2020-06-15, 21:07
This is a general discussion topic of art used for music videos. I see the following limitations or issues when skinning MV art:
1. Music video library items can be displayed in both the music and videos windows, as well as musicplaylist and videoplaylist windows. This creates a need to fine-tune what and how art for MV items is displayed.
2. From what I can tell, the original implementation was designed to retrieve both artist and album art from the music library. But only the artist art currently works. One limitation of this is that there is an album library node for music videos, but the album items only show the default icon, no art. The artist library node does show the artist art (from music library if the artist in in there).
3. The nominal art types for music videos are roughly the same as for movies. But on a practical basis, I'm not sure how much they are used. As a default (configured by a setting) when scanned to the video library a frame grab will be made and stored as the thumb. This is commonly a 16:9 aspect but not necessarily. There is a bit of a problem with this, as for music the assumption is the thumb is an album cover or artist image with 1:1 aspect.
4. With the above as background, what I think has value is to add an art type for the album cover (at least for single-song music videos). I see a couple possibilities:
a. Use existing "poster" art type for an album cover. The problem here is that the poster is intended for a 2:3 aspect while an album cover is 1:1. The advantage is all skins (AFAIK) support poster for music videos out of the box.
b. Create a new art type "cover" which would be defined as the album cover with a 1:1 aspect. The drawback here is that this adds yet another art type which has to be supported in skins. The advantage is it's easier to skin since the meaning and aspect of the art is known.
5. There currently is no way to add artist art for a music video artist that isn't in the music library. It's possible that there is an addon like Artist Slideshow that stores local artist art in the artist info folder and that could be retrieved for display with music videos even if the artist is not in the music library. That could be extended to storing album art I suppose.
Thoughts?
scott s.
.
1. Music video library items can be displayed in both the music and videos windows, as well as musicplaylist and videoplaylist windows. This creates a need to fine-tune what and how art for MV items is displayed.
2. From what I can tell, the original implementation was designed to retrieve both artist and album art from the music library. But only the artist art currently works. One limitation of this is that there is an album library node for music videos, but the album items only show the default icon, no art. The artist library node does show the artist art (from music library if the artist in in there).
3. The nominal art types for music videos are roughly the same as for movies. But on a practical basis, I'm not sure how much they are used. As a default (configured by a setting) when scanned to the video library a frame grab will be made and stored as the thumb. This is commonly a 16:9 aspect but not necessarily. There is a bit of a problem with this, as for music the assumption is the thumb is an album cover or artist image with 1:1 aspect.
4. With the above as background, what I think has value is to add an art type for the album cover (at least for single-song music videos). I see a couple possibilities:
a. Use existing "poster" art type for an album cover. The problem here is that the poster is intended for a 2:3 aspect while an album cover is 1:1. The advantage is all skins (AFAIK) support poster for music videos out of the box.
b. Create a new art type "cover" which would be defined as the album cover with a 1:1 aspect. The drawback here is that this adds yet another art type which has to be supported in skins. The advantage is it's easier to skin since the meaning and aspect of the art is known.
5. There currently is no way to add artist art for a music video artist that isn't in the music library. It's possible that there is an addon like Artist Slideshow that stores local artist art in the artist info folder and that could be retrieved for display with music videos even if the artist is not in the music library. That could be extended to storing album art I suppose.
Thoughts?
scott s.
.
