[Milhouse]

Well, yes it is confusing and i agree too because we assume "downloading from the net", but in this case it downloads them from the local path (which also could be a remote server), so in a way it makes sense.

It's the "Use local files" setting that dictates if AD actually downloads anything (and also if it uses any already existing local artwork). It's this dual behaviour (download if not exist, use local files if they exist) from a single setting that I find particularly confusing, not to mention inflexible - what if you to only want AD to associate existing local artwork, but you don't want AD to download anything new? Not possible.

The "Enable downloading" option that you see in Movies, TV Shows and Musicvideo is really just enabling that media type - on or off - and doesn't have anything to do with actual downloading. Consider it somewhat badly named.

I have "Enable downloading" enabled in Movies, and "Use local files" is disabled, so AD doesn't download *anything* for me. It does however find new remote artwork, and stores these remote artwork urls in my library.

Since I'm using moviename-prefix and want locally stored artwork (in original and not cached quality), I then use mklocal.py to actually download the new artwork alongside my movies, and then fix the library replacing the remote urls with the new local urls. Not really a solution if you don't want to use a script, but it's the solution I use.