Album art in Ogg Vorbis?, how to set tags? Options

[Wintershade]

I'm using Tag&Rename, and with my mp3 files there's no problem with giving album art tag (so my Rockbox shows me album art when I listen to them). How to set those tags in Ogg Vorbis (or FLAC) files? Is it even possible?

Thanks.

[...Just Elliott]

gzip the image data and base64 it, but nothing supports displaying that afaik right now, so right now there's no way

[spoon]

It needs the creators (even if vorbis were not forthcoming, then atleast FLAC to say this is the way for it to become a standard). FLAC and ogg are one of the few formats that do not support album art...

>gzip the image data and base64 it

Why gzip? png and jpg are as small you can get the files.

[pepoluan]

I think the designers of Vorbis Comment decides that album art should always be in a separate file... which makes sense actually; why should embed the same picture in 15 tracks coming from the same album?

That said, the workaround is yes, by Base64-ing the image file and push it into a custom tag... maybe we can have an unofficial standard here? What should the tag be called? Later perhaps the maker of album-art scanners can scan for this tag within Vorbis Comments.

[spoon]

>picture in 15 tracks coming from the same album?

Right, the average FLAC file might be 25MB, a png album art could be 10KB...padding on most tag formats (at the front of the file) are almost as large as album art.

[guruboolez]

If you create your own compilation, separate .jpg files as album art won't work. Hence the need to embed them into the audio files.

[HbG]

It'd be nice if the standard for album art would be to only read it from the first track of an album, or if tags could reference tags in other files.

Then again like Spoon says, it's not much. Unless you have the odd Marilyn Manson CD with 99 empty tracks....

I think it's a shortsighted to omit art support as a design decision, what about streaming, or offering an album as a single vorbis file with chapters for download?

[pepoluan]

>picture in 15 tracks coming from the same album?

Right, the average FLAC file might be 25MB, a png album art could be 10KB...padding on most tag formats (at the front of the file) are almost as large as album art.

If you create your own compilation, separate .jpg files as album art won't work. Hence the need to embed them into the audio files.

Hmm, you both have a point here.

That said, I would rather have a separate, high-resolution album arts (i.e. BIG files) in a specific folder, and instruct the player (i.e. foobar2000 with albumart plugin) to seek the album art in that folder.

This post has been edited by pepoluan: Sep 18 2006, 15:41

[audiomars]

----snip----
I think it's a shortsighted to omit art support as a design decision, what about streaming, or offering an album as a single vorbis file with chapters for download?
----snip----

I agree with you. I do not think there is anything wrong in allowing the user to choose whether album art is to be used or not. This kind of inflexible attitude will almost certainly result in users trying to find hacks and ultimately the project ends up fragmented. I certainly do not wish to see that happen as it is such a good format. On the one hand, the developers talk about making the format popular, yet on the other hand, they continue to be inflexible regarding an issue which is quite simple to resolve and which could broaden usage.

@pepoluan: Having an album art tag does not mean that you have to necessarily use it. You can still use foobar to bring your high-res artwork. However, it would make sense using it on a portable where the display is going to be small and you would like to make maximum use of the available space. 10kb or so per track is not a bad trade-off. Like I said earlier, the issue is quite easy to resolve: Enable usage of the album art tag and let the user decide.

writemars

[kjoonlee]

Nooooooooo.... Album art is meant to be muxed in. There's code in the Xiph SVN repository for muxing in MIDI, MNG (and PNG), IIRC.

Ogg (Vorbis, Ogg FLAC, and Speex) have always supported album art. It just hasn't caught on.

PS. It's even in the FAQ.

http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#container

Can I bundle Vorbis and another media type (like text lyrics or pictures) in the same file?

Yes. The Ogg container format was designed to allow different media types to be multiplexed together; Theora will be mixed with Vorbis audio in an Ogg container to encode movies.

