I'm not certain, but could mp3 files evolve in complexity, with album art binded like the tag data, all while maintaining legacy support?
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but that's how adding album to an mp3 album works. Except of course in iTunes where Apple decided to throw it all into a database that makes all that data inaccessible to every other program. Maybe it's more efficient to store it all in a database, but the paranoid part of me feels Apple did it to make moving away from iTunes a big pain in the butt.
Some of the covers are much bigger than the 256 x 256 .pngs. For example: the movie Annapolis downloaded from iTunes contains a metadata cover image of 675 x 1000 (1 Megabyte).
There also is an Album Artwork folder within the iTunes folder. It appears to store reduced size, e..g. 128 x 128 images. The lo-res Annapolis image is 91 x 128 for 46 KB of a 310 KB file (other metadata?).
If you switch among iTunes libraries on your AppleTV there is a long delay as it "loads" the new library over WiFi.
The best I can figure is that when you choose an iTunes library from the AppleTV:
1) there is a slight delay as the Album Artwork is uploaded to the AppleTV to make lo-res images available for populating menus, etc.
2) The higher-res metadata images are loaded when you select a category, e.g. Movies, Music.
3) There is a slight delay as these Hi-res images start loading, but after a few seconds, the AppleTV begins to animate the images it has, while loading additional images.
4) if you scroll the menu down to a certain movie, it will show the lo-res image in the scroll area, and the Hi-Res image to the left with the other metadata. If this has not yet loaded, nothing (or a generic icon) is displayed, and the selected item's hi-res image is retrieved immediately.
5) when you select the movie/song for play, there is a short delay and it goes and gets the actual content and begins playing.
Any time the AppleTV doesn't have the images or metadata (not available at all, or not, yet uploaded) it displays nothing or a generic icon.
Everything appears to be intelligently retrieved/buffered/cached within the AppleTV's SSD memory, so things you are using (images, metadata, content) tend get there first and to remain the longest on the AppleTV.
All-in-all, it creates quite a nice effect.
I think that iTunes is doing a lot of the heavy lifting -- parsing XML, extracting metadata, forming ever more useful packages (e.g., more and higher-res images) of data to send to the AppleTV.
The Apple TV just buffers what it can, and displays the best info it has available.
We have a pretty well-defined relationship and reliable, predictable WiFi connection between the iTunes and AppleTV. ITunes understands this and can exploit the AppleTV's capabilities -- e.g. fill SSD with covers to make the animation work as seamless as possible.
It may be that Apple has some future plans to let iTunes stream to iDevices using the same technique.
But it will be more difficult, as iTunes will not have:
-- a predictable and reliable wireless connection (WiFi or 3G)
-- the ability to exploit all the resources of the iDevice (CPU, GPU, WiFi and 3G radios, RAM, SSD storage.
So, I'd be willing to bet that iTunes streaming to an iDevice (other than an AppleTV) will limit the metadata and only use the lo-res images for menus -- with no animation.
In simpler words:
The AppleTV is a willing slave that asks and gets bitch-slapped around by iTunes.
An iDevice is more of a hired hand that will do iTunes beckoning -- if it can, and within reason. It reserves the right to tell iTunes that it (iTunes) is working (streaming) to fast and to back off (try a lower resolution/frame rate). And I ain't got no time or room to do this highfaluting CoverFlow animation crap!
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but that's how adding album to an mp3 album works. Except of course in iTunes where Apple decided to throw it all into a database that makes all that data inaccessible to every other program. Maybe it's more efficient to store it all in a database, but the paranoid part of me feels Apple did it to make moving away from iTunes a big pain in the butt.
lol no I wasn't joking, and the only reason I thought this is because of how I see my album art stored in the directories with my mp3s, not binded to the file like tag data is.
Comments
I'm not certain, but could mp3 files evolve in complexity, with album art binded like the tag data, all while maintaining legacy support?
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but that's how adding album to an mp3 album works. Except of course in iTunes where Apple decided to throw it all into a database that makes all that data inaccessible to every other program. Maybe it's more efficient to store it all in a database, but the paranoid part of me feels Apple did it to make moving away from iTunes a big pain in the butt.
So how come I can see covers on my Apple TV?
Good question!
Some of the covers are much bigger than the 256 x 256 .pngs. For example: the movie Annapolis downloaded from iTunes contains a metadata cover image of 675 x 1000 (1 Megabyte).
There also is an Album Artwork folder within the iTunes folder. It appears to store reduced size, e..g. 128 x 128 images. The lo-res Annapolis image is 91 x 128 for 46 KB of a 310 KB file (other metadata?).
If you switch among iTunes libraries on your AppleTV there is a long delay as it "loads" the new library over WiFi.
The best I can figure is that when you choose an iTunes library from the AppleTV:
1) there is a slight delay as the Album Artwork is uploaded to the AppleTV to make lo-res images available for populating menus, etc.
2) The higher-res metadata images are loaded when you select a category, e.g. Movies, Music.
3) There is a slight delay as these Hi-res images start loading, but after a few seconds, the AppleTV begins to animate the images it has, while loading additional images.
4) if you scroll the menu down to a certain movie, it will show the lo-res image in the scroll area, and the Hi-Res image to the left with the other metadata. If this has not yet loaded, nothing (or a generic icon) is displayed, and the selected item's hi-res image is retrieved immediately.
5) when you select the movie/song for play, there is a short delay and it goes and gets the actual content and begins playing.
Any time the AppleTV doesn't have the images or metadata (not available at all, or not, yet uploaded) it displays nothing or a generic icon.
Everything appears to be intelligently retrieved/buffered/cached within the AppleTV's SSD memory, so things you are using (images, metadata, content) tend get there first and to remain the longest on the AppleTV.
All-in-all, it creates quite a nice effect.
I think that iTunes is doing a lot of the heavy lifting -- parsing XML, extracting metadata, forming ever more useful packages (e.g., more and higher-res images) of data to send to the AppleTV.
The Apple TV just buffers what it can, and displays the best info it has available.
We have a pretty well-defined relationship and reliable, predictable WiFi connection between the iTunes and AppleTV. ITunes understands this and can exploit the AppleTV's capabilities -- e.g. fill SSD with covers to make the animation work as seamless as possible.
It may be that Apple has some future plans to let iTunes stream to iDevices using the same technique.
But it will be more difficult, as iTunes will not have:
-- a predictable and reliable wireless connection (WiFi or 3G)
-- the ability to exploit all the resources of the iDevice (CPU, GPU, WiFi and 3G radios, RAM, SSD storage.
So, I'd be willing to bet that iTunes streaming to an iDevice (other than an AppleTV) will limit the metadata and only use the lo-res images for menus -- with no animation.
In simpler words:
The AppleTV is a willing slave that asks and gets bitch-slapped around by iTunes.
An iDevice is more of a hired hand that will do iTunes beckoning -- if it can, and within reason. It reserves the right to tell iTunes that it (iTunes) is working (streaming) to fast and to back off (try a lower resolution/frame rate). And I ain't got no time or room to do this highfaluting CoverFlow animation crap!
... Or, I could be wrong!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euquOpUmUyk
I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but that's how adding album to an mp3 album works. Except of course in iTunes where Apple decided to throw it all into a database that makes all that data inaccessible to every other program. Maybe it's more efficient to store it all in a database, but the paranoid part of me feels Apple did it to make moving away from iTunes a big pain in the butt.
lol no I wasn't joking, and the only reason I thought this is because of how I see my album art stored in the directories with my mp3s, not binded to the file like tag data is.