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Topic: What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART? (Read 16633 times) previous topic - next topic
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What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

I'm looking for a list of audio/video formats which support embedded
album art.  I suppose this is really a matter of which audio/video
formats conform to some tagging format (ie the way MP3 conforms to ID3).

For example, I know MP3 supports embedded album art, because it conforms to ID3v2.3:
http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0.html#sec4.15
But what about the other formats?  Help is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks,
Ernie

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #1 –
Wavpack (.WV) supports this cause it uses apev2 tags.
And Musepack should work too altough I'm not sure about it.

I would just place a folder.jpg in the folder of the album (I always do 300dpi scans compressed at 95% with Irfanview JPG, which result in more than 1mb often and thus I don't embed them).
About every app that supports embedded albumart also supports folder.jpg files.
flac 1.2.1 -8 (archive) | aoTuVb5.7 -q 4 (pc, s1mp3)

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: ea1776 on
I'm looking for a list of audio/video formats which support embedded
album art.  I suppose this is really a matter of which audio/video
formats conform to some tagging format (ie the way MP3 conforms to ID3).

For example, I know MP3 supports embedded album art, because it conforms to ID3v2.3:
http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0.html#sec4.15
But what about the other formats?  Help is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks,
Ernie

Not exactly the answer you want, but it actually depends on the tagging format. Any media file which supports ID3v2, APEv2 (and other extensible tagging formats) will allow album art to be added. I think almost all of the current crop of audio format support these kind of tags - mp3, ogg, flac, ape, etc.

P.S. Personally I wouldn't recommend adding album art into the tag, however, as the file size will increase for every file in that album. A better solution is to keep the album art within the albums directory if that is a possibility for you (foobar's album art plugin supports this method).

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #3 –
Apple's .M4A/ACC and Microsoft's WMA containers also support embedded artwork.  These formats do not use ID3 or APEv2.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #4 –
I have to say that Frank Klemm strongly opposes to storing album art in APEv2 tags. The standard recommends that tags do not have more than 8KB. So, storing jpgs in ape tags is a hack that should be discouraged.
It makes much more sense (at least to me) to store it in the folder where you keep your audio/video files than embedded in the tags/containers.

Quote
I would just place a folder.jpg in the folder of the album (I always do 300dpi scans compressed at 95% with Irfanview JPG, which result in more than 1mb often and thus I don't embed them).
About every app that supports embedded albumart also supports folder.jpg files.

That's the way to go IMO. However if you use lossless for your audio it would make more sense to store PNGs instead of JPGs because PNGs are lossless.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: beto on
That's the way to go IMO. However if you use lossless for your audio it would make more sense to store PNGs instead of JPGs because PNGs are lossless.


True, but scanning is lossy anyway. And the PNG's are about 4x as big as JPG 95%, which already result in perfect quality for me (and I don't plan to "transcode" or resave them, once they are in jpg, they stay that way). I do use PNG for screenshots or similar where it is smaller/more efficient than jpg though.
flac 1.2.1 -8 (archive) | aoTuVb5.7 -q 4 (pc, s1mp3)

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #6 –
>I have to say that Frank Klemm strongly opposes to storing album art
> in APEv2 tags. The standard recommends that tags do not have more
>than 8KB. So, storing jpgs in ape tags is a hack that should be
> discouraged.

Yes are real hack considering the data length in the tag is 32 bit, that means each element of a tag could be 4GB in length...APEv1 tags were created by Matt who works for a company which store album art in ape tags.

Franks page is possibly 8 years old, computers do not stand still in that time (ie the world is no longer using 486s). People need to get over the idea of having 100KB album art in a tag.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #7 –
Thanks for the thoughts.  I'm also curious as to how various content providers  (napster, yahoo, FYE, Rhapsody, iTunes) transfer album art to portable devices.  I may need to start a new thread on that...

Quote from: lordgibbness on
Quote from: ea1776 on

I'm looking for a list of audio/video formats which support embedded
album art.  I suppose this is really a matter of which audio/video
formats conform to some tagging format (ie the way MP3 conforms to ID3).

For example, I know MP3 supports embedded album art, because it conforms to ID3v2.3:
http://www.id3.org/id3v2.3.0.html#sec4.15
But what about the other formats?  Help is MUCH appreciated.

Thanks,
Ernie

Not exactly the answer you want, but it actually depends on the tagging format. Any media file which supports ID3v2, APEv2 (and other extensible tagging formats) will allow album art to be added. I think almost all of the current crop of audio format support these kind of tags - mp3, ogg, flac, ape, etc.

P.S. Personally I wouldn't recommend adding album art into the tag, however, as the file size will increase for every file in that album. A better solution is to keep the album art within the albums directory if that is a possibility for you (foobar's album art plugin supports this method).



