2016-02-05, 12:08
Artwork Beef automatically adds extra artwork for media in your library. It is generally intended to handle extended artwork just as Kodi and scrapers already do for basic artwork. It grabs artwork from the wonderful web services fanart.tv, TheTVDB.com, The Movie Database, TheAudioDB.com.
It is developed for Kodi 17 Krypton and 18 Leia, and should also work for 16 Jarvis. 15 Isengard may still work, but it's really time to update.
19 Matrix is not supported - AB was a stopgap measure for functionality missing from Kodi ("generally intended to handle extended artwork just as Kodi and scrapers already do for basic artwork"), and now that gap has been closed. For Kodi 19 Matrix, Artwork Dump can be used to download artwork added by scrapers.
It fully supports series and season artwork from TheTVDB.com; movie, movie set, music video, series, and season artwork from fanart.tv; movie and movie set artwork from The Movie Database; and music video artwork from TheAudioDB. For those series that really pop, high quality fanart for each episode can be added from The Movie Database.
The full list of artwork types grabbed from external web services:
movies and movie sets: poster, keyart, fanart, banner, clearlogo, landscape, clearart, discart
movies: characterart, animatedposter, animatedfanart, animatedkeyart
music videos: poster (album/single cover), discart, fanart, artistthumb, banner, clearlogo, clearart, landscape
series: poster, keyart, fanart, banner, clearlogo, landscape, clearart, characterart
seasons: poster, fanart, banner, landscape
episodes: fanart
Music library artwork is supported in Kodi 18 Leia.
The following art types are added from TheAudioDB and fanart.tv:
artists: thumb, fanart, banner, clearlogo, clearart, landscape
albums: thumb (album cover), discart, back, spine
songs: thumb (single cover)
It will also prefer local artwork stored in the file system if it exists, and can be configured to download other artwork that is added.
When don't you need Artwork Beef
Kodi 18 Leia smash! With Kodi 18 there are certain extended artwork setups that don't require Artwork Beef. Configuration of the extended artwork whitelist in the advancedsettings.xml built into Kodi is all that is necessary.
Option 1 is using media managers to populate artwork before adding the media to Kodi. If you use a media manager that saves artwork to match Kodi's naming scheme and have configured the artwork whitelist, then Kodi will automatically add that local artwork to the library when adding a new media item like it always has with posters and fanart. At this point extrafanart file location depends on what your preferred skin supports, and I suggest multiple fanart if it supports both.
Option 2 is using just scrapers right in Kodi. This way alone won't download artwork next to your media files, and doesn't support extrafanart, but scrapers can now provide all artwork like they've always supported posters.
Kodi 19 alpha 1 now includes a "Movie set information folder" setting to save and load local movie set artwork.
Kodi 19 beta 1 moves the artwork type selection from advancedsettings.xml to the main settings page "Media settings".
Installing
Install my dev repository to get updates delivered to you automatically. After the repo is installed, Artwork Beef can be installed from "Program add-ons". Artwork Beef can also be installed with a single zip file, but you will have to return here for updates.
Artwork Dump (for Kodi 19 only) can be found in its own thread.
Artwork Helper can be installed with this single installable zip for Kodi 17 and 18 (or this one for Kodi 16 and below), but it's only necessary if a skin depends on it.
These URLs will always point to the latest stable version.
Usage
For full information see the documentation. See the Kodi wiki for information on Kodi's built in artwork capabilities. If you have any questions, please read the documentation first.
Other thoughts
Those where my thoughts. What are yours? Skinners, viewers/end users, developers, anyone, I'd like to hear what you think.
Source hosted on GitHub. Do not install directly from source, use one of the two options above.
READ THIS if you are having problems
I need detailed information to help you troubleshoot any problems. I cannot guess at the underlying cause of your trouble, I need you to make it clear for me. The below describes how to gather that information.
It is developed for Kodi 17 Krypton and 18 Leia, and should also work for 16 Jarvis. 15 Isengard may still work, but it's really time to update.
19 Matrix is not supported - AB was a stopgap measure for functionality missing from Kodi ("generally intended to handle extended artwork just as Kodi and scrapers already do for basic artwork"), and now that gap has been closed. For Kodi 19 Matrix, Artwork Dump can be used to download artwork added by scrapers.
It fully supports series and season artwork from TheTVDB.com; movie, movie set, music video, series, and season artwork from fanart.tv; movie and movie set artwork from The Movie Database; and music video artwork from TheAudioDB. For those series that really pop, high quality fanart for each episode can be added from The Movie Database.
