Mengels7 Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 Before the CarPlay update, I had no issues with my iPhone 5 or 6's album art showing in the music player. After the CarPlay update, I often choose to disable CarPlay due to it being a glitchy, crashing, piece of shit. I've noticed tons of album art not loading now in the regular music player, and it seems to all be art that I've custom picked for the albums in very high resolution. All the stuff at a reasonable resolution or downloaded by iTunes works no problem. Anyone else having this issue? Any solutions? Is there a good way to submit a bug report to Pioneer? I love album art and this is depressing to me Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pjrm68 Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 Haven't noticed this issue, and my CarPlay works just fine. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tickerguy Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 These head units do not like album art that is over 600px in either dimension -- mine never did, even with original factory firmware. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mengels7 Posted November 5, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 Mine used to have no issue with the larger stuff, but I think iTunes downloads it at 500x500 so it sounds like that's the limit for me. Thanks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 Other than on a display with greater than 600 pixels vertical (computer monitors, some tablets mostly), 600 x 600 album art stored in the media file just serves to bloat the file. On the NEX units, you're only going to see maybe 360 x 360 pixels (guessing). That means a 600 x 600 image has to be downsampled to display it... and if you talk to any digital image guru, you will realize that a downsampled image is less pristine in appearance than one created at the size it is displayed. In fact, say you wanted to store a 360 x 360 image in the file but only have a pristine 600 x 600, you would have to shrink it in an image editor... and the gurus recommend applying an "unsharp mask" filter to the shrunken-size image to [somewhat] restore image clarity. (If you are a guru reading this, please disregard any misuse of terminology ) FWIW, you can store more than one image in image-embed-able media files, including the same image at different resolution... but I have no idea how to tell any media player which one to display. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mengels7 Posted November 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 6, 2014 Other than on a display with greater than 600 pixels vertical (computer monitors, some tablets mostly), 600 x 600 album art stored in the media file just serves to bloat the file. On the NEX units, you're only going to see maybe 360 x 360 pixels (guessing). That means a 600 x 600 image has to be downsampled to display it... and if you talk to any digital image guru, you will realize that a downsampled image is less pristine in appearance than one created at the size it is displayed. In fact, say you wanted to store a 360 x 360 image in the file but only have a pristine 600 x 600, you would have to shrink it in an image editor... and the gurus recommend applying an "unsharp mask" filter to the shrunken-size image to [somewhat] restore image clarity. (If you are a guru reading this, please disregard any misuse of terminology ) FWIW, you can store more than one image in image-embed-able media files, including the same image at different resolution... but I have no idea how to tell any media player which one to display. Understood, it's just that with phone becoming higher and higher resolution, I like to future-proof with super high resolution artwork when iTunes doesn't automatically find it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 6, 2014 Report Share Posted November 6, 2014 Understood, it's just that with phone becoming higher and higher resolution, I like to future-proof with super high resolution artwork when iTunes doesn't automatically find it. I can relate to that Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mengels7 Posted November 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 Figured it out. Sort of. It happened to coincide with me installing those updates and switching to my 128GB iPhone 6, but none of that was the cause. I started re-ripping my older albums in Apple Lossless in iTunes. The way iTunes associates album art with ripped Apple Lossless files by default doesn't work with most other applications. All of the albums I had issues with on my NEX unit were ones I had recently ripped. Adding custom art to some of these helped, some actually needed me to get the art from iTunes. Had to do with tagging or something. It's honestly all beyond me. I made UK and Japan iTunes accounts just to get working album art for two of the albums. Point is, I guess it had nothing to do with the file size. