iPod Photo: Full Screen View of Album Art only displays for 3 Seconds !

[ipodscotty]

One of the REASONS I was interested in purchasing the iPod Photo is for it's Album Art display feature.

Unfortunately this feature is turning out disappointing, as the FULL SCREEN album art view is only viewable for 3-4 seconds before it automatically jumps back to the 'main screen' song display mode which only displays the ultra tiny (and pretty much unviewable) album art image. I asked the Apple Store salesperson if the FULL SCREEN 'album art' VIEW TIME could be customized, but was informed that it's permanently FIXED at 3-4 seconds and CANNOT be changed. I found it very frustrating to barely get a chance to even glance at the full screen view the 'album art' before having it suddenly disappear.

Anyone else agree with me on this. I think Apple should correct this by allowing us to 'custom select' the 'album art' display time (from like: 3 seconds to 20 seconds or throughout the entire song if desired), or at the least lengthen the default display time to something more realisitic: 10 seconds.

I'm sure Apple could correct this problem with a downloadable iPod Photo software update for all current iPod Photo owners.

Until this issue is addressed & resolved by Apple, I'll probably hold off in upgrading to iPod Photo.

I'm really interested in getting feedback & opinions on this from both iPod Photo owners as well as others who have had a chance to checkout the Album Art feature.

Thanks

Scotty

[Adam]

I'd love to have an MP3 player that displays album art only full screen all the time.

But really, don't get your hopes up, because you will just end up being dissapointed.

[swy32x]

That is just a typical Apple setting - when you click the middle button, it toggles settings, such as star rating and other things. I wouldn't have expected anything. Remember that the album art is on screen still, just not full screen. Also, you can store it and watch it and show as a slideshow

[nagromme]

I thought I saw mentioned somewhere that you could swap the full-screen view to be the default that stays on. I'd like that choice. But I see no such option on my iPod Photo.

But it doesn't really bother me much since the small album art IS very viewable in my subjective opinion--and it leaves room for artist/title/album text which is a good thing.

The feature I'd most like, if full-size art could be the default, is the option to run the entire iPod UI (not just slideshows) to TV--so you could get album art on-screen for whatever's playing through your stereo. That would be nice integration with a home theater system.

[Nitr0]

Why do you want to see it for more then 3 seconds anyways?

[Adam]

I would think that album art is supposed to be the size of an LP, or even worse the size of a CD. Then you shrink it down to coin size, so what is the point in the first place. I see where he is coming from....

[Nitr0]

It's just a tiny reference, it's not like you're supposed to be staring at this stuff for hours on end detailing everything you see.

[nagromme]

Well, the reason to want it bigger and longer is to see it better :)

Here's where to go:

http://apple.com/feedback

[big_moe]

if i have an mp3 tagged with album art and transfer to the ipod photo will it display the album art? or does the album art file have to be stored on the ipod itself????

[PHiX]

If you buy the album you can look at the cover as long as you want to.

[jhollington]

Originally posted by big_moe
if i have an mp3 tagged with album art and transfer to the ipod photo will it display the album art? or does the album art file have to be stored on the ipod itself????
Actually, it requires that the MP3/AAC file be tagged with the album art, as there's really no way to put an album art file on the iPod (well, you can store it just like any file, but not in the music library).

iTunes will take care of this for you. I'm not sure if there are any other apps that directly support it yet for the sake of transferring it to the iPod (since the tags do have to be transferred).

(Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not really sure if the iPod is reading it straight from the MP3 file or if iTunes is syncing it into a database somewhere...).

[perfmode]

Apple will probably add that feature in the next revision/generation of the photo (if that even happens).

jhol. it reads the mp3 tag.

[jhollington]

Originally posted by perfmode
jhol. it reads the mp3 tag.

Well, I know that iTunes reads the MP3 tag, but I was talking about the album art once it's on the iPod (ie, where does the iPod itself read it from).

So the more I thought about it, the more I began to suspect that, since the iPod indexes all of the other relevant ID3 tags, album art would probably be stored separately....

