Album Art
From Winamp iPod plugin ml_iPod
Album art (also known as Cover Art) is the cover of a album displayed by your iPod (at least color iPod).
Contents |
Enabling Album Art On Your iPod
In the 'Options' drop down menu in Winamp, go down and open up 'Preferences' (Ctrl+P). In the Winamp Preferences menu, on the left hand side list, navigate underneath the 'General Preferences' heading and find & open 'iPod Support'. Under 'iPod Support' is a sub category named 'Audio & Video', there click on the 'Album Art' tab. In this tab, select the check box 'Enable Cover Art for this iPod' (Note: Your iPod must be connected to do so, otherwise this section will be greyed-out and uncheckable).
From this point, you have the option to add all your artwork for your media by clicking the 'Update ALL Album art now' button. Otherwise, you can select individual album art to transfer in the iPod view on the main screen
Adding Album Art to new songs
As part of the ID3tag
One way is to check the 'Look for cover art in ID3tags' box and add your cover art to the actual mp3-file.
Caution 1: This does work only for MP3 files (with ID3v2 tags), not for AAC files (*.m4a etc.) or other formats like wav!
Caution 2: This does NOT work ID3 v2.4 tags, only v2.3 is supported due to the used library. Sorry.
There are numerous programs that can add pictures to the ID3Tag. Some of them are:
Winamp does not support adding or displaying album art from the start. There is a plugin that makes it possible to display it. The plugin can be found here.
As matching jpg-file
It is also possible to make a jpg file and name it after the song or album it belongs to (e.g. for MySong.mp3 the jpg file has to be MySong.jpg. If that doesn't exist, ml_iPod looks for albumname.jpg where albumname is the name of the album the song belongs to). In order to work, the box 'look for matching jpg file' has to be checked.
As folder.jpg
The last possible way to get cover art on your iPod is to make a folder.jpg (or any name, just change it in the change the name of the file in the album art preferences) and place it in the folder where the corresponding album is. In order to work, the box 'look for a specific folder file' has to be checked.
As *.jpg (wildcard) or multiple names
If you use the option above, you can also use *.jpg instead of a folder.jpg. This is very useful if you have named the art work pictures different for each folder (like "album name".jpg)!
If you want to look for cover.jpg first, if that isn't found look for folder.jpg, and as a last option use any *.jpg, you can use a patern like this:
cover.jpg folder.jpg *.jpg
You simply separate the different patterns with whitespace.
Image scaling
The image can be added differently. Either 'ml_iPod' maintains the aspect ratio or it stretches the image to a square. Just choose the method under the album art preferences. If all you album art images are 'almost' square, the strechting method gives nicer images on the iPod. But if some of your images aren't squares at all, use the 'preserve aspect ratio' option.
Adding or changing Album Art for already downloaded songs
If you have the same tracks on your Harddisk as your iPod
You need the same tracks on your harddisk (and in the Winamp Media Library) and on the iPod. Then you change the cover ID3 tag of the MP3 file on the HD(!), or you change or add a folder.jpg to the folder on the HD(!). Then you select the corresponding song in the iPod view in Winamp ML, and run "Refresh Album Art". ml_iPod now looks for the corresponding MP3 on the HD, takes the image from the tag or from the folder.jpg, transforms it into a format that can be used by the iPod, and transfers this to the iPod.
An easy way to refresh the album art for all your songs is to use the context menu of the iPod: iPod Tools->Refresh all album art. That is basically the same as selecting all songs first and choosing the "Refresh Album Art", except that it is faster because it can easily discard all old cover art first.
If you DO NOT have the same tracks on your Harddisk as your iPod
- Download MP3Tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) or other mp3 Tagging Tools & Install. Run it.
- Open your iPod drive folder with MP3Tag. Let it collect all the tag data from your iPod, which might take long depending on how many mp3's you have.
- Sort the big list of mp3's so they are grouped by album.
- Select blocks of mp3's and drag/drop or copy/paste album art into the album art box in the left dialog. While you are in here, don't be afraid to clean-up your mp3 tags!
- Once you are finished adding all the album artwork to your iPod, go into Winamp and add your iPod directory to your Local Media in the Media Library (as if you were adding songs into your media library from your hard drive).
- You should now have your iPod songs loaded into the Local Media, as well as the songs displaying from your iPod. This will allow you to 'Refresh Album Art' now. Since ml_iPod searches the Local Media mp3's for album art, it will now search itself for the album art.