Thanks.  I'm actually just conducting research.  I'm not crazy enough to put album art in tags.  It's much preferred to have each track "point" to one img reference in the same dir.

I guess I'm a 'bit' confused on how tags work.  Doesn't each file format (mp3, ogg, wma, etc.) support only one kind of tag?  If, for example, mp3 supported two kinds of tags, how would media players and portable devices "know" which tag to rely on?

Quote from: grommet on
Apple's .M4A/ACC and Microsoft's WMA containers also support embedded artwork.  These formats do not use ID3 or APEv2.


What tags do they use?  How does iTunes and Windows Media Player transfer artwork to portable devices?

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #8 –
AFAIK Ogg don't support embedded ALBUM ART, that includes Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Speex... this is because Ogg don't "store" tags in the container Ogg don't support metadata yet, that's why they are called "Vorbis Comments" and not "Ogg Tags"...

PS. Matroska support album art.... and is posibly the only media format with exelent support for album art.
JorSol
aoTuVb5 -q4

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #9 –
mp3s were designated the id3 tag early on, which then became the newer id3v2 tag. The id3v2 tag goes at the beginning of the file and the id3v1(.1) tag at the end. id3v1 is not extensible in any way, whereas id3v2 allows any field name and data length. I believe that foobar was the first program to introduce the use of apev2 tags to mp3s (as foobar tries to keep things 'file-un-specific').

In terms of support, most DAPs only support the use of id3v1 and possibly id3v2 (but not all id3v2 fields are usually implemented).

There are also other types of tags around that have been known to have been used for mp3 including lyrics3, but this is not very common.

You may not even know what tags are present in your mp3 on your pc as it is down to the fact whether your media player supports the reading/writing of that tag type or not.

A good way to see which tags are present would be to use mp3tag and add the column TAG TYPE with the value: %_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)]

This would list all tags present in the file. Or you could use a hex editor (PSPad, UltraEdit, etc.)

To find details on APE, Vorbis Comments, Lyrics3 and details on the formats that use them I would recommend a search on wikipedia.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: spoon on
Yes are real hack considering the data length in the tag is 32 bit, that means each element of a tag could be 4GB in length...APEv1 tags were created by Matt who works for a company which store album art in ape tags.

Franks page is possibly 8 years old, computers do not stand still in that time (ie the world is no longer using 486s). People need to get over the idea of having 100KB album art in a tag.


Sorry. I don't understand. Are you favourable or against storing album art in APEv2 tags?
I fail to see advantages in storing album art in tags of audio files. Maybe you are aware of some advantages and can pinpoint them to me?

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #11 –
I am all for storage of small album art in tags (I see not problems with it unless you have a limited memory flash mp3 player).

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: spoon on
I am all for storage of small album art in tags (I see not problems with it unless you have a limited memory flash mp3 player).

The only advantage I can see is if your mp3 player required it, otherwise putting one file in the directory is a much better alternative with only one file to maintain and saving of disk space.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: lordgibbness on
Quote from: spoon on

I am all for storage of small album art in tags (I see not problems with it unless you have a limited memory flash mp3 player).

The only advantage I can see is if your mp3 player required it, otherwise putting one file in the directory is a much better alternative with only one file to maintain and saving of disk space.


I can say that mp3 player developers much prefer an external file.  *Good* mp3 players would support *all* scenarios (external, embedded, some other weird Microsoft mandated approach).

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #14 –
RealAudio 10 AAC and RealAudio Lossless support dozens of images in tags.  Of course, they use a proprietary tagging format.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Galley on
RealAudio 10 AAC and RealAudio Lossless support dozens of images in tags.  Of course, they use a proprietary tagging format.


Isn't it true that all AAC formats use the same tagging format?  In other words, isn't it true that the tagging format is "built-in" to AAC files?

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: ea1776 on
Isn't it true that all AAC formats use the same tagging format?  In other words, isn't it true that the tagging format is "built-in" to AAC files?

No, AAC by itself has no tagging format. AAC is meant to be put in some sort of container (usually MP4, but plenty of other things work too). Plain AAC without a container, often called "raw aac", can be tagged by something like APEv2, but it's a hack and often unsupported.

I don't know, but I presume Real is putting their AAC into their own RealMedia container, and thus the tags are part of the container, not the AAC.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #17 –
Quote from: Klyith on
Quote from: ea1776 on
Isn't it true that all AAC formats use the same tagging format?  In other words, isn't it true that the tagging format is "built-in" to AAC files?

