TV Show Art / Thumbnails Missing On IOS 8

When something like this happens, I don't necessarily think that Apple is the real reason that something changes. Sometimes it's due to a lawsuit from a patent troll. Sometimes it's pressure from partners that they deal with, in this case, the tv studios. The artwork isn't a huge deal for me; if it gets fixed, fine. If not, no big deal. Hopefully, it is a bug that will be fixed

I forgot about Digital copies. Last time I got a DVD with a digital copy, it downloaded it through iTunes, complete with the artwork. As far as the legality of ripping DVDs that you own; I'm with you. Content providers probably don't share that opinion. In fact, aren't most DVDs with digital copies more expensive than DVDs without? They'd rather you pay an extra $7 for the DVD with a digital copy. Or an extra $10 for the BluRay/DVD/Digital copy deluxe version. Anytime a consumer can make something themselves, whether it's a digital copy or an analog cassette recording, they consider it a lost revenue stream. However, I know that if I weren't able to rip my CDs and listen to them on my phone, I would have stopped buying them a long time ago

I too have had the same issue. I have searched the web and found that if you use a square artwork, the larger the better, it shows on iOS 8 devices. The movies are unaffected. For the cover art for the TV shows, it needs to be at least 600 x 600 to show on iOS 8 devices. This is the minimum size I have found that works.

It is a pain that Apple have, either this bug or design, in iOS 8. Especially if people have a large TV Show collection as I personally prefer having the DVD cover art on my TV shows to make them look nice, now they look odd.

I have a TV show that has the square art work. It shows up in my iPad Air and iPhone 5S. I have a different season of the show that the art work does not show. It is not square. I used iTunes Get Info to select the art work for the season that did work and replaced it into the season that didn't show up. THE ART WORK STILL DIDN'T SHOW UP. I did the same process using Subler. So I have no idea what is going on. The same art work will not show up for for different TV shows.

This is beyond my limited knowledge. The Mac and iDevices are visual devices. I'm surprised and disappointed that this would get screwed up. I've been with Apple since 1983 with a beige Mac Plus computer. I'm a loyal fan. I'm getting disappointed that Apple seems to be missing the little details. I'd rather wait for it to be done right, than deal with these disappointments. Yes, they are minor, but it still leaves a bad experience.

😕 I apologise Bill. My reading also tells me otherwise. It seems that laws are behind the times as noted in this article (relevant to the country I live in). The UK is the only country that allows ripping because of a new law. I sincerely hope Apple sees this as a bug that will be fixed. In the meantime I will try new (large) cover art when I get a moment (a few hours) to redo them and keep watching this thread. Like others, I am very disappointed about how my library looks. All my TV shows have been recorded on free-to-air television (like using EyeTV), and are shows for my kids on long car trips. They now have to guess what to watch rather than use the visual because they are too young to read. Shame on Apple for disadvantaging my children!

I have just moved to iOS 8.0.2 on my iPad 4. I am seeing what I think is the same issue. If the artwork is square, it shows on the series cover but not against each episode. If multiple series (or seasons), square art shows on the main icon and on each series icon but not against each show. From reading this post, is it worth trying 600x600 art (mine are all smaller than that)? I agree with those commenting that it is very frustrating but unclear if by design or a flaw to be fixed.

My TV shows still show the badge for unwatched episodes even though I just finished watching them and let them play all the way to the end

I can confirm that changing the artwork to a 600 x 600 square does NOT fix the issue.

Yeah i've also had this problem. I've tried changing the size but it's still the same. I've submitted feedback...

@BigNavy505

From memory, in iOS 7, my TV Show always showed the main square artwork that I had embeded in iTunes, but the individual episodes used a screen grab from the episode. iOS did this itself. It seems it is this that iOS 8 is not doing

I've just tried an iPad Mini with iOS 7.1.2. Individual episode has its own image shown against it; if no embedded image, then iOS looks for a frame and shows that.

Jan Tenné wrote:

Soory, I have to correct myself (edit won't work). The good size is 552x370 (W x H). So it will show good also in landscape.

Bit of a cross post, from Apple Support Communities / iPad / Using iPad

just tried a test:

one of my working images is 704 x 999

one of the failed images is 279 x 200

so I made a 704 x 999 version and replaced it in iTunes, and voila... image appears on iPad (following sync) 🙂

Appears to be the size of the image that is causing the fail when syncing.

Don't fancy the prospect of redoing my entire iTunes library to fix this mind you, it was working fine with iOS7

this failed from iOS 8 and 8.0.2 hasn't changed my life either 😕

All artwork looks fine in iTunes and via Apple TV, its just on iPad and iPhone that it fails with the grey film logo

markmc78 wrote:

@BigNavy505

From memory, in iOS 7, my TV Show always showed the main square artwork that I had embeded in iTunes, but the individual episodes used a screen grab from the episode. iOS did this itself. It seems it is this that iOS 8 is not doing

It does this in iOS 8 for TV Shows purchased from iTunes store, but not for those you've ripped yourself. I can't figure out why because, when viewed in Subler, there is nothing obviously missing or different between the metadata of store purchases and rips, apart from the presence of a purchase date and a copyright.

However, the video kind is different - the purchased content is encrypted, whereas my rips are not. Perhaps this is the crucial difference?

Regardless, the individual episodes' artwork is definitely not stored in the files, therefore this is not something that can be fixed with a metadata editor. I noticed that if I delete a series from my iPhone and then re-download it from the store (or copy across from iTunes) the artwork for each episode is slightly different, so it must be generating this by grabbing a random frame from the first few minutes of the show.