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 8, 2014 Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 ITunes in my experience is very sketchy about embedding album art work in iTunes-ripped files. When you use "Get Album Art" for missing art, more often than not it downloads to an album art folder and internally associates with the file... it does not embed the art. It's fine until you play the file on another player..."Where's the album art???" I found a vbs script that embeds the art for windows. Here's the script text: ' ############################################################################### ' # ' # itunes_insert_artwork.vbs ' # ' # This script will tag your files using artwork downloaded using iTunes 10 ' # ' # written by: Robert Jacobson (http://teridon.googlepages.com/itunesscripts) ' # Last Updated: 30 Jan 2012 ' # Version 1.1 ' # ' # Modified version and fixes discussion at following link: ' # http://sheerboredom.net/2010/10/11/embed-album-artwork-from-itunes-into-mp3-files/ ' # ' # This script is GPL v2. see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html ' # ' # Use option "-k" to keep the artwork files extracted ' # (in the same location as the song file) ' # (the default is to remove the files) ' # ' # Special Thanks to http://www.facebook.com/jrsousa2 for the error checking fix! ' # ' ############################################################################### Option Explicit Dim iTunesApp ' iTunes.Application object used to access the iTunes application. Dim tracks ' The tracks collection object of the Library object. Dim TrackPath ' The path to the track Dim ArtPath ' The path to the artwork Dim i ' A counter variable. Dim Msg ' A string for a message. Dim f ' A file object. Dim sources Dim source Dim playlists Dim playlist Dim playlistName Dim j Dim m Dim c Dim songName Dim artist Dim result Dim listarray Dim num Dim k Dim track Dim numtracks Dim FormatArray(4) Dim ExtArray(4) Dim Artobj Dim Art Dim ArtDir Dim Format Dim BasePath Dim fso Dim NumFiles Dim KeepFiles Dim args Dim arg Dim IsDownlArtw_value Dim erro_no Dim erro_desc Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") FormatArray(0) = "Unknown" FormatArray(1) = "JPEG" FormatArray(2) = "PNG" FormatArray(3) = "BMP" ExtArray(0) = "unk" ExtArray(1) = "jpg" ExtArray(2) = "png" ExtArray(3) = "bmp" Set iTunesApp = CreateObject("iTunes.Application.1") Set sources = iTunesApp.Sources Dim vers vers = iTunesApp.Version Dim Reg1 Set Reg1 = new RegExp Reg1.Pattern = "^11" if Reg1.Test(vers) Then ' yay Else Wscript.Echo "This script requires iTunes 10" Wscript.Quit End If KeepFiles = False Set args = WScript.Arguments ' Scan command line arguments For Each arg in args ' Is it a flag. If Instr(1, arg, "-", 1) = 1 or Instr(1, arg, "/", 1) = 1 Then ' Check for list flag If UCase(arg) = "-K" or UCase(arg) = "/K" then KeepFiles = True End If End If Next For i = 1 to sources.Count Set source = sources.Item(i) IF source.Kind = 1 Then Set playlists = source.Playlists Wscript.Echo "Select from the following playlists" & chr(13) & chr(10) Wscript.Echo "Number of playlists: " & playlists.Count For j = 1 to playlists.Count Set playlist = playlists.Item(j) playlistName = playlist.Name Wscript.Echo j & ": " & playlistName Next Wscript.Echo "" Wscript.StdOut.Write "Enter comma-separated lists to process: " result = WScript.StdIn.ReadLine listarray = split(result, ",") For k = 0 to UBound(listarray) num = listarray(k) Set playlist = playlists.Item(num) playlistName = playlist.Name Wscript.Echo "" Wscript.Echo chr(9) & "Processing playlist " & num & ": " & playlistName Set tracks = playlist.Tracks numtracks = tracks.Count Wscript.Echo chr(9) & "tracks: " & numtracks NumFiles = 0 For m = 1 to numtracks If m > tracks.Count Then Exit For Set track = tracks.Item(m) 'Wscript.Echo "num: " & numtracks & " Count: " & tracks.Count & " m: " & m If track.Kind = 1 Then songName = track.Name artist = track.Artist TrackPath = track.Location Set Artobj = track.Artwork For c = 1 to Artobj.Count Set Art = Artobj.Item(c) On Error Resume Next if Art.IsDownloadedArtwork Then 'On Error Resume Next IsDownlArtw_value = Art.IsDownloadedArtwork erro_no = Err.Number 'Err.Clear erro_desc = Err.Description If Err.number <> 0 Then IsDownlArtw_value = False End If if IsDownlArtw_value Then Format = Art.Format End If 'Wscript.Echo "Format is " & FormatArray(Format) ArtDir = fso.GetParentFolderName(TrackPath) 'Wscript.Echo "Artdir is " & ArtDir 'ArtDir = fso.GetBaseName(ArtDir) Dim RegX Set RegX = new RegExp RegX.Pattern = "[/:\\\*\?""""