Missing album covers on new Sony A15 Walkman

[seranil]

I am using a mac so can't use MediaGo. Any ideas for a easy solution to this problem. Thanks

[racingjunior]

@feline1 I have had several generations of Sony Walkman products, so I found out some years ago from a user in another Sony forum (I don't remember which). I thought this problem was solved with the A15 model, but no. I think it is strange that it is not mentioned in the user guide.

[feline1]

I was experimenting on my NW-ZX100, which also refuses to display a lot of album art unless the songs are transferred via MediaGo, and it perplexed me by displaying some progressive JPEG and PNG artwork without a problem - I am baffled as to what the exact requirements are for album art formats. 

I've asked Sony Support but haven't heard back yet. 

But the simplistic "only baseline JPEG works" is obviously not correct.

[keithmanaton]

HI If you’re using MediaGo you’re probably on Windows? Can’t help to much only the Mac heret: Had dreadful time with that with Mac, and found a couple of script providers packages which helped. I also had to check thru iTunes for art work file sizes, it doesn’t really like anything over 20mg, which makes some not very good in iTunes but…. Also it improved after the update Sony released just before Xmas. Hope that helps a bit? And yes, Sony Support were absolutely useless!! Kind regards Keith

[feline1]

Yes, I am wondering if there simply is a constraint of SIZE of the image (number of pixels).

I am indeed on Windows, and Media Go definately appears to re-size/re-compress large album art images (and converts them to baseline JPEGs - but that doesn't appear to be the key as to whether they display on the Walkman or not).

The Walkman's display isn't that big, so I guess it makes sense not to waste storage capacity with over large images, or slow performance trying to re-sample massive ones on the fly....

But if Sony would just blimmin' well tell us plainly what's supported and what isn't, it would make life a lot simpler!!

[keithmanaton]

I share your pain….. Kind regards Keith

[chbundh]

One other gripe: multiple-disc albums aren't recognized properly, so the default track sequence is 1,1; 2,2 etc. 

I would have thought that this could be addressed in the firmware.

[keithmanaton]

It just keeps on giving ... I haven't found that yet, but it has totally separated double balms when they been nice together in iTunes. Kind regards Keith Sent from my iPad

[feline1]

Er yes, chbundh, that is annoying me too, but it is nothing whatsoever to do with this thread!

I was experimenting further tonight, using Corel Paintshop Pro to make various sizes and file formats of album art, then add them to ALAC files (using iTunes or MediaMonkey), and see if the ZX100 would display them.

I simply could not get any of them to work, until I transferred the ALAC files to the walkman via Media Go, then the art displayed.  I then extracted the art back out of those files and tried to see what the difference was ...

drew a complete blank!  As far as Paintshop Pro was concerned, they were identical in file type, pixel dimensions, bit depth, colour profile, JPEG encoding...

I really am stumped...... about half my album artwork DOES work by just drag and drop though, no need for Media Go! 

I simply can't tell what is special about the files that work by themselves, and what Media Go is doing to "fix" the files that don't work.

Hopefully Sony Support will answer eventually....

[chbundh]

OK, fair point! It was just another album library issue that's detracting from an otherwise great player. 

I've added artwork of various resolutions (all in baseline .jpg); some fairly large files go on fine, and other smaller ones just don't. I'm using JRiver Media Center 20 on a Mac; the settings are such that AIFF files are automatically transferred as FLAC. The vast majority of the covers display fine, but every so often I'll put new things on and see the blank 'W'. My solution so far has been to download or scan in new JPEG files.

[-erdie-]

Since the lasr firmware update most of my album art has been displayed. I have looked at the settings and properties to find out why some cover art is not displayed, but it just seems to be some random issue.