Where are Artist images and Fanart stored?

Where are Artist images and Fanart stored? - Printable Version

+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Support (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=33)
+--- Forum: Music Support (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=263)
+--- Thread: Where are Artist images and Fanart stored? (/showthread.php?tid=263105)

Where are Artist images and Fanart stored? - oyvindo - 2016-03-06

Hi,
After scraping and scraping and scraping, there are still a large number of artists in my music library without thumb and fanart.
So I thought I'd begin adding the missing ones manually.
But I wish to do this in a way that protects my investment for the future. Having some 3000 artists in my library, it will take time even if 60% were tagged through scraping.

So, is it possible to store Artist image and fanart embedded in the ID3 tag of MP3 files for Kodi to pick up during scanning?
That way, hard work would follow the library when it's time to move from Kodi to the next platform some day into the future.

In other words, I do not wish to invest too much time into something that disappears with Kodi the day it dies.

The next best alternative would be to use files inside the artist folder....

Suggestions or guidelines anyone?

RE: Where are Artist images and Fanart stored? - DaveBlake - 2016-03-07

(2016-03-06, 23:49)oyvindo Wrote: So, is it possible to store Artist image and fanart embedded in the ID3 tag of MP3 files for Kodi to pick up during scanning?

No. You can of course embed them, but Kodi does not process them. In fact Kodi makes a mess of having multiple cover images embedded, a bug to be fixed,so I would not go that way.

Quote:The next best alternative would be to use files inside the artist folder....

Suggestions or guidelines anyone?

That is the way Kodi expects you to go. If I remember correctly folder.jpg in the artist folder will get picked up, but anything more then a NFO file is needed. But not something I have done, I play music with TV off so other than album cover to help me find/choose what to play all the fan art etc. is wasted on me. Hopefully someone else that uses this will come along to advise.

RE: Where are Artist images and Fanart stored? - k4sh1n - 2016-03-09

Here's my 2¢ worth of how I have music setup in KODI, mind you I'm far from being an expert with the music library, so I'm sure other more knowledgeable KODI members can offer better setup advice or more insight to the music library.

Now, AFAIK KODI reads the "ID3" Album Artist tag, supporting embedded album art in files with ID3 tags on WMA and MP4 tags only. (unfortunate if the music library has other file types/extensions)

With thumbnail images: (folder.jpg) "with no brackets" is the nominal naming convention for thumbnail images, however the .jpg has a pixel range constraint and has to be between the range of: 64x64 to 256x256 in pixels.

(NB: Images outside this range may have issues with the artwork not being displayed, YMMV. (could be why there is missing art)

Thumbnail to folder:

Code:
Music\path\album\folder.jpg

If your folders already have thumbnail-artwork/s, other than the default folder.jpg, you can create/add a tag to the advancedsettings.xm file in userdata, to cache your user defined convention/s.

Alternate thumbnail conventions: (separate additional conventions with vertical-bar '|' symbol.)

Code:
<musicthumbs> <!-- opening tag -->

  <remove>folder.jpg</remove> <!-- removes the default: folder.jpg -->

  <add>thumb.jpg|cover.jpg</add> <!-- list user defined convention/s -->

</musicthumbs><!-- closing tag -->

With music artwork, I included local folder artwork and .nfo's, etc in case the music scraper API fell over, and couldn't pull data on obscure albums/artists. (Fixed issues where artwork/metadata doesn't scrape or simply doesn't exist),

Artwork

Code:
Music\path\artist\album\audiofilename.mp3

Music\path\artist\album\audiofilename.jpg

Music\path\artist\album\cover.jpg

Music\path\artist\fanart.jpg

Music\path\artist\folder.jpg

Music\path\artist\logo.png

Music\path\artist\extrafanart\fanart1.jpg, fanart2.jpg, etc

Music\path\artist\banner.jpg

Music\path\artist\album\cdart.png

Music\path\artist\album\folder.jpg

Music\path\artist\artist.nfo  <!-- artist.nfo optional (if no data to be scraped)  -->

Music\path\artist\album\album.nfo <!-- album.nfo optional (if no data to be scraped)  -->

Music folder structure (PITA to do at first, but worth doing, particularly obscure non-scrape-able's).

Single album hierarchy:

Code:
Artist folder\Album folder\track1.mp3 file

                                -->track2.mp3 file

                                -->track3.mp3 file

                                -->etc

 <!-- Parent with subsequent albums to sub-folder  -->

Artist folder\Album folder 2\track1.mp3 file

                                   -->track2.mp3 file

                                   -->track3.mp3 file

                                   -->etc

Multi-part/disc album hierarchy:

Code:
Artist folder\Album folder\Disc 1 folder\track1.mp3 file

                                                    -->track2.mp3 file

                                                    -->track3.mp3 file

                                                    -->etc

 <!-- Parent with subsequent multi-part to sub-folder -->

Artist folder\Album folder\Disc 2 folder\track1.mp3 file

                                                    -->track2.mp3 file

                                                    -->track3.mp3 file

                                                    -->etc

In the above music folder hierarchy, the artist folder-naming needs to match the actual Artist Name.
If it's not matching, scraping tends to cause library issues with:

i) multiple/duplicate entries for the same artist
ii) inconsistent albums or tracks listed/grouped across different letters of the same artist
iii) album tracks split across duplicate album entries for the same artist

Using the artist "MICHAEL JACKSON" as an example.

The music scraper/API adds the tracks/albums to the music library, allocating some tracks/albums to duplicates = | "JACKSON MICHAEL" | "MICHAEL J" | "J MICHAEL" | "MJ" | "ETC" and one album to actual artist name = "MICHAEL JACKSON".

Music is then played via smart play-list, letter-group-filtering or navigating to album:

1) Play-all albums-of-artist: "MICHAEL JACKSON"

- or -

2) Play-all artist's-album/s grouped under the letter: "M"".

The track/album-artist or letter group, respectively: | "JACKSON MICHAEL" | "MICHAEL J" | "J MICHAEL" | "MJ" | - and - :"J", are not populated, when playing actual artist name. The one album is played, while duplicates are not.

Some useful links:

Music add-on: cdART Manager manages music artwork
.nfo examples: artist.nfo and album.nfo when there's no data to scrape

HTH