<>]" RegX.Global = True songName = RegX.Replace(songName, "-") 'songName = Replace(songName, "/", "-") ArtPath = fso.BuildPath(ArtDir, songName & "." & ExtArray(Format)) Wscript.Echo "artpath is " & ArtPath ' save to file Art.SaveArtworkToFile(ArtPath) ' insert from file into track tag Art.SetArtworkFromFile(ArtPath) if (KeepFiles) Then ' nothing Else fso.DeleteFile(ArtPath) End If NumFiles = NumFiles + 1 End If Next End If Next Wscript.Echo NumFiles & " files processed in playlist " & playlistName Next 'End If End If Next As I recall, I modified one line so it works with iTunes 11. If you want to run it, just copy the above text into Notepad and save it with a .vbs extension. Supposedly there's an script out there that'll do the same on Apple computers. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mengels7 Posted November 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 ITunes in my experience is very sketchy about embedding album art work in iTunes-ripped files. When you use "Get Album Art" for missing art, more often than not it downloads to an album art folder and internally associates with the file... it does not embed the art. It's fine until you play the file on another player..."Where's the album art???" I found a vbs script that embeds the art for windows. Here's the script text: ' ############################################################################### ' # ' # itunes_insert_artwork.vbs ' # ' # This script will tag your files using artwork downloaded using iTunes 10 ' # ' # written by: Robert Jacobson (http://teridon.googlepages.com/itunesscripts) ' # Last Updated: 30 Jan 2012 ' # Version 1.1 ' # ' # Modified version and fixes discussion at following link: ' # http://sheerboredom.net/2010/10/11/embed-album-artwork-from-itunes-into-mp3-files/ ' # ' # This script is GPL v2. see http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html ' # ' # Use option "-k" to keep the artwork files extracted ' # (in the same location as the song file) ' # (the default is to remove the files) ' # ' # Special Thanks to http://www.facebook.com/jrsousa2 for the error checking fix! ' # ' ############################################################################### Option Explicit Dim iTunesApp ' iTunes.Application object used to access the iTunes application. Dim tracks ' The tracks collection object of the Library object. Dim TrackPath ' The path to the track Dim ArtPath ' The path to the artwork Dim i ' A counter variable. Dim Msg ' A string for a message. Dim f ' A file object. Dim sources Dim source Dim playlists Dim playlist Dim playlistName Dim j Dim m Dim c Dim songName Dim artist Dim result Dim listarray Dim num Dim k Dim track Dim numtracks Dim FormatArray(4) Dim ExtArray(4) Dim Artobj Dim Art Dim ArtDir Dim Format Dim BasePath Dim fso Dim NumFiles Dim KeepFiles Dim args Dim arg Dim IsDownlArtw_value Dim erro_no Dim erro_desc Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") FormatArray(0) = "Unknown" FormatArray(1) = "JPEG" FormatArray(2) = "PNG" FormatArray(3) = "BMP" ExtArray(0) = "unk" ExtArray(1) = "jpg" ExtArray(2) = "png" ExtArray(3) = "bmp" Set iTunesApp = CreateObject("iTunes.Application.1") Set sources = iTunesApp.Sources Dim vers vers = iTunesApp.Version Dim Reg1 Set Reg1 = new RegExp Reg1.Pattern = "^11" if Reg1.Test(vers) Then ' yay Else Wscript.Echo "This script requires iTunes 10" Wscript.Quit End If KeepFiles = False Set args = WScript.Arguments ' Scan command line arguments For Each arg in args ' Is it a flag. If Instr(1, arg, "-", 1) = 1 or Instr(1, arg, "/", 1) = 1 Then ' Check for list flag If UCase(arg) = "-K" or UCase(arg) = "/K" then KeepFiles = True End If End If Next For i = 1 to sources.Count Set source = sources.Item(i) IF source.Kind = 1 Then Set playlists = source.Playlists Wscript.Echo "Select from the following playlists" & chr(13) & chr(10) Wscript.Echo "Number of playlists: " & playlists.Count For j = 1 to playlists.Count Set playlist = playlists.Item(j) playlistName = playlist.Name Wscript.Echo j & ": " & playlistName Next Wscript.Echo "" Wscript.StdOut.Write "Enter comma-separated lists to process: " result = WScript.StdIn.ReadLine listarray = split(result, ",") For k = 0 to UBound(listarray) num = listarray(k) Set playlist = playlists.Item(num) playlistName = playlist.Name Wscript.Echo "" Wscript.Echo chr(9) & "Processing playlist " & num & ": " & playlistName Set tracks = playlist.Tracks numtracks = tracks.Count Wscript.Echo chr(9) & "tracks: " & numtracks NumFiles = 0 For m = 1 to numtracks If m > tracks.Count Then Exit For Set track = tracks.Item(m) 'Wscript.Echo "num: " & numtracks & " Count: " & tracks.Count & " m: " & m If track.Kind = 1 Then songName = track.Name artist = track.Artist TrackPath = track.Location Set Artobj = track.Artwork For c = 1 to Artobj.Count Set Art = Artobj.Item(c) On Error Resume Next if Art.IsDownloadedArtwork Then 'On Error Resume Next IsDownlArtw_value = Art.IsDownloadedArtwork erro_no = Err.Number 'Err.Clear erro_desc = Err.Description If Err.number <> 0 Then IsDownlArtw_value = False End If if IsDownlArtw_value Then Format = Art.Format End If 'Wscript.Echo "Format is " & FormatArray(Format) ArtDir = fso.GetParentFolderName(TrackPath) 'Wscript.Echo "Artdir is " & ArtDir 'ArtDir = fso.GetBaseName(ArtDir) Dim RegX Set RegX = new RegExp RegX.Pattern = "[/:\\\*\?""""<>]" RegX.Global = True songName = RegX.Replace(songName, "-") 'songName = Replace(songName, "/", "-") ArtPath = fso.BuildPath(ArtDir, songName & "." & ExtArray(Format)) Wscript.Echo "artpath is " & ArtPath ' save to file Art.SaveArtworkToFile(ArtPath) ' insert from file into track tag Art.SetArtworkFromFile(ArtPath) if (KeepFiles) Then ' nothing Else fso.DeleteFile(ArtPath) End If NumFiles = NumFiles + 1 End If Next End If Next Wscript.Echo NumFiles & " files processed in playlist " & playlistName Next 'End If End If Next As I recall, I modified one line so it works with iTunes 11. If you want to run it, just copy the above text into Notepad and save it with a .vbs extension. Supposedly there's an script out there that'll do the same on Apple computers. Wow! If it continues to give me issues I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Thanks so much! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 8, 2014 Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 I just noticed iTunes 12 is out (downloaded and installed). As I mentioned elsewhere, iTunes has more updates than any other software on my computers... and that include OS updates from MS!!! Anyway, as I understand it, the script posted above will have to be modified to run with iTunes 12 installed.... but I am not a script guru. All I can say is the script I posted above worked for me with iTunes 11. To modify the script for iTunes 12, find the line... Reg1.Pattern = "^11" ...and change to... Reg1.Pattern = "^12" Also, I noticed earlier there's another line related to this. Only makes a difference on version error. Find, a few lines below the one above... Wscript.Echo "This script requires iTunes 10" ...and change to... Wscript.Echo "This script requires iTunes 12" Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 8, 2014 Report Share Posted November 8, 2014 Also just ran across this piece of shareware. http://www.maximized.com/shareware/icoverart/index.htm As shareware, it'll only do 5 songs at a time until registered. Only $5 to register. Haven't tried it, so if anyone does, please report your findings... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
donmontalvo Posted November 11, 2014 Report Share Posted November 11, 2014 No tools needed. Open up iTunes > select song(s) > Right-click > Get Album Artwork iTunes 11 for Mac: Add artwork to songs and other items http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12161 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhren Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 No tools needed. Open up iTunes > select song(s) > Right-click > Get Album Artwork iTunes 11 for Mac: Add artwork to songs and other items http://support.apple.com/kb/PH12161 That does not EMBED the artwork in the file. It just stores the artwork as a file in a separate iTunes "Artwork" folder and links it to the song file in iTunes. That works fine in iTunes... but doesn't help at all for other media players. To give you an idea what I'm talking about.... https://www.google.com/webhp?#q=embed%20artwork%20itunes Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tickerguy Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 Yep -- the NEX units will not look in the folder for artwork files (which is stupid and wasteful); to display the artwork must be in EACH music file individually as a tag. Yes, this means if you have 20 songs in an album you must consume 20x the album art in disk space, but since music is rather large compared against these art files it's not as bad as it initially sounds. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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