If you look into your iPod file system, that actually does appear to be the case... If you go into the \iPod_Control directory, there's a subfolder called Artwork, which (on my iPod at least) contains three files: ArtWorkDB, F1016_1.ithmb, and F1017_1.ithmb. The two ithmb files are 86Mb and 13Mb, respectively.

So, I'd suggest that the artwork is actually synced onto the iPod into a separate storage area.

[jhollington]

In fact, for the curious I just discovered something with a quick and simple test.... If you turn "off" the option in iTunes to "Display Album Artwork on your iPod", these files in the Artwork directory are cleaned up during the next iPod sync (just about immediately if you're in auto mode). Turn the option back on, the they're gradually put back as iTunes re-optimizes album artwork and sends it across.

Just a hunch, but my guess is that one file is for the small album artwork that normally shows on the "Now Playing" screen, the the other, larger file, is for the larer artwork (the one that only appears for 3 secs ;) ). As with the photo library, it appears that all of the photo scaling is done by iTunes prior to sending the images to the iPod, which I suppose makes sense as it saves programming effort and CPU cycles on the iPod itself.

Anyway, just a bit of technical trivia for anybody who may have cared. We now return you to your regularly scheduled griping...

[Parrothead Phan]

If you have the album art showing on the "Now Playing" screen, will long song titles continue to scroll like they do when you don't display the album art?

[jhollington]

Originally posted by Parrothead Phan
If you have the album art showing on the "Now Playing" screen, will long song titles continue to scroll like they do when you don't display the album art?
Yes. Same as on the 4G... Only the titles scroll (not the album name).

[Parrothead Phan]

thanks! Now I need to figure out how to find all the album art that I removed from my ID3 tags...

[silver_haze20]

Well the answer is pretty simple. 15 hours music playback - 5 hours photo playback.

If you had the fullscreen album art, the battery would last litle over 5 hours, as the art isn't quite full screen.

Do you walk round constantly looking at your iPod? Surely it suffices to just whip it out of your pocket, and press the select button. It does for me. The main reason I bought the iPod photo is because it displays album art. The one downside of the iPod, is that you lose the physical form of the CD. At least with the iPod photo you can still veiw the album art.

[jhollington]

Originally posted by silver_haze20
Well the answer is pretty simple. 15 hours music playback - 5 hours photo playback.

If you had the fullscreen album art, the battery would last litle over 5 hours, as the art isn't quite full screen.

Well, to be fair, that would only the case if you had the backlight on for the whole time. I'm sure the reduced battery life that you get from doing photo slideshows has more to do with the backlight being on than anything else (since it can't take that much more power simply to display an image).

I agree with your point about not needing to walk around looking at my iPod's screen :) Although I can also see how those who use their iPod as part of their home stereo system (ie, connected to a Bose Sounddock or inMotion speakers or somesuch) might want the screen to display the album art all the time.

[silver_haze20]

This is true. I was under the impression that it was the picture that ate battery life. Surely the backlight wouldn't reduce it to 5 hours though? LEDs (assuming thats what they use) consume next to no power I thought!?

And a fair you made about the home stereo system. I really hope they upgrade the firmware so you can veiw the now playing screen on an external screen. This would be really useful, especially so in new cars with TVs built in...we can only hope!

[jhollington]

Originally posted by silver_haze20
This is true. I was under the impression that it was the picture that ate battery life. Surely the backlight wouldn't reduce it to 5 hours though? LEDs (assuming thats what they use) consume next to no power I thought!?
Well, if you look at most devices that are backlit, it's the use of the backlight that usually costs the most in terms of power consumption.

While true that LEDs consume very little power compared to other forms of illumination, they still consume significantly more power than the LCD display itself, or any of the other solid-state components in the iPod (with the possible exception of the hard drive).

PDAs and laptops seem to suffer from this problem the most (try turning down the screen brightness on your laptop or PDA sometime and you'll discover a significant increase in battery life).