The full list of artwork types grabbed from external web services:
movies and movie sets: poster, keyart, fanart, banner, clearlogo, landscape, clearart, discart
movies: characterart, animatedposter, animatedfanart, animatedkeyart
music videos: poster (album/single cover), discart, fanart, artistthumb, banner, clearlogo, clearart, landscape
series: poster, keyart, fanart, banner, clearlogo, landscape, clearart, characterart
seasons: poster, fanart, banner, landscape
episodes: fanart
Music library artwork is supported in Kodi 18 Leia.
The following art types are added from TheAudioDB and fanart.tv:
artists: thumb, fanart, banner, clearlogo, clearart, landscape
albums: thumb (album cover), discart, back, spine
songs: thumb (single cover)
It will also prefer local artwork stored in the file system if it exists, and can be configured to download other artwork that is added.
When don't you need Artwork Beef
Kodi 18 Leia smash! With Kodi 18 there are certain extended artwork setups that don't require Artwork Beef. Configuration of the extended artwork whitelist in the advancedsettings.xml built into Kodi is all that is necessary.
Option 1 is using media managers to populate artwork before adding the media to Kodi. If you use a media manager that saves artwork to match Kodi's naming scheme and have configured the artwork whitelist, then Kodi will automatically add that local artwork to the library when adding a new media item like it always has with posters and fanart. At this point extrafanart file location depends on what your preferred skin supports, and I suggest multiple fanart if it supports both.
Option 2 is using just scrapers right in Kodi. This way alone won't download artwork next to your media files, and doesn't support extrafanart, but scrapers can now provide all artwork like they've always supported posters.
Kodi 19 alpha 1 now includes a "Movie set information folder" setting to save and load local movie set artwork.
Kodi 19 beta 1 moves the artwork type selection from advancedsettings.xml to the main settings page "Media settings".
Installing
Install my dev repository to get updates delivered to you automatically. After the repo is installed, Artwork Beef can be installed from "Program add-ons". Artwork Beef can also be installed with a single zip file, but you will have to return here for updates.
Artwork Dump (for Kodi 19 only) can be found in its own thread.
Artwork Helper can be installed with this single installable zip for Kodi 17 and 18 (or this one for Kodi 16 and below), but it's only necessary if a skin depends on it.
These URLs will always point to the latest stable version.
Usage
For full information see the documentation. See the Kodi wiki for information on Kodi's built in artwork capabilities. If you have any questions, please read the documentation first.
Other thoughts
- Scrapers and NFO files need to set web service IDs like IMDB number, TVDB ID, or TMDB ID for media types that Kodi supports such IDs for: movies, TV shows, and episodes
- Music files need to be tagged with MusicBrainz IDs; Artist, Release Group, and Track IDs
- Music files need to be tagged with MusicBrainz IDs; Artist, Release Group, and Track IDs
- Movie thumbnails / extrathumbs aren't added from external sources. There is no way to tell the difference between stills and press/marketing images from the web services, while thumbs should only include stills. Skins can try multiple fanart for a similar look. Generating more than one thumb from a video file is outside the scope of this add-on, but any provided by a media manager is added to the library. Plugins can also set these to the ListItem, if their source provides more than one thumbnail.
- It would be nice to have a Kodi built-in way for skins to feed multiple art to a `multiimage` control, maybe something like `$INFO[ListItem.MultiArt(fanart)]` to pull all `fanart` and `fanart#` together. I have no idea how it could be implemented in Kodi, though.
Those where my thoughts. What are yours? Skinners, viewers/end users, developers, anyone, I'd like to hear what you think.
Source hosted on GitHub. Do not install directly from source, use one of the two options above.
READ THIS if you are having problems
I need detailed information to help you troubleshoot any problems. I cannot guess at the underlying cause of your trouble, I need you to make it clear for me. The below describes how to gather that information.
- A detailed description of the problem. What are you trying to do, what window are you on, what steps do you take leading up to the problem? Any other relevant context will be helpful.
- I need the entire Kodi debug log file to fully understand your problem; while recording the debug log run the process that you are having trouble with. If there are relevant lines in the standard log then I might be able to work with the entire standard log (for those intermittent problems that are difficult to catch in a debug log), but there is a good chance I cannot.
- An additional action you can take here that is often helpful is to enable "Disable/Enable Artwork Beef debug context items (per skin)" while debug logging is enabled
- An additional action you can take here that is often helpful is to enable "Disable/Enable Artwork Beef debug context items (per skin)" while debug logging is enabled
- The artwork report (userdata/addon_data/script.artwork.beef/artwork-report.txt) will also have some useful info on what actions Artwork Beef is taking.
- Configuration for Artwork Beef can be complicated, so it may be helpful to post your Artwork Beef "settings.xml" file (replace any API or user keys for web services if you have them configured) - it can be found in "userdata" next to the artwork report.
- If your problem is with local artwork, a screenshot or listing from the file system for an affected media item and its artwork will be helpful.
