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Syncopation · (This post was last modified: 2016-02-01, 02:11 by Syncopation.)

Dear all, love that Kodi music section is receiving some dev love. It has been neglected for a long time, so that is great. Much love!

A question regarding cover art: In iTunes, several images can be added in the cover section. The left image then is used as cover art.

When those new files are found when updating the music section in kodi, they end up with another image (and not the one that's defined as cover art in itunes).

Screenshot 1: iTunes
Screenshot 2: Kodi 16b5

Any ideas how to deal with this situation? When trying to adjust the cover art in Kodi, only the (wrong) image that is currently used as cover art is show as option. Ideally, Kodi would understand what iTunes uses as cover art and just go with that image. Not sure if that is feasible though.

pbureau · 2016-01-17, 20:04

In Confluence, under the AlbumInfo view, you have a "Get thumb" button that allows cover art selection. Is this what you are looking for?

By the way, the AlbumInfo view is invoked using the context menu (press 'c'), and select "Album Information", from the Album view in the music section.

Syncopation · (This post was last modified: 2016-01-17, 21:36 by Syncopation.)

(2016-01-17, 16:16)Syncopation Wrote: When trying to adjust the cover art in Kodi, only the (wrong) image that is currently used as cover art is show as option.

Shouldn't the cover art somehow be set by iTunes and shouldn't that process be done in the music metadata? Probably not and probably stored in some proprietary iTunes format not accessible for outside software. But I really don't know.

There are a few problems with this:

1. Manual adjustment of cover images for a couple of thousand albums is no joy.
2. Even opting for a manual adjustment route would then mean, that the correct cover needs to be extracted from itunes to the album folder first, since only then the cover is selectable in Kodi (from what I can tell - see screenshot).

I know this is not liked in the Kodi community, but I wanted to add that Plex somehow manages to use the correct cover image. Not trying to flame Kodi (quite the opposite). Just indicating that obvisouly this is a technical problem, that can be solved.

**jjd-uk** · 2016-01-17, 21:51

Kodi is most likely showing the embedded art within the files, in which case I'm guessing that from your itunes screenshot the right image is most likely what was originaly downloaded for your files and the left image is something you've added but which hadn't been applied to the files.

Syncopation · (This post was last modified: 2016-01-17, 22:27 by Syncopation.)

jjd-uk, I equally added all three images since I scanned them myself from the CD I own.

From what I see in finder, the files have the correct image set as cover art:

**DaveBlake** · 2016-01-20, 12:06

Kodi uses the artwork it finds embedded the tags, then any folder.jpg, then scraped art (I think). You are saying that the artwork you want is embedded, but that Kodi is getting the wrong thing. Is that wrong art also embedded or do you have a folder.jpg too?

Maybe you can put an example song file in dropbox for me to test with? I don't want to infringe music copyright, so perhaps that is not possible.

Syncopation · 2016-01-20, 12:42

@DaveBlake: you got a pm

**DaveBlake** · 2016-01-20, 13:37

Ok, had a look at that file. It has the 3 images in there, but all are (sub-)tagged as "other" rather than one being "FrontCover". Kodi is also meant to store the "first found", that but doesn't seem to be working. Instead the images are written over each other so that in the end Kodi only sees the last one.

So I can see what is happening. Next question is what to do about it?

**jjd-uk** · 2016-01-20, 14:17

That's new to me, never realised multiple images could be embedded, is that a itunes only thing or something picard etc can also do?i

**DaveBlake** · 2016-01-20, 15:57

Seems supported by most tagging software, at least mp3tag will let me embed multiple images by labels them all in ID3 v2.4 as "frontcover". The ones from the op are "other".

And Kodi has some processing for it, but it looks like that is not working as well as it could. It over writes in the op case, and then ignores anything but the first (of 3) anyway. More work to do!!

Syncopation · 2016-01-21, 11:22

Sounds like

1. Kodi could do better with recognizing "other" images.
2. Apple iTunes could do better by correctly tagging the one image used on the very left as "front" instead of "other", which seems to be a stupid thing to do in the first place.

If #2 is the case, please do confirm and I'll file a bug with apple.

@DaveBlake: Is there a workaround for the time being? Meaning, if I delete and re-add those images in itunes, which image is the one found by Kodi currently? I tried adding the front cover image first and then the other two. Kodi detected a change when updating the library but it used the same image as earlier for cover purposes.

**jjd-uk** · 2016-01-21, 12:42

Which image shows when you click on a file in iTunes and do Get Info then in Summary tab should be the cover image?

**DaveBlake** · 2016-01-22, 15:25

(2016-01-21, 11:22)Syncopation Wrote: @DaveBlake: Is there a workaround for the time being? Meaning, if I delete and re-add those images in itunes, which image is the one found by Kodi currently? I tried adding the front cover image first and then the other two. Kodi detected a change when updating the library but it used the same image as earlier for cover purposes.

It sees all the image tags, but because they are the same type only keeps the last one. Try adding the image you want to see as last, that should work. If you did manage to get only one labled as frontcover then Kodi would show that in prefernce to "other". But if you end up with 3 of type frontcover (what mp3tag does with embedding images) then again it is the last that Kodi will use.

Not sure if you can see it as a iTunes bug, the tag standard is a bit vague on type, hence the mp3tag behaviour. But Kodi is not doing the best here either, another thing for my list.

Syncopation · 2016-02-05, 14:15

Just a ping. I guess chances of a fix making it into 16 final are fairly small? This seems not to be a trivial fix. I wonder how Plex manages to always detect the correct cover image. The problem with the workaround to use the correct cover art as last image in iTunes is, that then again, iTunes would have the wrong cover image.

**zag** · 2016-02-05, 18:07

Sounds like an itunes problem with embedding the image really.