Way to determine embedded artwork size per track/album?

Question

Level 2

224 points

Way to determine embedded artwork size per track/album?

Is there a program or script I can run that will go through my mp4 (ALAC) tracks automatically and list the sizes of the embedded artwork?

I'd like to do this report since I think I've added quite large pieces of artwork in the past (my music wasn't used in iTunes at that time). I want to find these bloated artwork tracks and put in some smaller artwork.

It can be a Win or Mac program, or a script. But it needs to automatically walk down my folder paths to pick up all the embedded artwork. I'm coming up empty in Google.

Thanks.

24" iMac 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo/1 TB/8 GB; MBP 17" Core 2 Duo/Santa Rosa, Mac OS X (10.6.5), Parallels v6 with Win7 x64; iPod Touch 2G; iPhone 3GS (4.2.1); iPhone 4 (4.2.1)

Posted on Dec 17, 2010 9:29 PM

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Answer 1

ShakuZen

Level 3

792 points

Dec 17, 2010 10:11 PM in response to ScuseMe

If there is a script, it is here Doug is the script guy):

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=removeartwork

Then I am thinking, you can reimport all the artwork in a smaller file size for your entire iTunes library.

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Answer 2

ScuseMe Author

Level 2

224 points

Dec 18, 2010 7:45 AM in response to ShakuZen

Thanks for that tip, but I really don't want to delete all the artwork from my 24K tracks, just to find the few that may be oversized.

I searched Doug's site before asking here, but I didn't find anything about finding out the sizes, just adding/removing. I have several programs that tell you the size of the artwork, but you need to click on the track to see the info. I want something to do that automatically.

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Answer 3

ShakuZen

Level 3

792 points

Dec 18, 2010 8:02 AM in response to ScuseMe

If Doug does not have what you need, fire an email over to him and he would consider making one. He often does this, as others might be seeking what you are seeking.

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Answer 4

ScuseMe Author

Level 2

224 points

Dec 18, 2010 8:05 AM in response to ShakuZen

Thanks for that idea; I'll send him an email.

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Answer 5

ShakuZen

Level 3

792 points

Dec 18, 2010 8:19 AM in response to ScuseMe

I Googled about and found something that might work. Downloaded the free software ArtWork Gofer and there is a check-box for REPLACE ARTWORK WITH LOW RESOLUTION.

http://objectstack.com/artwork-gofer

Message was edited by: ShakuZen

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Answer 6

ScuseMe Author

Level 2

224 points

Dec 18, 2010 8:23 AM in response to ShakuZen

Thanks a lot ShakuZen.

I'm writing an email to Doug now, then I'll look at that proggie.

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Answer 7

ShakuZen

Level 3

792 points

Dec 18, 2010 8:54 AM in response to ScuseMe

I wrote to Doug a couple of times, he was quick to respond and most helpful. If you are seeking a good place for free album artwork, look at http://www.albumartexchange.com/. It really has become my go-to website for artwork of various resolutions. I have no affiliation with the site, it is just a great place for my 54,000 song tracks in iTunes.

Please update your experience with ArtWork Gofer, never know when others will need it.

GL.

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Answer 8

ScuseMe Author

Level 2

224 points

Dec 20, 2010 4:27 PM in response to ScuseMe

Well, in my quest for this answer, I found another problem - not all my album artwork is embedded in the track.

I happened to stumble over this when I was using Jaikoz Audio Tagger to clean up some of my existing tags. When I'd load an album's tracks into Jaikoz, it wouldn't show they had any album art. I thought this was strange, since iTunes showed it, Get-Info showed it, and Finder showed it. So at first I assumed that it was a Jaikoz problem, but the developer looked at the sample track I provided to him, and said there really was no embedded artwork!

The dev suggested that iTunes had the artwork in the ~/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork folder, and was using the artwork in there for iTunes' and Finder's thumbnail displays. After investigating a bit, it turned out that he was right. When I first brought my ALACs (from FLACs) into iTunes, I had iTunes download the album art while it was doing the import. What I didn't realize was that the album artwork wasn't embedded in each track, it was stored separately. I'd always assumed that iTunes embedded it, and when I subsequently added new tracks, I always embedded the album artwork using iTunes, XLD, Max, etc.

After realizing I had made a grave assumption, I bought PowerTunes to correct the situation. It has a function to take the downloaded album artwork and embed it in the tracks. Currently, it looks like 1/4 to 1/3 of my total tracks (24K) do not have embedded artwork. This is a staggering number since I had always assumed it was zero 🙂 PowerTunes also creates a nice log of the changes it finds, so I have documentation if I ever need to go back and fix one of the tracks.

So, my initial question still stands - how to determine the size of the embedded artwork, but in investigating this question, I found a big problem with my library. C'est la vie.

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