Well, I stepped up and bought a BS5 over the weekend and now I need to get my music in order.

I'm coming from a BeoPort setup where I never cared about cover art because my BS9000 didn't show it .  Much of my music is on a Mac.  Some of this I'll be re-ripping as lossless WMA, most I will probably handle incrementally (I'll re-rip if/when I notice the compression). 

When I rip an album via BeoPlayer, where is the cover art stored?  What about iTunes?  What about WMP?  I've looked around for .jpg files and I don't see any...

If one does a bulk copy of music from Mac or Windows (via Finder or Windows) what must I do to make sure the cover art comes along with it?

Any pointers from those who have done this before?  (I recall there was a pretty good summary posted a while back by Mr10Percent (I think), but I cannot find it - does anybody else get frustrated by the search capabilities of this site?).

Thanks in advance,

Stan

PS - Does anybody know how to convert an AIFF into lossless WMA?  It seems like WMP should be able to do this, but I cannot figure out how.  I've looked at conversion software on the web, but a lot of this doesn't seem to support lossless WMA (at least the free download versions do not support it).

Stan,

Your situation and approach is almost identical to mine. I just finished TODAY replacing all of the low-res cover art on my 14,000 song library with hi-res cover art. This took me over a month of long, tedious work. I, too, am a Mac user. 

When you import your iTunes library to the BM5/BS5 via BeoConnect (the software for the Mac), the embedded art will automatically stay with the tracks. However, you will be shocked at how HORRIBLE the default cover art that iTunes fetches looks on your BS5. This is not something that we notice in iTunes or on a small iPod screen. Sadly, nearly ALL of your cover art will need to be replaced. The exception to this is music purchased through the iTunes music store, which is often 600 x 600 dpi.

You will want to replace your cover art with 500 x 500 or high resolution if possible. If you do this editing in iTunes prior to the transfer via BeoConnect, that is great. If you do it after the transfer, the only way to edit the content on the BM5/BS5 is from Windows mode using the BeoPlayer software on Windows. I know...windows...ugh. The BeoPlayer software is really ideally suited to doing this post-transfer editing. The program will scan the BM5 and will show all of the content, meta data, and cover art well-organized. Then, from the Album view mode, you right click on the album and select "remove cover." BeoPlayer will remotely strip the cover art from the music of that album on the BM5/BS5. Sadly, the computer takes quite some time to do this. Usually several minutes per album. After the cover art has been stripped, you can then drag and drop your new cover art jpg file to that album. The embedding of cover art goes much faster than the stripping.

I found that the best strategy is to create a folder on your hard drive to store the cover art jpg files until you are ready to embed them. This way, you have a way to easily search to see what the resolution is of any given cover art later. As you gain practice will searching for high-resolution cover art, you will find that you become more and more skilled at finding higher and higher resolutions. You will likely want to go back and replace some cover art later.

I found that the best place to search first for higher resolution cover art is Amazon. Most newer music and certainly all music available as mp3 download on Amazon is in 500 x 500 dpi. However, you'll find that quite a lot of music has less than 500 x 500 dpi cover art. For those, be sure to check the "see all customer images" underneath the cover art if that option is available. Very often, people will upload their own 500 x 500 dpi cover art in that area. It seems that 500 x 500 is the limit on Amazon. Some other sites can offer around 600 x 600 cover art. When you are having trouble finding good cover art, you might try googling "[the name of the album] images" or "[the name of the album] cd images."

There is no way to convert Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless. However, iTunes can do the reverse and convert WMA Lossless to Apple Lossless. Therefore, I am re-ripping music in Windows mode to WMA Lossless. Once I am finished, I can let iTunes batch-convert all of the WMA Lossless to Apple Lossless for my Mac. Like you, I have taking my time and just re-ripping chosen favorites whenever I have the time. 

Good luck!

P.S. I should add that when BeoPlayer creates its initial database of the music and cover art from the BeoMaster 5, this could take a few hours before anything appears on BeoPlayer on your computer. During this time, just leave the computer alone and leave for work or to run errands. It will drive you crazy checking back to see if anything appears! Also, BeoPlayer will be horribly sluggish and unresponsive during that time. This time period is ON TOP OF the several DAYS that BeoSound 5 will take after importing music to analyze MOTS.

You could also try www.albumart.org i have found many of my coverart in 500x500 there.

I connect to my BM5 with my pc and manage all my music and art directly in the folders on the BM5. I rip the music using WMP then replace the coverart as i go.

Hope this is of some help too 

or you simply scan your CD covers with a desktop scanner like I'm doing it. This is realy high resolution and looks perfect! Yes, it takes time to scan, resize etc. the covers but its worth it. I don't spend that money on a Beosound 5 to accept crappy lowres cover art on the display :-)

Thanks for the information.  This is very helpful. 

Just to make sure I understand correctly, the cover art that BeoPlayer brings down (and most of what iTunes provides) will look bad on the BS5 screen.  It's not just a concern if you have it connected to a TV (which I will not), correct?

Still looking for that AIFF to WMA lossless converter...  or, worst case, a WAV to WMA converter... windows is fine as I have both windows and mac - it doesn't have to be free.  I suppose worst, worst case, I could do AIFF -> CD -> WMA lossless, but yuck!  I have many LPs recorded as AIFF (some which I converted to Apple Lossless, but iTunes can take these back to AIFF).  I just can't believe WMP cannot do this - it seems to only allow ripping from a CD...

Also, has anybody noticed consistent volume differences between MP3 and lossless WMA.  That is, my BS2 consistently plays WMAs louder than MP3s.  This wasn't much to bother about, and I eventually converted almost everything to MP3 as I didn't have that many WMAs.  The varying loudness of CDs is bad enough without compression formats also adding to the mix.  I'm goinig to run some tests on my laptop, but was hoping to hear others experience as well.

Stan

1.

most of my music downloaded in itunes on my mac can't be played apparently...

the itunes downloads were done using the mp3 encoder option but they were actually ended up in the m4p or m4a format. the bs5 only plays pure mp3 not derivatives like m4p or m4a...

damn, does that mean i have to download all my music again???

 

2.

DRM mp3 won't play in the Bs5 so i guess i will have to buy those again?

 

According to this thread, some iTunes non-mp3 content can be played:

http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/t/26922.aspx

You can burn DRM mp3s to a CD, then re-rip as MP3.  Yes, this is a pain.  I've done it for my BS3 and BS2 where metadata isn't an issue.  Luckily, I've only bought a handful of music from iTunes.