first batch that I had approved by the site...
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: Steven on August 06, 2013, 10:10:12 PM
reseting the artwork cache should now remove the last.fm pictures:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V2_2/MusicBee_Exe_Patched.zip
Title: Re: Functionality for higher quality artist thumbnails in artwork view
Post by: joejoe on August 24, 2013, 07:19:25 AM
This is a great addition, it really improves the artwork view. Thank you ;D