Rotten to the Core

Q: Podcast Artwork will not update on iTunes

Hello ladies and gents,

 

After months of trying to figure this out on my own I'm at a complete loss and was

hoping someone could lift the curtain and possibly tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

So I'm trying to update our podcast artwork. I've done so on our soundcloud page using an RGB JPG 2000x2000 pixel image on every individual episode which you can see it here:

https://soundcloud.com/sayyoulovesatanpodcast

 

For whatever reason our main image isn't switching over and some of the episodes also retain the old artwork which you can see here:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/say-you-love-satan-80s-horror/id1052616415?m t=2

 

I was told by someone else to try changing the file name in an attempt to purge the iTunes

image cache but this also hasn't worked.

 

I'm really out of answers and would really appreciate any help or insight.

 

Thanks!

Jesse

Posted on Jul 30, 2016 1:39 PM

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Q: Podcast Artwork will not update on iTunes

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  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Jul 30, 2016 2:07 PM in response to Rotten to the Core
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 30, 2016 2:07 PM in response to Rotten to the Core

    Your feed is at http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:182837122/sounds.rss

     

    The URL in your 'itunes:image' tag for the entire podcast is http://i1.sndcdn.com/avatars-000243058238-x3mrhv-original.jpg

     

    This image appears to be compliant with iTunes' requirements, and you say you have changed the filename from the previous image (which is necessary). It's not possible to tell from the feed when you changed this, but the 'lastBuildDate' is today. It can take some days for the Store to update a changed image, so if you've changed the image only very recently it's probably just a matter of waiting.

     

    The 'itunes:image' tags for each individual episode only show in the Store in the search results when you search on the podcast's title and it shows some of the episodes - some of these have updated and some haven't. When subscribing this tag is not read, and you have to embed the image in the actual media file which you appear not to have done. The Search results will hopefully update eventually - I assume each of these tags carries the updated image (I haven't checked them). (The images in the web page you linked to do not appear for me in every case for some reason.)

  • by Rotten to the Core,

    Rotten to the Core Rotten to the Core Jul 30, 2016 2:29 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Publishing
    Jul 30, 2016 2:29 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Hello Roger and thanks for the quick response!

     

    how can i embed the image in the actual media files? these were wav files before I uploaded them to soundcloud.

  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Jul 30, 2016 2:59 PM in response to Rotten to the Core
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Jul 30, 2016 2:59 PM in response to Rotten to the Core

    Given that you're using Soundcloud I doubt you can. You can't embed the images in the WAV files (I'm not sure whether or not it's actually possible but even if it is I wouldn't expect them to survive the conversion to MP3).

     

    Possibly if you did the conversion to MP3 yourself and embedded the images Soundcloud would simply take them as they are.

     

    This page explains how to embed the images: http://wilmut.uk/coverart

     

    Before doing this, to convert your files to MP3:

     

    Start by dragging the files concerned into the Songs list in iTunes. Then, go to iTunes Preferences>General and click the 'Import Settings' button. Set 'Import Using' to 'MP3 Encoder' and use the next drop-down menu to choose your settings - you can choose 'Custom' and set the bitrate as suits you. Click OK, then OK again to close the Preferences.

     

    Go to the Music list; select the files you want to convert and from the 'File' menu choose 'Create new version' then 'Create MP3 version' (iTunes 11 and later - in earlier versions choose 'Create MP3 version' from the 'Advanced' menu).

     

    MP3 versions will be created and placed in the music list (the original versions will remain there). You can drag them out if you want to save them elsewhere (doing this will not remove them from the Library). You can select and delete any files as required in the Music list. (Never tamper with the actual library in the Finder).

  • by shawnogordo,

    shawnogordo shawnogordo Aug 6, 2016 10:12 AM in response to Rotten to the Core
    Level 1 (99 points)
    Publishing
    Aug 6, 2016 10:12 AM in response to Rotten to the Core

    I see now that there are mp3 files in your feed. Are you saying that you uploaded WAV files to your SoundCloud account and SoundCloud converted them to mp3? Or did you upload the mp3s directly to SoundCloud? If you're uploading mp3s to SoundCloud, you can use the free desktop version of the iTunes software to edit your files' ID3 tags (including adding an image to the files) before uploading to SoundCloud. You can technically do this with WAV files as well but if SoundCloud is encoding your files to mp3 for you, the ID3 information may be lost in the process.

     

    It's also my understanding that SoundCloud podcast RSS feeds use your SoundCloud profile's avatar image as the iTunes artwork image. So, make sure you've changed that, and that the new image conforms to the iTunes image spec.