How do you get Cover Art on XLD?

testsound · « **on:** 13 Sep 2020, 07:36 am »

I found out that, in order to get Cover Art for the CDs that I want to rip using XLD, I need to provide Access Key and Secret Key from AWS (Amazon Web Service). So I did create an AWS account, and downloaded the Excel file that has the Access Key and Secret Key, and put the Key in the blanks in Preferences. However when I click on "No Image" where the cover art should be, it says "Parse error: The operation co..."

When I searched the problem, I found this:

A comment from 2016 says: "Recently AWS changed their policy and they don't accept query which only have access key and secret key. In addition to two keys now Amazon associate ID (associated with the keys) is mandatory, and current version of XLD doesn't have an interface to enter the ID. So simply the feature doesn't work for all users at the moment." https://sourceforge.net/p/xld/tickets/367/

A comment from 2019 says:

I will followup my last post with a solution.

Like in the first comment was written by @tmkk - the AWS policy and guidelines changed, and now changed again to AWS API Verison 5.0. I use the api also in other tools and after a long trial & error all works fine now.

So please read the AWS docs and follow the instructions, how to transfer you current API account:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/becomingDev.html

After that create a new API key (max 2 allowed for free) and the read carefully the "Efficiency Guidelines" because Amazon limited the free access to the API (for eample request-limits or performance within the last 30days etc.):
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/TroubleshootingApplications.html#efficiency-guidelines

When you observe all points in the guidelines the API works fine after some days and XLD find covers like before.

Hope that helps,
Sven

But when I clicked on the links in that 2019 comment, the links were broken.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 Sep 2020, 04:18 pm »

I use Metadatics for all my tagging. It has a built in artwork find function that searches amazon and/or google. XLD is a little sparse in this function. I just search the album under 'images' and paste it in if XLD or Metadatics can't find it. I try to keep my covers 500x500 or a little larger.

testsound · « **Reply #2 on:** 14 Sep 2020, 06:54 pm »

Will Metadatics get Cover Art for WAV files too?

I think I read somewhere that they don't recommend WAV because you can't get metadata for it unlike AIFF or lossless FLAC? Is that true?

As for AIFF, I thought it can't be played on Android phones but it seems like it can be played on Android for most music apps? Even if it does, I heard that AIFF sounds not as good as WAV, is that true? If that's true, can you convert AIFF to WAV to make it sound better or does only the initial format matter for sound quality, and converting won't make it better?

testsound · « **Reply #3 on:** 14 Sep 2020, 07:22 pm »

I downloaded Metadatics, but I'm not sure how to use it.

Are you supposed to run it after or before ripping on XLD?

testsound · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 06:32 am »

For Metadatics, are you supposed to look for the artwork by yourself and then drop it in the app?

(I was looking for a solution where it automatically searches it and drops it for you; that's how dBpoweramp worked, but the trial expired.)

testsound · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Sep 2020, 06:36 am »

For Metadatics, I found a button that does "Online Album Artwork Search", where I have put in the album title and artist, but is there a way to make it automatically inputs the name of the album and artist when I run it while the CD is in the drive?

(I was looking for a solution where it automatically searches it and inserts the image for you; that's how dBpoweramp worked, but the trial expired.)

testsound · « **Reply #6 on:** 16 Sep 2020, 03:43 am »

When I click on "Online Album Artwork Search", it just goes spinning without actually finding anything.

yioryos · « **Reply #7 on:** 17 Nov 2020, 03:50 pm »

I use XLD a lot to rip my cd's. In most cases when I insert a cd , XLD finds the cover art automatically. When not (and it does happen ) I manually insert the cover art . Here how I do it.
I go to Discogs and search for the cd title ,then I download the image on my desktop . I then go to XLD page on top left corner and click in the missing image window ,a dialogue window pops up asking to search for a file ,I then copy paste the downloaded image file. It's simple and works every time .
George