Can't see album art in Mercedes Benz Comand audio system

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Level 4

2,870 points

Can't see album art in Mercedes Benz Comand audio system

I have a 2011 MB with Comand audio system and Media Interface that connects and works perfectly with my iPod Classic except for one thing: album artwork. Playing some albums the cover art appears and others don't for example AAC songs bought in the iTunes Store. I have tried exporting to mp3 and Apple Lossless and embed manually the picture with no results, seems not something related with the audio type but the picture type or size, but I don't know how to check the embedded picture information of the working ones to try putting the same kind to all the rest. Any idea?

MBP 17, Mac OS X (10.6.4), G4 Cube, PBG4 12", iMac Intel

Posted on Sep 12, 2011 11:09 AM

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Answer 1

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 15, 2011 1:21 AM in response to Trinity

I am having the same problem with only some album covers showing on my new Mercedes comand system when every single track has artwork on my ipod. I want to try your solution but I am not great at using itunes. When you say copy your entire itunes library to an external drive, how do you do that?

I dragged and dropped the songs across to my external drive but there was no artwork doing it this way?

Please help. Thanks

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Answer 2

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Sep 20, 2011 2:28 PM in response to Trinity

copy your complete iTunes music library in a external drive (not the ipod); connect it to the Comand Online, select the device and go to Search - By Cover Art; say Yes to the dialog asking if you want to import the covers to the internal drive in order to activate Search by cover; at the end of the import process disconnect the drive, plug the iPod and enjoy. The system will take the picture from the internal database no matter if the source is different.

Hope this helps to somebody, I have spent several days in the subject...

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Answer 3

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Nov 15, 2011 3:02 AM in response to tcant

Hi tcant, first format the hard drive as MSDOS Fat32, then, from finder or Windows My PC (not from iTunes!) go to your home folder-Music-iTunes Music and copy all the folders (with artists names) directly in the hard drive.

Connect it to the Mercedes USB, go to Media menu and select USB drive. Go to search by cover and it will ask you if you want to prepare the cover database, say yes and wait. When finished you can disconnect the HD and start using the iPod: most os the covers will appear. I say "most" because there are other factors that make Comand reject some cover pictures (bizarre largeness of file sizes for example).

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Answer 4

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 15, 2011 3:55 AM in response to Trinity

Hi Trinity

Thanks very much I will try this over the weekend and report back. This is the first sensible suggestion I have found on this topic and it is much appreciated.

Just one more question - In the -music-itunes music- folder there are individual folders for each artist as well as one called album art. Do I need to copy that as well or just the artist folders?

Thanks

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Answer 5

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Nov 15, 2011 4:27 AM in response to tcant

copy everything, if it is not needed Comand will ignore it. Hope this helps I have expent lot of my time investigating the mistery 😕

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Answer 6

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 15, 2011 4:34 AM in response to Trinity

You are the first person I can find anywhere on the internet who has solved this problem!

I will follow your instructions and hopefully will be enjoying the excellent COMAND and Harman Kardon with all the artwork by the weekend. 🙂

I will let you know how I get on. What external drive did you use?

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Answer 7

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Nov 15, 2011 5:09 AM in response to tcant

a portable USB powered one, my Merc sleeps in a public parking and I don't have power plugs there.

If you are interested I'm still making tests and for the moment I can say that perfectly squared pictures, jpg format, not bigger than 600 x 600 and sizes lighter than 100kb are the ones that have more possibilities to appear in the Comand display. You can check this dragging the cover directly from itunes to the desktop. No problem if the music has been bought in the iTunes Store.

I'm also detecting that album titles longer than 16-17-18 characters also fail showing the art, but all this is the next step for you. Let me know. 🙂

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Answer 8

Limnos

Level 10

411,229 points

Nov 15, 2011 5:26 AM in response to Trinity

How do you even notice misssing artwork if your eyes are on the road? 😉

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Answer 9

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 15, 2011 5:33 AM in response to Trinity

Yes, I am very interested in the fine tuning process. Itunes only found about 50% of the artwork for my albums, the rest I had to apply manually by copying covers from amazon and all sorts of places and adding them through the 'get info' process in itunes so I am sure I will have a wide range of sizes and shapes. None of my music was bought in store but imported from my own CD collection. Do those albums with titles longer than 16-18 characters work if you shorten the title?

Please keep me informed of progress!

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Answer 10

RKUMD

Level 1

0 points

Nov 19, 2011 8:27 PM in response to Trinity

Thanks to Trinity!!

I just went through the above in my 2012 CLS 63 and it works - bravo, and thank you!!!

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Answer 11

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 22, 2011 12:13 AM in response to Trinity

Another massive thanks to Trinity!

I followed the instructions and 80% of the artwork now shows.....fantastic result!

I have checked the missing 20% and all the art is bigger than 100kbs. I have reloaded smaller versions of the artwork into itunes. Next time I copy itunes to the external disk and plug it into COMAND will it ask if I want to copy the covers across again or do I need to do something different?

..or do I just need to copy the albums I have changed to the external drive and not the whole of itunes?

Thanks

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Answer 12

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Nov 22, 2011 12:33 AM in response to tcant

Glad to read that. What I do is repeat the complete process every time, copy all the iTunes library and also resync the iPod. I change the drive name to insure it will ask to import the art every time. But it's possible you can do it copying only the changes I just try to ensure not to risk to go the the parking and do all the job for nothing.

Holpe you help me try the misteryous 10% that resists to show the cover. I suspect that it makes a string with artist name and album title in order to chain the picture, but it's a short one of about 30 chars so when you have albums divided in 2 discs it fails because it finds 2 matches. Example:

Marc AlmondA Virgin's tale Vol..|..ume 1

Marc AlmondA Virgin's tale Vol..|..ume 2

I solved this merging both in one and specifying the disc using the disk number field embeded in the audio files.

I also mistrust special characters like quote (') but I'm not sure. In any case the mentioned Almond's album seems impossible to solve...

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Answer 13

Tlotito

Level 1

0 points

Nov 25, 2011 6:45 PM in response to Trinity

I have a 2012 C300 and I am also a MB tech. Comand online is very new to me and is also very limited here in the USA. Some of my artwork does appear from the ipod but I want to start using my sd card. is it possible for comand to show the artwork while using the sd card?

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Answer 14

Trinity Author

Level 4

2,870 points

Nov 26, 2011 2:35 AM in response to Tlotito

SD cards work exactly as an external USB drive so it will show the artwork if fulfills the requirements above mentioned

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Answer 15

tcant

Level 1

10 points

Nov 27, 2011 10:13 AM in response to Trinity

I've been working on the missing 20% of the artwork over the weekend and have found a few things out.

1) You don't need to copy the entire itunes library every time you make a change. You can just copy the folder of the artist you have changed to your external drive

2) You do need to re-sync your ipod after you have made changes

3) You don't need to rename the external drive each time. It asks you if you want to copy the cover flow each time the usb is reconnected

It also seems to work better if you embed the art into the tracks. This is simply done by viewing your itunes library by album cover. Right click on the album and 'clear downloaded artwork'. Then right click and 'get info'. It will ask if you want to make a change to multiple items, click yes. You will then see a screen with a blank artwork box on the right. Check the box and drag and drop the album artwork from amazon (or anywhere else) into the box and OK it. The amazon artwork seems to always come across less than 100kb everytime.

I only have about 5% missing now but I can't see a common theme as to what makes them different. I am going to start changing album names and attaching different art to see if I can get this up to 100%. I have a similar problem to your Marc Almond one so hopefully I can find a solution and let you know!

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