Having all art in a separate location
I know some users prefer not to have art mixed with music files, I too started that way, but when it came to implementing it as
the music art strategy could see the disadvanatges. I list the many benefits of a separate Artist Info Folder for artists art
here (all those cases that don't fit a unique artist/album layout), but @
Powerhouse has listed some other interesting ideas for having
all art separately. Let's examine that:
1. To keep my Music folders clean of junk
Yes, I can see that. The downside is identifying the individual album location. Kodi can find the music whatever you call the album folder and that avoids having to name folder accurately etc. Do album art folders go under the primary album artist art folder (helps when you have many called "Greatest Hits")? Or does the folder get named <artists>-<album>-<year> or use MBid for unqiueness (but not nice for humans)? Also, like Scott says, the need for the user to manage multiple locations.
You may notice that the export facility will create such a structure for exported results - a way to see what you have without splattering nfo and art throughout your music files. I have not implmented automatic album art lookup from such a structure, I wanted to see what users made of separate art folders first, but you can import from it and set art that way.
2. Reduce hard drive access
Some people complain about their NAS drives spinning up when they are just browsing, and this probably happens because of the default texture cache
checking. All images in Kod are cached, and when showing an image if it has not been checked for changes in the last 24 hours then the hash of the image is checked (Kodi only recaches if the image is changed or missing, but checks after a day and that wakes the drive). So yes having art on a different drive could avoid waking up all the drives etc., but I have not tested this to be sure.
3. Benefits for Music Video
Yes would be good for Music Videos to access the music library art - someone implement that!
Inevitably Kodi will need to continue to support lookup of art mixed in with music files. I could be talked into implementing automatic art lookup of totally separate art, but I need a break from art just now. With the work I did for export/import we are part way there, I would like to have more user input before I leap off that cliff!