I've been experimenting with using animated gif files as cover art.
For example, I'll take the front/back sleeve cover, sleeve notes, and other pictures and put them into a sequence.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and I'm trying to understand why.

So far, I've only got it to work with animated gifs I've downloaded from the Net. I'm yet to get it to work with the ones I'm creating.
I've tried several different animation packages with no consistent success up to now.
I'm going to keep at it, but in the meantime....

Has anyone here done this before who could share their experiences?

Does anyone know of a media player that will display animated gifs embedded in ID3 tags?

I'd appreciate any help.


[TAG]

In retrospect, it looks as if I'm asking for help with creating gif animations. This is not the case.
I can create those easily enough and they work just fine.

The trouble is that they're not always working properly when embedded in the ID3 tag.

Now, I know that the ID3 spec can handle animated gif files no problem.
And I know that WMP for example, can read and play back animated gifs if they're embedded as cover art, because I've tested this.

What I don't know is the reason for the inconsistency.

So far, Windows Media Player is the only one I've used that can play them.
Others I've tried it on (Media Monkey, Winamp) just display the first frame as if it were any normal static image.
So I'm keen to learn of any other players out there that might be able to handle it.

Hope that makes things clearer.

[TAG]

It'll depend on the software, I doubt you'll find many that will playback animated stuff.

If I had this problem, I'd try different resolutions for the GIF file, then I'd try turning interlaced option on/off. After that I'd try to save GIF as version "GIF87a" and "GIF89a". After that I'd go and see if my GIF creating software maybe uses this: "There are at least two rarely-used methods that can generate a GIF that, if decoded according to the GIF89a standard, will produce an animation that ends with a 24-bit RGB truecolor image.", because "These methods are not widely supported by GIF-generating software, and Web browsers and other image viewers may not contain completely compliant GIF89a implementations, so their ability to display such GIFs accurately may be limited." Quotations are from Wikipedia.

Try to mess with those settings.

Thanks for the responses guys. I've only just logged back in after several weeks, so only seeing them now.

I will look into that psycho. Thanks.

I pretty much shelved the whole idea at that point, so I haven't done any further testing yet, but I will do once time and workload permits. In the meantime, if anyone else has any suggestions, I'd welcome them.