Removing Gracenote normalization?

[surebuttercringe]

So here's my dilemma: I have an 80GB 5th generation iPod. It has about 13,000 songs on it. MyLink can only use voice commands to about 8,000 songs, so when I need to find a song I have to scroll through a crazy long list and take my eyes off of the road more than I would like to. Plus, MyLink is slow in retrieving the selection and playing it.

 

I have decided to use a 16GB flash drive instead and just put my most favorite songs on it instead of trying to keep my whole collection in the truck. Problem is, that some of my album artwork doesn't show up. Since my songs are a mixture of mp3 and mp4, I thought the problem was in the tag data embedded in the file. So I downloaded a tag editor that would pull the missing artwork into the file. However, this did not solve the problem. The same files still do not show artwork.

 

Through an internet search, I found that MyLink uses Gracenote to pull in the artwork whenever a media device is plugged in or running through Bluetooth. And if the information on the file is not exactly like what Gracenote is looking for, then it won't pull in the artwork. Now, I'm pretty meticulous with my collection and it's all properly named so I don't see what the problem could be. I also read somewhere that you can turn Gracenote normalization off and it will use your embedded file information instead. But it doesn't look like I have that option in ANY menu screens.

 

Has anyone else run into this? And if you have, do you have a good solution? I'm going to play around with it some more, but at this point, I'm running out of ideas.

[cansled]

I am in the same boat. All music files have the embedded art and only some work. Even removed all tags and put them in again. No go.

[surebuttercringe]

So, I'm finding out that the ones that are showing album artwork are tagged via ID3v2.3. Anything else tagged as mp3 or mp4 is not showing artwork. Now trying to figure out how to make them all ID3 tags.

[cansled]

Try Media Monkey

 

....

ID3V2: ID3v2 tags are also used for MP3 files. They support a much greater range of metadata (information about your music files) than ID3v1, however, some information encoded in ID3v2 tags may not be readable by another application or device that only supports ID3v1. For this reason, it's often a good idea to store music data in both ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags. There are 2 versions of ID3v2 in use today ID3v2.3 and ID3v2.4. MediaMonkey takes the approach of storing most information in a manner that allows it to be read by devices/applications that support either ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4.

I have a lot wma (Windows Media Audio) and I am not sure how the data is stored for them.

[surebuttercringe]

So, I found the solution (at least for the USB files anyway). I had to convert all of the iTunes files from m4a to mp3. As soon as I did that, the tags all reverted to ID3 tags. All album art is showing up correctly on the MyLink screen. I also used Mp3tag program to get the album artwork into a larger size. Some had 100x100 pixel pictures and were real grainy on the screen. Now most of them are 500x500 with a few 300x300 exceptions.

[cansled]

What did you use to convert files?

[surebuttercringe]

Free m4a to mp3 converter 8.1

[sailor9908]

thanks for the info, now my OCD will calm down a bit

[kurtg2020]

So, I found the solution (at least for the USB files anyway). I had to convert all of the iTunes files from m4a to mp3. As soon as I did that, the tags all reverted to ID3 tags. All album art is showing up correctly on the MyLink screen. I also used Mp3tag program to get the album artwork into a larger size. Some had 100x100 pixel pictures and were real grainy on the screen. Now most of them are 500x500 with a few 300x300 exceptions.

Do you want to do mine next?

[surebuttercringe]

Well, bad news. It didn't work for everything. Still having random issues, even with the same album. Going to mess with it tonight some more. Also, volume equalization driving me nuts. Some songs loud, others soft. Gotta see if bit rate affecting this.

 

EDIT: Working now and I'm happy with everything except the volume due to the different bitrates of the songs. I would suggest keeping your cover art to 600x600 or less. I had one that is 1400x1400 and it takes awhile to load on the screens.