In addition, FLAC can be embedded in Ogg and some preliminary work has been done to put MNG and MIDI content into Ogg files as well.Experimental code is available in the ogg-tools module in the Xiph.org CVS repository. Programmers working on such extensions can discuss issues and questions on the vorbis-dev mailing list.

[spoon]

Had a look in cvs (ogg-tools) and dev list, could not see any reference to embedded pictures. Can find the Midi stream, nothing on images...

This post has been edited by spoon: Sep 20 2006, 11:13

[kjoonlee]

I'm sure there used to be code for that, but I haven't looked.

There's some newer code at /experimental/giles/mng/ in the repository, IIRC.

[spoon]

Thanks there seems to be something there, embedding MNG and PNG.

[PatchWorKs]

why should embed the same picture in 15 tracks coming from the same album?

You're right, but if i have just 1 file with a whole album ?

I'm really interested in embedding covers, lyrics, etc... any advice ?

[Alex B]

J. River Media Center has been able to embed cover art to Ogg Vorbis files for years. I suppose their system is proprietary and not compatible with anything else. I added a sample to my "APEv2 cover art" samples upload thread: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40860

[kjoonlee]

CODE

COVERARTMIME=image/jpeg
COVERART=/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgAAZABkAAD/7AARRHVja3kAAQAEAAAAHgAA/+4ADkFkb2JlAGTAAAAAAf/bAIQAEAsLCwwLEAwMEBcPDQ8XGxQQEBQbHxcXFxcXHx4XGhoaGhceHiMlJyUjHi8vMzMvL0BAQEBAQEBAQEBAQEBAQAERDw8RExE
VEhIVFBEUERQaFBYWFBomGhocGhomMCMeHh4eIzArLicnJy4rNTUwMDU1QEA/QEBAQEBAQEBAQEBA/8AAEQgAUABQAwEiAAIRAQMRAf/EAIQAAAIDAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFAQMGBAIHAQEBAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgEDEAACAQQAAwUHBAIDAAAAAAABAgMAEQQFITE
SQWGBIgZRcZGhscET4TJictEUgpKiEQACAQMCBQUBAAAAAAAAAAAAAQIRIUExQlFxgYIDYbHBMkNy/9oADAMBAAIRAxEAPwD6BRRUMyqpZiAoFyTwAAoCaKgEEXHEHkamgCiiigCiiooCaKgEEAg3B4gipoArKeqNlPlZKaPB4vIQJrdpP
JL+wc2rS5U642NLkP8AthRnP/EXrMejsVsnJytvP5pCxRG/m/mkPzFVHMuBMsLiP8KGPUayOLJyOpIFs80hsBc8hfs7BXaCCAQbg8QRWR9STz7Tbw6TGNlQj8h7OsjqJPci/etLDHj63CSIMRDAoUFjcmjVk3qzU70wjqopOdpm5DEYkPlHbYsfHsFA2mbjsBlw+U9tip8Ow1Jo3JAFzwA5mufJjXNw2SKSwkHld
TwP6e2pcQ5+Iyq145Ra44EH9KV6aaTGypNdN7SU/sOdveONXGNU5J3jenoRJ3SatK1T1pcySORtdkcHS/4793NfuKdUj3sRgyIc6Lg1wGP8l4r8qcxSLLEkq/tdQw8Ret8iTpNbteZkG1WL26chZ6ocpossrzIQeDOqn61X6SjVNFAw5yNIze/rZfotXepY2l0eWq8wqt4I6ufpVHpCZZNHEg5wu6N7y3X9GqdncVv6Cv0sP9ne5+Y/mI6yp9hkf/ApxtmabKgxAbA2J97G3ypN6cb/AE/UmdhPw/J1hO8o3Uv/AJuac7dHiyIcxBcLYH3qeofGk9eghp1J3O4wfTetWeVGZCwjiiS3U7EE8z3C5NGl3OD6k1zzxRsqhjFJG9upWAB4Edx4GrNrqMH1
Br1x8xXEbFZEZT0ujW5i4I5EjiKNTqMHQYDY2GrmMEyOzHqkdrczYAchbgKkop1JaHLnxCbgXPipt86q2g/Bt8adeHV0Fu+zdJ+VXahHlyJsxhYNcD3seo/Cqdofz7jHgXj0dAbxPUflXTxfZ/y6nPy/Vc1Q7d2gfXSHtQqw+IH3r1p369dCTzAK/BiK87twuukHa5VR/wBgftXrToU1sIPMgt8WJFPy7/gfr2fJ1zRJNC8Li6SKUYdzCxrJelZ3120ydPkmxc+S/AF09n9l41sKzHqvUysU2+FcTwWMvTzsvFXHev091THKeSpYawU+qsOfDzYd5icCpUSn2MvBSe5h5T+taXEnXOw4p2jKCVQxjkHEH
3GqtZPLna6KXMh/G8i+eNgLN/K3sPPjXbRu1Hg1K9eIUUUVJpTNIuLjPIqXWMFuhBSrS48k+RJsZ+bEhO8nmR3DlTqqMqRsbEd4I+ooPKg4AeHdVxlROKV5WqTKN1
J6RvQVbyY5GRDgRcWuC39m4L8BTqKNYokiX9qKFHgLUp02DIXbPybmSS5jvz83NvGnNb5GlSC268zIJusnu9gooormWFFFFAFFFF
A
FFFFARU0UUB//2Q==
MEDIAJUKEBOX:TOOL NAME=Media Center
MEDIAJUKEBOX:TOOL VERSION=11.1.197
GENRE=Funk
MEDIAJUKEBOX:DATE=38718
DATE=2006
TITLE=A 4s sample for testing embedded cover art
TRACKNUMBER=1
COMMENT=a nice comment
ARTIST=Who Knows
ALBUM=The Test Album

