[HarryF]

Hello everyone,

after a few years of using Mediaportal for my Media-PC I'd like to switch - for several reasons - to XBMC/Kodi. First I thought to use the Kodi Linux distribution (I prefer to use open source where it's possible) but I often watch commercial Blu-ray movies and as far as I know there's no Linux support for commercial Blu-ray encryption. So I decided to install Kodi with Windows 7 Professional.

Now I want to have some functionality and views from Mediaportal also in Kodi. Most of this I was able to realize and many functions are much better than in Mediaportal. But one point of my list I couldn't realize:

How can I insert the artist thumbnails of my huge music library (65.000 songs)?
In Mediaportal I have a thumbnail for nearly each artist and a placeholder where no image is available. Is there any easy way to use these images in Kodi? I looked through the add-ons but wasn't sure if there's one I can use for this case. I also read the Wiki entry for the .nfo files but didn't understand how they work and where to store them (try 'n' error did not help). I don't want to use online scrapers because I'd like to store the information of artist and albums manually.

I'd appreciate if someone could help me.

Regards
Harry

[BatterPudding]

An artist thumbnail can be dropped into the artist folder and named folder.jpg.

D:\MUSIC\Pink Floyd\folder.jpg

Just like you would put a "folder.jpg" in as an image for your album cover.

No need for an NFO. That folder.jpg automatically overrides the only source.

http://kodi.wiki/view/Adding_music_to_th...thumbnails

Just noticed the Wiki page doesn't say this. It is probably typed in a white font on a white background...

[HarryF]

Hi,

thanks for you reply. I did what you mentioned but in a first step nothing changed. The thumbnails didn't appear. So I deleted the database ran a new scan and then the images appeared (also the fanart.jpg). That was great but...

1. ...when I later add folder.jpg files to other artist folders they are not shown. A simple refresh of the database doesn't help. I guess I don't have to do initial scans of the database every time I add images for artists. But how can I manage to see the images without a complete new scan?
2. ...what about the artists on sampler albums? Is there any way to show their thumbnails, too?

Thanks for further help.
Harry

[BatterPudding]

You should not have to delete the database to do a new scan. Just a rescan should pick it up.

Or when on the Artists page, right click and "Query info for all artists".

Ah... have just played with this and see it is suffering from being ignored as there is no "new" album for the scraper to see. To speed up the scrapers, they tend to skip albums and artists already in the database. So there is a deeper trick to pull. Toggle the scraper.

Go into MUSIC \ FILES where your sources are listed.
Delete and the source - but do NOT remove the files
Then re-add your source.

OK.... so that doesn't work either. Grrr...


Now this is easy if you have artists that TheAudioDB.com knows about as you can Right Click an artist and select the Artist Information. In there the Get Thumb button will let you pick your artwork.

But when the artist isn't in TheAudioDB.com KODI can get into a mad glitch at times and won't let you see the Artist Information page.


So my trick is this one.

On the media server, drag the troubled artist outside of the share so KODI can't see it.
Tell KODI to Clean Library
Drag troubled artist back into correct folder
Tell KODI to scan. It will now perform that full scan of that artist and put them back in, this time with the artwork.

I think it is also enough to add a new album to the artist folder.


With a Sampler Album, which thumbnails are you trying to show? Funnily enough when trying to get the above to work I am messing with an old EMI Sampler.

[HarryF]

Hi,

you seem to try everything to help me . Thanks a lot for this.

Now this is easy if you have artists that TheAudioDB.com knows about as you can Right Click an artist and select the Artist Information. In there the Get Thumb button will let you pick your artwork.

But when the artist isn't in TheAudioDB.com KODI can get into a mad glitch at times and won't let you see the Artist Information page.

That was the way I tried first with the same experience. Unfortunately I have a lot of Creative Commons music which is not in TheAudioDB.

With a Sampler Album, which thumbnails are you trying to show? Funnily enough when trying to get the above to work I am messing with an old EMI Sampler.

When I open "Music" >> "Artists" I see all artists including the ones who are only on sampler albums. In Mediaportal it's so easy to add thumbnails. You only have to copy an image with the artist name as file name in a special folder and MP will show it as thumbnail. I remember that it should also possible in Kodi but I can't remember where I read about it (and it didn't work as I tried).

But I think I forget about it at the moment. Kodi seems to be a lot more complicated to realize what I want. Maybe one day I find a way.

Thank you very much for your help. If you find out anything more, let me know.

Harry