The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

@train_nerd  add it where? How, there is no display.. or do you mean on some controllers that show track information minus album art? That would be a nice to have, but not a must have.

I agree - @Ryan S - it is vitally important to get this more right than ever achieved till now by Sonos. And for it to be complete.

As to when this is done - it may be March, it could be July - what is just as important is to have enough time after this information sharing but before the legacy lock out: for as many users as possible to digest it properly. Also, to disseminate this as widely/expensively as Sonos does every time it launches the next version of bestest and greatest since sliced bread. And make sure that there are enough Sonos resources that understand this information package themselves, to promptly/correctly answer questions at all Sonos touch points; and for this community touch point, not to rely as much as you usually do on experienced users to do this for you. Or to say for all other touch points - this the best that can be expected of first level touch points. To use that fall back for this event will amount to being criminally negligent.

Also, what happens in this scenario - some one takes no updates action on his system that has legacy products, by ignorance of having to do this or for any other reason, and also does not inadvertently do so, for so many days after “May” that when he does this, there have been further versions released for modern products? Another convolution among many to bake into the transition process workflow I reckon.

Yep, album art on controller/mini. Wistful...agree nice to have; MUCH rather have security fixes. Common practice here to run controller on PC or MacMini wired to large screen TV viewing what’s playing. It’s regular guest question (Hey, what is that music?) when playlist/streaming listening (22K songs in library).  I’m sure there are different ways I’ve not discovered to do this, FWIW.

@train_nerd ahh...now that, I get. I have alluded to this requirement a few times here myself. Why only guests, with so much new music easily accessible now, I too keep having that question of what is this music. 

I have solved this in two different ways in two zones, one in the dining space that lies in a central open plan area in the home, and another in an adjacent patio. In the first, Echo Show 5 wired to a Connect Amp gives album art. In the adjacent patio, I found a way to use a old 32 inch LCD TV when it became available, instead of sending it to a landfill:  wall mounted, fed by a extremely high value for money Chromecast, with audio running to Connect Line In jacks. Spotify casts to the TV via the Chrome, shows album art while the sound is from my external speakers alone, or, for parties, from grouping of zones in the adjacent open space living dining areas as well. And not just album art for audio, YouTube premium gives access to high quality music videos as well, cast to the TV via the Chrome. I am not a big fan of TV in common areas in the home, but to be able to see Clapton playing Cocaine, or Joanne Shaw Taylor strutting her stuff, both live, as just a couple of examples from hundreds available, with HiFi quality sound that is also clearly heard in the entire open space even where the TV can be seen only in the distance, goes down very well for parties.

Note here that in neither zone, can Sonos do this on its own. As far as I know.

NAS play can't be supplied artwork in any way that my non geek brain can figure out, but more and more often these days, I don't use the NAS. But I am pretty sure there must be ways to serve NAS play with album art as well, again, outside of Sonos.

Easiest way I’ve found that is reliable in a non-geek way is using metadata to include album art. It requires some work upfront when ripping music (or going back through it to add the art) and I’m sure there are tools to expedite the process but I’ve never looked into it. DBPoweramp is what I’ve used for audio metadata editing for many years now. You just need a .jpg or .png of the cover-art (you can include liner art and back-cover as well but I very, very rarely do) and there is a metadata field you click to add the art. With DBPoweramp you can multi-select all the files in a single album to do it all in one go. Click save and you’re done. More and more often, most music-related programs will use this as a possible source to display album art. IIRC the Sonos controller in the more distant past did not, but, (instead using a “cover.jpg” image in the same album directory as the content I think) but it does now. After saving the art metadata you refresh your library and all the new artwork should appear.

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmchelposx/edit-tags.htm

@chickentender I may not have been clear enough - I am referring to getting album art for NAS play on a display, not on a phone or computer; for that I have done a lot of the folder.jpg thing in a very laborious way for most of my ripped CDs. 

And another interesting poke at Sonos over on the rant thread:

I did not receive the notices as all my products are modern.  Had i not seen some youtube videos i would be completely unaware of what is going on.  I guess we can look at this two ways.  One, they didnt want to unnecessarily worry unaffected customers.  Two, they would rather keep the issue hidden from new customers.  I guess which one we believe is closely related to whether we believe management actually cares about their customers or not.

Seems to be another telling comment.

Ahhh… Yes, sorry, I misunderstood.

There are quite number of options, setup depending, to pull that off…
but I’m not certain how worthy any of them are of the trouble beyond eye-candy.

@chickentender Eye candy is what I thought as well - in fact before I did the folder.jpg thing, I had thought this about that as well.

But once the feature is seen in operation, one very quickly gets used to it and misses it when absent, especially for music from streaming sources that can pipe in a lot of new and therefore unfamiliar music.

And of course to be able to both see and hear well produced music videos elevates the experience to a much higher level - watching the masters make a guitar sing or some one like a 60+ Ginger Baker on the Cream’s Toad track is something that can never be equalled by just listening to it. Or to just watch Joanne Shaw Taylor even when she is doing nothing at all

That AV experience can be achieved on just the Show 5, though a Show 8 is a better idea if that is a requirement. 

Well, video aside, for album art essentially most modern interfaces would do that on a controller, perhaps an inexpensive tablet or two for just that purpose, with mount/cradle placings wherever one likes, and since it’s the controller it isn’t tethered via audio cable to the speaker it’s at. PLEX, Spotify, Pandora, BlueOS… all have “now playing “ expanded artwork to show.

Full disclosure though, while an easy drop-in solution, Amazon and Google options still don’t appeal to me for many reasons. For obsolescence concerns, they’re off-the-charts. They’re mostly sold at loss-leader prices in a many cases because they’re buying your additional data at discount and selling you other goods. I’m just not interested in that sort of purchase, certainly not multiples. We have 3 Home Mini’s and that’s where it ends. :)  (Amazon has also irrevocably changed the city I lived in most of my life and not for the better so I’ve further animosity toward them, but that’s another story.)  All in all I want A/V equipment to be sorted by A/V companies, and I’ll never consider those two that.

I also realize this attitude is largely just shouting into the void, and I’m comfortable with that as well. 

I’ve successfully avoided the rant thread all day. That said, I might peek in and see if there’s still a show.