In Windows Media Player 11 there appears to be confusion between Album Art
images representing the album to which a collection of music files are
associated and Presentation Art, usually embedded with each file. This
confusion is understandable as presentation art is almost always the Album
Art image. With Presentation Art, however, one can have a unique image for
each song in a given album. For example, on an album containing an anthology
of movie music, one might provide a unique soundtrack or poster for each
movie represented.
When I do this with MP3 files, I usually use a 400x400 pixel or greater
resolution that allows a CD-cover quality musical-slideshow display with the
"Album Art" visualization mode. Currently, Media Player 11 allows this
option, but it is only partially supported, perhaps because no commercially
available music files try to take advantage of this capability.
The current problem with Windows Media Player 11 is that it tries to
derive its common Album Art images from what appears to be a randomly
selected Presentation Art file on the assumption that they are all share the
same image and if you paste an Album Art image as suggested, WMP 11 will
over-write all your carefully prepared Presentation Art with a minimal
resolution version of the image you paste.
Also, it appears that WMP 11 does not always register the fact that an
image has been saved into a given music file and after several tries, I find
that multiple images have been stored. As far as I know, only one of these
images is ever used.
I propose that the WMP 12 team give some thought to providing better
support for Presentation Art and music sellers might consider the advantages
of displaying high resolution images for each musical selection as it plays
that could serve to advertise its original source film or album.
Mike Barlow - 29 Jul 2007 15:24 GMT
In the event the clipped title made point of my previous post unclear,
my post above deals with the distinction between what I call "Presentation
Art," the various graphic images that can be embedded in each MP3 file of an
album and "Album Art," a single or common graphic image that represents a
given album as a collection of files.
If it is present, Windows Media Player will display the unique
"presentation art" image embedded with each selection as it plays. This
functionality can be used to create a musical slideshow for each album.