@tapeworm wrote:
- Make sure all your tags are ID3v2.3 ISO-88559-1 ( no UTF). The combo (ID3v1, ID3v2.3) tag is OK, but you don’t want some that are v1 & some that are the v2.3. Media Monkey may be allright, but a dedicated tagging program like MP3TAG is specifically designed to do one thing; and do it correctly. Tag music files. And it’s free.
- I would be suspicious of using Photoshop to ‘edit’ or modify the album art images. It may save the result in a format (although it may still be .jpg) that the Fuze has a problem reading (there are different versions of the .jpg format). There should be no need to modify or try to enhance these miniscule images anyway. Whatever changes you make on an image is most likely not going to be visible in it’s displayed size on the Fuze’s screen. The maximum size for any album art image should only be around 200 x 200 (or even less). Anything larger than that is only going to be reduced to the displayed size, compacting (or squeezing) the image even further, resulting in less distinction and clarity (just the opposite of what you want). Also if the image is too big, the Fuze won’t even display it at all. It’s just too big to deal with.
- Pick one name for your art files and stick with it. I have all of mine as ‘album art.jpg’. I have multiple e200 series players and they all work for me. Then the Fuze came out, and everybody said now the album art _ has _ to be labeled ‘folder.jpg’. Is there a difference and does the Fuze have a preference? I haven’t a clue. I certainly am not going to go through several hundred albums and add another ‘folder.jpg’ file to every album folder! I recently got a Fuze and haven’t honestly had a lot of time to play with it yet. I did put a few files on it and it seemed to display the ‘album art.jpg’ files fine. They may both work, but I wouldn’t have a combination of the two. I’d name them one or the other and stick with it.
- Also I wouldn’t try to ‘hedge your bet’ by having _ both _ embedded album art and a separate ‘album art.jpg’ file in each album folder. This could be causing confusion in the Fuze’s wee brain, “Which one do I look at, this one or that?” (ryhme un-intentional)
Again, one or the other; there’s no need for both. Supposedly, with the latest Firmware release, embedded album art support was added for .mp3 files, but I’ve read in the last few days that this may not be 100% fixed yet. So if you already have an ‘added’ art file in all of your album folders anyway, you may want to remove the ‘embedded’ art in the ID3tag. This is also something MP3TAG can do fo you.
EDIT: I just took a look at the sample songs that came pre-installed on my Fuze. There is an ALBUMS folder. This is different from the e200 series players. This is not the ALBUM folder I was referring to when discussing where the ‘album art.jpg’ file should be located. That would be in the MUSIC/ARTIST/ALBUM folder alongside the music files themselves.
This new ALBUMS folder is in the root directory alongside of the MUSIC, PHOTO, VIDEO, & SERVICE folders. This is a ‘hidden’ folder and contains .alb files of all the music that is loaded on the player.
I also brought these pre-installed music files up in MP3TAG. All of them were indeed the combo (ID3v1, ID3v2.3) tag and all of them had the album art ‘embedded’.
Message Edited by Tapeworm on 10-19-2008 11:45 AM
I use UTF tags and they show up fine 
What’s wrong with them anyhow? Aren’t they a better form of tags?
