Album art won’t show up if the graphic is of the wrong file type OR takes up too much RAM (memory).
This has caused me an ENORMOUS problem: I have over 50,000 MP3’s, and most of them have bad cover art that needs to be replaced. I’ve been working away at this for weeks.
The software used to add cover art can be to blame: MusicMatch Jukebox, which was purchased by Yahoo! or some other group of morons, would save cover art as .BMP files. These are not compressed graphic files, and can be HUGE. A 170x170 pixel .BMP can weigh in at 255Kb. Some of my MP3s had .BMP cover art nearly a full megabyte in size.
File format can be to blame: Some web sites have .GIF and .PNG cover art files, which can be large or incompatible. Better to use .JPG files, which can be compressed to very small sizes.
Copy & paste can be to blame: If you copy an image from a website and paste it directly into your MP3 tagging utility, the image will not likely be compressed. It may be three or four times larger than it should. Instead, save the image to your hard drive as a compressed .JPG. Even if it is an online .JPG image, save it to your hard drive—this compresses the file; add it to your MP3 after saving. I have a file called “folder.jpg” in every album folder on my hard drive. When I do not have an entire album, or album contents are spread across many folders, I’ll save the .JPG to my hard drive, add the image to the appropriate MP3, then overwrite or delete the image later. Once an image is added to an MP3, it becomes part of the MP3 file—you no longer need the original .JPG.
The physical size of the image may be to blame: You do not need 500x500 pixel cover art. No player will display it that size. Try to keep your cover art under 200x200 pixels. A good size is around 170x170 pixels.
Pay attention to what type of file you’re using for cover art and the size in pixels!!!
Use .JPG images under 200x200 pixels—they’ll show up in all your devices and should weigh in at 20Kb or less.
Free software, such as GIMP, will allow you to edit images and save them as .JPGs.
MP3Tag, also free, tells you what type of file you’re using and it’s size. Pretty cool…
Message Edited by G33Z3R on 06-05-2009 11:39 AM
