Artwork in iTunes 4

ginopiazza49 · May 2, 2003 11:19AM

Since the artwork is saved in with the music, how much disk space does artwork take up? In other words, if you had over 50 to 100 albums all with "cover art," is that cover art using megabytes of space that otherwise could be used by some mp3 or AAC files?

gordy · May 2, 2003 11:36AM

Yes.

I have read that it is imbedded as PNG, but the actual size will, of course, depend on the resolution of the artwork you add.

ginopiazza49 · May 2, 2003 12:20PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gordy

Yes.

I have read that it is imbedded as PNG, but the actual size will, of course, depend on the resolution of the artwork you add.

I wonder what resolution Amazon uses.? I, and judging from the posts here, a lot of other use Amazon, to get their cover art.

paul · May 2, 2003 12:44PM

also the artwork is saved FOR EACH MUSIC FILE... so if you have 300 albums each with 10 songs and the average album cover size is 100k it will take up 300000k or ~~300MB just for cover art

\

ginopiazza49 · May 2, 2003 1:01PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Paul

FOR EACH MUSIC FILE

Wow, I did not realize this. Yes, not everyone may use cover art, however, it looks like the benefit we are getting from the smaller sizes of AAC files are being outweighed by the coolness factor of wanting to display what album, whether it be for the benefit of ourselves or whether it be for the benefit of others, a particular song is from.

mbezzo · May 2, 2003 7:56PM

Just did a quick test of this. I took a song in my library (10,315,745 bytes), went to Amazon and got the album cover. The cover was a 16k jpeg image. Adding it to the track made the song size 10,421,331, which equals about a 103k file size increase. It's too bad iTunes takes the 16k jpeg and converts to a 103k whateverformatituses file.

So yeah, that could seriously add up over awhile...

Matt

disco · May 3, 2003 9:36AM

Not exactly on topic, but as I didn't feel it warranted a new thread, this one seemed the most relevant. I've submitted the following idea to the iTunes feedback site. If anyone else likes this idea, make sure you send in the suggestion as well!

As a musician, I'm very happy to see a legal alternative to purchasing music online. I currently purchase all of my music the old-fashioned way, by purchasing CD's. I plan to start purchasing much more music online now (once Apple gets the independent labels in their library

), but I know I'm going to miss the tactile experience of exploring the album's cover art. The photo of the cover art is a good start, but what about all of the liner notes, and the back cover of the cd? I want a way to explore these images.

Perhaps the CD artwork/booklet could be scanned and then assembled into a Flash movie that actually lets you *flip* through the pages. Here's a link to a piece that designer Erick Natzke put together for an HP promotion that illustrates this idea: (Click on the "Shrek" example.)

Here's the example...

Surely the construction of this "booklet" could be automated. Surely someone at Apple knows a bit of AppleScript? 8) Heck you could even embed the Flash file within QuickTime if it would suit the Store's application architecture more properly. Accomplishing something like this would be just one more polished feature that Apple offers, which the competition doesn't.

ginopiazza49 · May 3, 2003 10:06AM

Quote:

Originally posted by disco

Here's a link to a piece that designer Erick Natzke put together for an HP promotion that illustrates this idea: (Click on the "Shrek" example.)

I clicked on the link with both Safari, Internet Explorer, and Camino. I got a blank page titled "DreamWorks + hp, flash version". However, from your post I do get what you mean. I do like the idea. I am just wondering how feasible it would be to do that for every album out there.

disco · May 3, 2003 11:58AM

Make sure you have Flash 6 player installed. Like I mentioned, it would be something that would need to be automated. I'm sure Apple could get some interns to scan covers all day!

paul · May 3, 2003 9:28PM

ummm you can have more then one picture per song... for example look at my sex pistols album i have both the front and back cover. you can scroll through them with arrows...

take a look in my iTunes library (in the sig)

dstranathan · May 5, 2003 1:59PM

Exactly WHERE is the cover art data stored? Is it really "in" the file, or linked to a cover cache somewhere?

paul · May 6, 2003 5:10AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tonton

And the worst thing? If you delete the graphics, the AAC or MP3 file size does not adjust accordingly. It does not get any smaller. The file is bloated forever, until you reencode.

Not good for iPod users.

That is NOT good... but theoretically it should be easy to fix...

what if i deleted the cover and then added a new one? what if i replaced the old one after deleting it? anyone want to test?

twinbrook46636 · October 17, 2003 11:44AM

I wonder if you save your scanned artwork as a PNG from the start if the file size will not get bloated when moving it to the iPod. Does anyone know what the 'optimum' size (pixels) is for artwork? If you click the artwork in the lower lefthand corner of the iTunes app it opens a full size version of it. ANyone know what size this is?

hobbes · October 17, 2003 12:20PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tonton

It is stored in the file, in a .png format, with much less compression than the jpgs they originate from. It's a huge waste of space.

And the worst thing? If you delete the graphics, the AAC or MP3 file size does not adjust accordingly. It does not get any smaller. The file is bloated forever, until you reencode.

Glaaaarrgh!

Is this true? How depressing.

Artwork in iTunes 4

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