New: Windows Media Audio v2 (MTP, PlaysForSure) plugin

[EricB]

For a file uploaded with MediaAudio2, when checked in Explorer using RMB/Properties, I see that property Original Filename is listed as 01. Once.mp3; property Title is listed as 01. Once (without extension). This clearly differences from file uploaded using MediaAudio1, where Title only contains Once.
When checking track details on the player itself, MediaAudio1 Title is Once, and MediaAudio2 Title is 01. Once.mp3

It looks like the player somehow reverts to the original filename as Title when original filename exactly matches the Title field (without extension). Odd.... Still it seems the property Title is incorrectly fed by MediaAudio2 when uploading. I checked if maybe the use of a dot as separator between track number and title in the file name was the problem. However when I use a minus instead, I see same behaviour: property Original Filename is listed as 01 - Once.mp3; property Title is listed as 01 - Once (without extension).

Regards, EricB

[wenntel]

Tested the plugin on a Sony HD video-camera. Although the camera does show as a drive letter I tested it anyway. It seems to work fine but I noticed some issues that I would like to mention, just in case it is relevant:

1. File-times are 1 hour behind when viewing files by using the plugin. When accessing by drive-letter the file-times are ok.
2. Plugin also doesn't show any file-attributes
3. When accessing camera using plugin, one has to enter the drive letter twice.
\\\MediaAudio2\J:\J:\AVCHD
This seems odd but probably it's by design....

[wenntel]

Interesting:
When first having a sony video-camera connect to PC and then secondly connecting a samsung galaxy smartphone leads to an issue:

What used to be
\\\MediaAudio2\J: (driveletter for the video internal memory)

Is now:
\\\MediaAudio2\\\?\wpdbusenumroot#umb#2&37c186b&0&storage#volume#_??_usbstor#disk&ven_sony&prod_cam.....(etc, etc)
\\\MediaAudio2\GT-I9100

The phone is accessible, the videocamera not.
When removing the phone, the name of the videocamera returns to normal (J:)

[petermad]

Sounds like the same as this report: http://ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=237702#237702 - that attaching more than one device makes the folder name of one of them "unreadable" and unaccessible.

[ghisler(Author)]

The plugin has been updated to version 0.7, please download it from the first post.

What's new:
1. The plugin didn't return the "friendly name" when more than once device was connected at the same time, resulting in very long device names.
2. I'm trying to upload the cover art now if it's stored inside the mp3 or wma file. Unfortunately I could test this only partially, because my player does not display any cover art. Please check whether that works with your player. If not, the plugin should report an error in the log window like "Album art skipped (not supported by this device). Supported streams: data".
3. I'm now setting the field OBJECT_NAME of uploaded audio files to the music title instead of the file name

File-times are 1 hour behind

Unfortunately some devices seem to report local time instead of UTC (world standard time). There seems to be no way to find out which one is returned by a device.

Plugin also doesn't show any file-attributes

File attributes are currently not supported.

When accessing camera using plugin, one has to enter the drive letter twice.

Yes, some devices seem to report this, TC just displays what the device reports.

[petermad]

20111230 Fixed: The plugin didn't return the "friendly name" when more than 1 device was connected at the same time

Fix confirmed with Memory card reader and USB-connected Canon PowerShot A490 camera under Windows 7 x64


None of these devices turns up under Windows XP 32bit with this plugin.

[EricB]

3. I'm now setting the field OBJECT_NAME of uploaded audio files to the music title instead of the file name

That did the trick! I now get the title as one would expect it. Good work, Christian. I'll test embedded Album Art later, but that will be next year

Regards, EricB

[ghisler(Author)]

Great, thanks for your feedback! Btw, if you don't have any mp3 files with album art inside, you can use mp3ext to add it:
http://www.mutschler.de/mp3ext/

[EricB]

I've tested now with both WMA and MP3 with embedded Album Art (I used MP3Tag), but this did not work for my player (Creative Zen). Plugin reported that album art was skipped, because it is not supported by the player. Folder.jpg or the likes, that are copied, are completely ignored as well by the player (transferred, but not displayed).
I've dusted off the Creative software for transferring music, and this works (but awkwardly). When files with album art inside are transferred to the player by this software, some internal reference is made (a zero-byte .alb file) which enables to show the picture during playing/browsing. Maybe this is a non-standard method? The software seems to rely on the presence of WMP.
However, same problem as with MediaAudio1 in the past: no album art is transferred. Maybe more modern (or more standard) players will work?

Regards, EricB

[ghisler(Author)]

2EricB
Two questions:
1. What's the exact message shown by my plugin in the log? It should list the supported stream types. If your player only supports the "data" stream, it's not possible to upload the album art.

2. When you browse the player with Explorer, and then upload an mp3 by dragging it from Total Commander to that Explorer window, does the album art get uploaded?

[EricB]

2Ghisler,

1. Message is: Album art skipped (not supported by this device). Supported streams: data
2. No album art displayed, although it is embedded

MP3Ext does not function on my Windows 7 x64, otherwise I could check if the embedded art is really present on the player. I will have to check on a x32 system. I suspect it is there, though, since a compare using MediaAudio2 between a file on the player and the original on harddisk shows no differences. I know that the player file is actually downloaded to temp before comparing, but how would it know where to pick up removed album art?

The player can display album art, but I strongly suspect it can only do this after upload using the Creative software (and maybe WMP), so it seems a non-standard method / workaround is used.

I will repeat these checks on my x32 system tonight and also try if WMP is able to upload album art. If I remember correctly this was possible using WMP (tested that during your development of MediaAudio1). If the latter is true, WPD library might be able to do the same.

Regards, EricB

[EricB]

Well, MP3Ext is indeed working on my local HD under Win 7x32 HP. It is not working when browsing the player, either using Explorer or CM_Opendrives. This is probably a limitation of USB connected devices.

WMP is able to synchronize with my player and surprise: album art is now displayed for uploaded songs! WMP also creates a zero-byte .alb file on the player in a special root folder called Albums, just as the Creative software does. And more important: album art does not have to be embedded in the file, only a folder.jpg needs to be present. When synchronizing WMP does not embed the album art in a file. Checked this by copying back a WMP synchronized file either using Explorer or MediaAudio2; in both cases no album art was embedded.

So conclusion is that it is possible to copy album art to the player, but it is not known which functions are used for that. It probably depends on the library function within WMP, which is also used by the Creative software. I don't know if this is supported by WPD.

Regards, EricB

[ghisler(Author)]

1. Message is: Album art skipped (not supported by this device). Supported streams: data

This means that your device does not support album art in separate streams.

only a folder.jpg needs to be present

Is it sufficient to copy any jpg file to the device with my plugin, and name it folder.jpg? Does the player display it then?

[EricB]

Is it sufficient to copy any jpg file to the device with my plugin, and name it folder.jpg? Does the player display it then?

Unfortunately not, I've tried that already. It seems that WMP or Creative software does some 'magic' in order to display the album art. I just don't know what is done.

It seems we are at the same point as 3 years ago, when we had a similar discussion during MediaAudio1 development...

Regards, EricB

[ghisler(Author)]

Stragely it does work with some players with MediaAudio 1. Unfortunately there is no documentation on how to upload album art as separate files.