No, AAC by itself has no tagging format. AAC is meant to be put in some sort of container (usually MP4, but plenty of other things work too). Plain AAC without a container, often called "raw aac", can be tagged by something like APEv2, but it's a hack and often unsupported.

I don't know, but I presume Real is putting their AAC into their own RealMedia container, and thus the tags are part of the container, not the AAC.


Interesting.  So iTunes uses AAC with their own container...  AND their own (unpublished) tagging format.  I wonder what the best way to find out about iTunes' flavor of tagging is....

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: lordgibbness on
A good way to see which tags are present would be to use mp3tag and add the column TAG TYPE with the value: %_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)]


I'm not sure how to add columns in mp3tag...  Is it relatively easy?

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: ea1776 on
Interesting.  So iTunes uses AAC with their own container...  AND their own (unpublished) tagging format.  I wonder what the best way to find out about iTunes' flavor of tagging is....


I always thought that iTunes uses MP4 container for AAC files. It just renames them to M4A.

Anyway the best format to embed Cover Art is Matroska. You can put a whole albun including Cover Art in a single file. You can use whatever compression you wnat - MP3, AAC, AC3, WavPack, FLAC, Vorbis etc.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #20 –
Quote from: vlada on
Quote from: ea1776 on
Interesting.  So iTunes uses AAC with their own container...  AND their own (unpublished) tagging format.  I wonder what the best way to find out about iTunes' flavor of tagging is....

I always thought that iTunes uses MP4 container for AAC files. It just renames them to M4A.

Yes, the iTunes M4A files are using the mpeg4 container if you're ripping. Files from the iTunes Store in M4P are also mpeg4 but with custom, proprietary extensions to hold the encryption key.

Real and realmedia != Apple

Quote
Anyway the best format to embed Cover Art is Matroska. You can put a whole albun including Cover Art in a single file. You can use whatever compression you wnat - MP3, AAC, AC3, WavPack, FLAC, Vorbis etc.

I agree. If you're going to put images in a tag, there's no sense doing it more than once. Otherwise just use a separate file. And Matroska wins for clear documentation of "this is how we do album art".

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #21 –
Quote from: ea1776 on
Quote from: lordgibbness on


A good way to see which tags are present would be to use mp3tag and add the column TAG TYPE with the value: %_tag_read%[ (%_tag%)]


I'm not sure how to add columns in mp3tag...  Is it relatively easy?

Right click any column at the top then select customise. Now hit the new column button (blank page icon) and viola!

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #22 –
RealPlayer 10.5 reads and writes .m4a AAC tags, but it has problems with accented and foreign characters. RealPlayer tags support well more than 100 fields.  I assume that anything that isn't a RealAudio file stores the extra info in the RealPlayer database.

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: Klyith on
Quote from: vlada on
Quote from: ea1776 on
Interesting.  So iTunes uses AAC with their own container...  AND their own (unpublished) tagging format.  I wonder what the best way to find out about iTunes' flavor of tagging is....

I always thought that iTunes uses MP4 container for AAC files. It just renames them to M4A.

Yes, the iTunes M4A files are using the mpeg4 container if you're ripping. Files from the iTunes Store in M4P are also mpeg4 but with custom, proprietary extensions to hold the encryption key.

Real and realmedia != Apple

Quote
Anyway the best format to embed Cover Art is Matroska. You can put a whole albun including Cover Art in a single file. You can use whatever compression you wnat - MP3, AAC, AC3, WavPack, FLAC, Vorbis etc.

I agree. If you're going to put images in a tag, there's no sense doing it more than once. Otherwise just use a separate file. And Matroska wins for clear documentation of "this is how we do album art".


Where would that documentation be?

What media formats support embedded ALBUM ART?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: ea1776 on
Quote from: Klyith on

Quote from: vlada on
Quote from: ea1776 on
Interesting.  So iTunes uses AAC with their own container...  AND their own (unpublished) tagging format.  I wonder what the best way to find out about iTunes' flavor of tagging is....

I always thought that iTunes uses MP4 container for AAC files. It just renames them to M4A.

Yes, the iTunes M4A files are using the mpeg4 container if you're ripping. Files from the iTunes Store in M4P are also mpeg4 but with custom, proprietary extensions to hold the encryption key.

Real and realmedia != Apple

Quote
Anyway the best format to embed Cover Art is Matroska. You can put a whole albun including Cover Art in a single file. You can use whatever compression you wnat - MP3, AAC, AC3, WavPack, FLAC, Vorbis etc.

I agree. If you're going to put images in a tag, there's no sense doing it more than once. Otherwise just use a separate file. And Matroska wins for clear documentation of "this is how we do album art".


Where would that documentation be?

Nevermind,
http://www.matroska.org/technical/specs/in...html#Attachment