This post has been edited by kjoonlee: Oct 1 2006, 04:02

[spoon]

Maybe base64 encoding.

[kjoonlee]

Yep, it's base64. It's the HA logo.

[paultaylor]

Yep, it's base64. It's the HA logo.

Hi do you know what applications use the base64 method (this seems a simple and elegant method) ?

Ive more or less completed a Java mp3/id3 tag library (www.jthink.net/jaudiotagger) and I'm now trying to support Ogg/Vorbis. I looked up the faq regarding adding images as a separate muxed file, and its certainly not clear that this is the preferred method for album art. It certainly seems alot more complicated than the base64 method and unless any players actually support it would be a complete waste of time implementing. The store image art in the same folder option is not very portable, especially if you want to move files to a hardware player that might not pick up image files. Even if the hardware player doesn't support displaying image art in ogg currently, it may do later with a firmware upgrade.

[pepoluan]

After the prior discussion, and based on your points, I do believe the best way is to embed a base64-encoded .png file into the Comments.

[paultaylor]

After the prior discussion, and based on your points, I do believe the best way is to embed a base64-encoded .png file into the Comments.

Cool, so what software is doing this already ?

[gottkaiser]

Cool, so what software is doing this already ?

AudioShell supports cover art in ogg and speex files (base64 encoded).

[stigc]

Which tag name does it use? Any other software doing this?

[paultaylor]

Which tag name does it use? Any other software doing this?

I just tried it, it adds two fields (seem to be the same as fields discussed earlier), the mimetype and the base64 fields:

COVERARTMIME=image/jpeg
COVERART=..................


works nicely actually.

I wonder is the COVERARTMIME field mandatory, I think an intelligent Image Decoder should be to work out the image type from the image header in the image data (once it had reversed the base64)

[Alex B]

Cool, so what software is doing this already ?

Which tag name does it use? Any other software doing this?

As I mentioned earlier, J River Media Center has been able to do this for years (I think they added this feature in 2002).

It may still be the only player program that can show such cover art automatically as file & album thumbnails and in a display visualization during playback.

However, I wouldn't recommended mass storing image files in the Vorbis comments without testing the system with all intended SW & HW players. Not all players work correctly when an ogg file has this kind of big comment frame.