Must I embed artwork in all my tracks?

[floepie]

I have a nice high res folder.jpg in each of my album folders. Must I embed each of my tracks with the corresponding folder.jpg in order for both iTunes and ipod to show correct art?

Is there no way for iTunes to cache all the folder.jpg's into its own file system the way it does for downloaded artwork from within iTunes?

 

[S2_Mac]

Yes, you'll need to embed the art. iTunes doesn't provide a cache for "folder.jpg" art, so you'll have to do it by hand. If you're migrating to Mac, I've got an Applescript that automates the task ;-) Don't know if anyone has ported it to Windows yet....

If you're stuck doing this by-hand, remember that you can add the art to a whole album's worth of tracks at one go; Grid view -> display Albums is very handy for this.

 

[floepie]

OK thanks, I was afraid of that. Fortunately, there is a windows app to automate this process as well.

Here's another questions then: Previously, I used iTunes downloaded cover art that displays in both iTunes and ipod (some were incorrect and many albums had no artwork) on a music collection that iTunes *cannot* write to (iTunes would need admin privilidges). Now, I have all the correct ones as folder.jpgs.

What happens to the downloaded artwork in iTunes's file system? Are they simply trumped by embedded artwork? I assume it would be safe to delete the contents of that iTunes 'artwork' directory? Thanks again...

 

[S2_Mac]

Yes, embedded art trumps downloaded art; and when newly-added embedded art is first seen by iTunes, it replaces whatever already exists in the Cover Flow cache. To get rid of downloaded art, delete the "Local" folder (I think that's what it's called now). To refresh your Cover Flow cache, quit iTunes and delete the "Cache" folder; then fire up iTunes and scroll through Cover Flow to rebuild the cache.

 

[ralliart122010]

Yes, embedded art trumps downloaded art; and when newly-added embedded art is first seen by iTunes, it replaces whatever already exists in the Cover Flow cache. To get rid of downloaded art, delete the "Local" folder (I think that's what it's called now). To refresh your Cover Flow cache, quit iTunes and delete the "Cache" folder; then fire up iTunes and scroll through Cover Flow to rebuild the cache.

My album artwork folder is getting too bloated for my measly 4k-song library. Is there anyway for iTunes (& its coverflow component) to function without (relying on) this specific folder in its library folders?

 

[Code Monkey]

My album artwork folder is getting too bloated for my measly 4k-song library. Is there anyway for iTunes (& its coverflow component) to function without (relying on) this specific folder in its library folders?

Not really. iTunes and the iPod, no matter what your embedded source art is, works from separate databases of resolution optimized bitmap images (and for iTunes these are stored in the artwork folder). You can delete them, but they'll just be recreated at the expense of time.