Album covers (Bolero)

[TheGeneral]

Hey guys, I have a question. Most of my music files have embedded album covers which are seen by iTunes and Winamp. I've tested them both on PC and Mac and they all work. Yet in my car, only some load up. Anyone knows why?

 

I have some shoddy mp3 files which work and legit m4a files bought from iTunes which don't. I don't know why. Is there a way to know for sure which kind of ID tag Bolero supports? Are you guys having the same issues?

[Mike999vRS]

Yep. Snap.

I think it's to do with the image size.

I did google it (but used mark7 golf) and foundation guide to resize the images. Now even fewer work.

Isn't technology great?!

[luckyeddie]

Think the max size is 400x400.

[skovirg]

I too have lots of issues.  There appears to be no consistency either.  All covers are saved in the same file format and are the same or a similar size. Even on the same album, some tracks display the image and some don't. Odd. 

[TheGeneral]

Exactly. That's what frustrates me the most, lack of consistency. Some of the shoddiest files I have work, original m4a files from iTunes don't.

[Neily03]

Is this on an SD card?  From my ipod via Mitsumi on the red cable I get all album art, embedded or not, no matter what the size.

[NetScaler]

The embedded picture within the mp3 file needs to be maximum 500 x 500.

 

I used this tool to bulk modify my entire mp3 collection so it will work with the Bolero. Note it will also tell you which mp3s don't have embedded pictures at all.

 

Guide here...

 

http://tnt-tech.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/batch-album-art-resizing.html

[TheGeneral]

NetScaler: So the size of the embedded problem is the issue? We need to re-embed all files with a smaller cover?

 

If that's what you're saying, then thanks a lot! This is exactly what I was hoping to find, a way to make all the covers work.

[baz555]

I find if the song hasn't got a album cover the picture stays on from the last song, It will only when change till another one has a cover...when I play music from my USB stick..!!

[Shermo]

Does the same limits apply to all the headunits?

 

My new car should have a Columbus and I plan to play mostly FLAC files on it, is it actually documented anywhere about what is and isn't compatible with file types, album art etc?

[NetScaler]

NetScaler: So the size of the embedded problem is the issue? We need to re-embed all files with a smaller cover?

 

If that's what you're saying, then thanks a lot! This is exactly what I was hoping to find, a way to make all the covers work.

 

Yes using the tool I installed from the guide I linked. I found the vast majority of my mp3s had embedded pictures slightly above 500x 500. Most of the songs sourced from Google Play or Amazon. I just browsed the top level folder containing all my mp3s then clicked on go. An hour later they had all been modified and every song showed the correct picture on Bolero. Just follow the guide

[NetScaler]

Does the same limits apply to all the headunits?

 

My new car should have a Columbus and I plan to play mostly FLAC files on it, is it actually documented anywhere about what is and isn't compatible with file types, album art etc?

 

Not sure about all head units, but I found the fix I mentioned on a Golf forum while researching the issue. Maybe drop down to 400 x 400 to be sure?

[TheGeneral]

Dude... Thanks a lot! I'll resize all the covers to 400x400 to play it safe and see if anything happens.

[thekidfromkensington]

Quite often if files have been through iTunes and other media players they have more than one embedded file and this seems to confuse bolero. The jpeg for the cover art doesn't need to be embedded it just needs to be in the same folder that the mp3s for the album are in. I use a great free program called mp3tag which let me remove all the embedded jpegs en masse on the whole library. It also has an one click tool to loom up album art for each album in no more than 500x500 and autosave it in the relevant folder. It didn't take me long to do this on the SD card I use in the car and it all works fine 

[TheGeneral]

NetScaler is right though, I looked through my SD card with Mp3Tag and all the files that work in Bolero have 500x500 covers or less, while the ones that don't have 800x800 and even bigger. Luckily with the same program (Mp3Tag, it's free, get it!) I've updated and improved covers for ALL the songs, now all I need to do is batch-resize them all to 400x400 (just to play it safe) and I'm done.

 

Thanks again Net, I owe you one.

[djkarlos]

Another note. I think that the tag version embedded in the mp3 needs to be v2.3, not v2.4. Something to be aware of for all your mp3tag users.

[andyvee]

Does the same limits apply to all the headunits?

 

My new car should have a Columbus and I plan to play mostly FLAC files on it, is it actually documented anywhere about what is and isn't compatible with file types, album art etc?

It is in the manual somewhere, but FLAC has worked fine on my Columbus with Art embedded at 400x400 resolution. It is a bit hit and miss though, and sometimes doesn't display the art on a completely random basis. The exact same track will display art some days later with no changes having been made!

[hobbie2k]

It has been awhile, but I've been working on getting all my album art working.

 

First, I made sure that all tracks had artwork embedded in the mp3 file, and not in a separate folder.  I'm pretty sure you can do this with iTunes. You just have to use "get info" and paste the album cover into each track individually. If you select a whole album, then it will place the art separate.

 

I used mp3tag to set each id3 tag to version 2.3.  Also useful for finding bad id3 tags that may work in iTunes, but not on Bolero.

 

I used the Sanse MP3 Art Sizer trick to resize each piece of art to 500x500 max.

 

However, I found that about half my art still wasn't appearing.  I resized them to 400x400 and found that far more art was appearing, but still not all.  I found that all the artwork that doesn't appear was in .png format, but some .png files were working.  After testing different tracks with .png files, it seems that the factor is a file size in excess of 200KB.

 

So it appears that in addition to a 500x500 pixel limit, there is also a 200KB file size limit.

 

I haven't been able to find an easy way to batch covert embedded .png art to compressed .jpg.  mp3tag can extract all artwork, then you can use IrfanView to batch convert the .png files to .jpg, then use mp3tag to embed the new art, but you have to be able to write a script for it (beyond me).

 

I have resorted to scrolling though tracks individually with mp3tag, finding all the .png art in excess of 200KB, extracting them one album at a time, converting them to .jpg with IrfanView, then embed them and save the changes with mp3tag.

 

You can reduce artwork sizes further (300x300) or less to get the .png below 200KB.

 

Otherwise, you can just find new artwork in .jpg form and embed that to replace the .png.

 

I hope this answers some of the seemingly random problems people have had.