[samarunirman]

I bought a Nokia Lumia 730 last week and overall I'm quite pleased with my choice. It's smooth and elegant while the look and feel of the OS is near flawless.
The Only issue I have with this is its music app, xbox music. I shifted from a Sony Xperia Neo L which is a mid range handset, I've had no problem with its music app.
Please help me out with these issues I have with my Lumia. As much as I love the WP, I can hardly ignore these since I'm heavy on the use of music on the go.

1. Some of my mp3s work and some doesn't. (If I'm to convert my music to a specific format in order to get rid of this can anyone suggest me a suitable format to convert my music into?)

2. Artist pictures in the background of the music app is not displayed for every artist. (Currently I have 20 odd artists and only 2 has background images in displaying in the music app)

Thanks in advance for reading and trying to help out !!

[NafcMontana]

How do you transfer your music from computer to your phone? And I don't really know why but I don't get a lot of artist pics too and the name of the artist is exactly spelled the same as when I search music in the Music app on WP

[spch]

Yea xbox music app is kinda crap at getting info/art. What you can do is open Mix Radio and go to my music. You can pin My Music to start as well.

[onlysublime]

The best way to identify how your music file is actually constructed is to use a Windows program called MediaInfo. After you install that, you right click on the song file and select MediaInfo. It will then tell you info like the container, the codec used, the bitrate, etc. etc. It works for any kind of multimedia file whether it's a video or an audio file. You can copy and paste the info so it makes it easy for people to know what's wrong.

For example:

General
Complete name : D:\Workplace_precautions_against_bloodborne_pathogens.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 78.6 MiB
Duration : 24mn 35s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 447 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-02-07 15:13:41
Tagged date : UTC 2014-02-07 15:13:41
gsst : 0
gstd : 1475070
gssd : BADC20842MH1406275248162469
gshh : r7---sn-a5m7lnes.googlevideo.com

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=60
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 24mn 35s
Bit rate : 348 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 1 141 Kbps
Width : 480 pixels
Height : 360 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.067
Stream size : 61.2 MiB (78%)
Tagged date : UTC 2014-02-07 15:13:54

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 24mn 35s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 102 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 16.9 MiB (21%)
Title : IsoMedia File Produced by Google, 5-11-2011
Encoded date : UTC 2014-02-07 15:13:48
Tagged date : UTC 2014-02-07 15:13:54


As for album art, it's best to add it yourself. When you purchase a song legally, the album art is embedded in the file already. Most ripping software (when you make your own MP3s from CDs) will have a system for importing album art and embedding it. If the album art is not embedded, you can manually add it. I use a program called Tag Scanner. It can search for album art. Or best yet is to google/bing the album art cover and then use Tag Scanner to add the art to your MP3s. That way, no matter what media player you use, it will have the album art.

As for whether songs will play back or not, the music app supports all standard audio codecs. If your songs are using a specialized codec like FLAC, it will not play. That's another reason to use MediaInfo to determine what your songs are using.