Zune Embedded Cover Art Support

[wangfuco]

I have been using this software to copy songs to Zune. So far, the file transfer and metadata creation works really well, but the cover art embedded in the file ends up missing in the Zune device. I have made a workaround to make this work:

• Use a script to extract the cover art from the music file, and put both files in a unique folder.
• In the end, the number of folders equals the number of songs.
• Then I drag all folders into this software. Cover art is now synced into Zune.

Although this works for me for now, I do wish that I do not need this workaround and that embedded cover art support becomes native.

[whoozle]

You mean, cover embedded in mp3 file?
Is there any publicly available example I can try? (or if it's not copyrighted, you can post it here or somewhere else)

[wangfuco]

#!/bin/bash

# Check if necessary tools are installed
if ! command -v ffmpeg &> /dev/null || ! command -v id3v2 &> /dev/null; then
    echo "Please install ffmpeg and id3v2 before running this script."
    exit 1
fi

# Create a directory to store sorted MP3 files
sorted_dir="Sorted_MP3"
mkdir -p "$sorted_dir"

album_enum=0
# Loop through each MP3 file in the current directory
for mp3_file in *.mp3; do
    # Check if it's a file (not a directory)
    if [ -f "$mp3_file" ]; then
        # Extract album name from MP3 metadata
        album=$(id3v2 -l "$mp3_file" | grep "TALB" | cut -d ":" -f 2 | tr -d '[:space:]')

        # Create a directory for the album (if it doesn't exist)
        # album_dir="$sorted_dir/$album"
        album_dir="$sorted_dir/$album_enum"
        album_enum=$((album_enum+1))
        mkdir -p "$album_dir"

        # Copy the MP3 file to the album directory
        cp "$mp3_file" "$album_dir/"

        # Extract album cover to the album directory
        ffmpeg -i "$album_dir/$mp3_file" "$album_dir/cover.jpg"
    fi
done

echo "Sorting and cover extraction complete!"

This is the pre-processing script I use. It basically puts every mp3 file and their cover in unique folders. I simply use an incrementing number for the folder name.

[whoozle]

Sorry I was asking for mp3 file example 🙈

[wangfuco]

Sure, I got a copyright-free song from https://pixabay.com/music/search/no%20copyright%20music/ and added some random cover art.

output.mp3.zip

[wangfuco]

Just checking, is there any update on this?

[whoozle]

why do you expect any updates? 😄
This is not my job or anything, I do it for fun when I have some time to spare.

[whoozle]

I've actually found my old Zunes and thanks goodness they are working!

I've added picture stuff to metadata and it appears to be working now, if you build it yourself please pull.
Currently taglib2.x is only available for MacOSX builds, because Linux builder uses Ubuntu 22.04.

Although I think I should update it to 24.04/qt6

[wangfuco]

Thanks for making this happen! This means a lot to fellow Zune users still depending on specified versions of pirated zune software on windows OS.

I just verified the functionality of this and bought you a coffee. Look forward to the next release!

[whoozle]

nws, i'm glad to help!
Making Zune working was an amazing journey and there's a lot of people still using it, and it's very painful because all infrastructure and software is essentially gone by now.

My understanding that the biggest unsolved problem is when you do factory reset - firmware can be erased as well, and you can't really update it without patching host file pointing it to https://www.zuneupdate.com/ and use some outdated unsupported software to do it.

Do you know if anyone reversed engineered any of the protocol/update sequence etc?

However it looks that after factory reset zune is still working in MTP mode, but with limited commands/etc.
I don't mind adding some zune specific commands to cli like "zune-firmware-update" or whatnot

[wangfuco]

As for the firmware flash, I think the preferred method these days involves dealing with the zune hard drive directly. A cleaner and less fragile method than depending on legacy software I guess...

[whoozle]

I've managed to add it to UI/cli, see instructions in README 🎉