Adding or Changing Album Art

When you rip a track from a CD, WMP goes to an online database to retrieve song information and album art. Sometimes, however, there is no album art available for that CD. Sometimes the database has the wrong album art for the CD. Sometimes the album art is correct, but isn't that great looking-too light, too dark, whatever.

Whatever the reasons, there will be instances when you want to change the album art associated with a CD you've ripped to your hard disk. The good news is that you can easily add or change album art from within WMP.

All you have to do is locate the right album art, preferably in JPG format, and copy it. That art can be stored on your PC's hard drive, or located somewhere on the Web. Just right-click the JPG file and select Copy. Then move to Windows Media Player, navigate to that album, right-click on the existing album art (or the blank art placeholder), and select Paste Album Art. The new album art now appears in Windows Media Player. Just like that.

Setting the Audio File Format and Bit Rate

As noted earlier in this tutorial, when you rip music from audio CD to your hard drive, which you can use WMP to do, you first have to determine what format you want to use for your ripped files, as well as the bit rate to use for the recording. This is typically a one-time configuration, although you can change the format and bit rate at any time. Follow these steps:

1. From the full WMP window, click the Organize button on the toolbar and select Options.
2. When the Options dialog box appears, select the Rip Music tab.
3. Pull down the Format list and select the desired format.
4. Use the Audio Quality slider to select the desired bit rate.
5. Click OK.

Note The WAV,WMA Lossless, and WMA Variable Bit Rate formats do not have accompanying bit rate settings, as the bit rate is preset for all these file formats.