[Matthew Attoe]

Hi there,

I've spent many many weeks importing all my CD's into iTunes as Apple Lossless files.

I got quite a chunk of the Album Art via the UK iTunes Store, but I have quite a lot still missing. I've found a lot of what I am missing from places such as Amazon.

As I understand it, using the Download Album Art option in iTunes just "links" the artwork to the music files, leaving the original music files untouched.

Now, if I copy and paste the artwork from places such as Amazon, does this affect the original music files at all? Does the copy/pasted artwork get embedded in the music files?

Basically, I want to leave my music files untouched, but I want to have as much album artwork as possible.

Can anyone confirm one way or the other what happens to the music files when artwork is copy/pasted into iTunes.

Many thanks in advance for both your time and help.

Matthew

[TETENAL]

Album art from the ITS is stored outside the actual audio files. Album art pasted is stored inside the actual audio files (regardless of the original source of the album art).

[Matthew Attoe]

Thank you very much for your reply.

Is there any way i can grab the Download Album Art from any other iTunes store other than the UK store, so that the artwork isn't embedded into the music files themselves?

It would seem that i need to have accounts at the other iTunes stores which doesn't seem to be allowed, but is there any backdoor way of doing it?

Again, many thanks for taking the time to read and answer my question.

Matthew

[TETENAL]

Is there any reason why you don't want the album art to be included in the file? You encoded everything in Apple Lossless, so space seems to be no issue for you.

[Matthew Attoe]

I don't know really.

I guess because it took me SOOOOO long to import them all (many many weeks) I just don't want to "damage" the files. Does thaat sort of make sense.

One of the main reasons I done them as lossless was because I wanted to keep the music files "pure", so that I could always re-encode them at various bit-rates for my families varying capacity iPods. the other is so that i get maximum sound-quality through my squeezebox (soon to be transporter).

But, I suppose if adding the artwork isn't going to be detrimental in any way, I could always paste the artwork in. Especially if the is no other way of doing it.

I hope I have made sense and haven't come across as being to anal (just a little but anal is ok )

Thank you,

Matthew

[Hi I'm Ben]

Originally Posted by Matthew Attoe

I don't know really.

I guess because it took me SOOOOO long to import them all (many many weeks) I just don't want to "damage" the files. Does thaat sort of make sense.

One of the main reasons I done them as lossless was because I wanted to keep the music files "pure", so that I could always re-encode them at various bit-rates for my families varying capacity iPods. the other is so that i get maximum sound-quality through my squeezebox (soon to be transporter).

But, I suppose if adding the artwork isn't going to be detrimental in any way, I could always paste the artwork in. Especially if the is no other way of doing it.

I hope I have made sense and haven't come across as being to anal (just a little but anal is ok )

Thank you,

Matthew

Your music quality will not be affected in the least by adding album art to it in any fashion. Especially in iTunes 7 where it doesn't apply it to the file anymore.

[Matthew Attoe]

Hi,

Are you saying that iTunes 7 doesn't embed copy/pasted artwork into the music files? i know that artwork dowloaded via the iTunes store isn't, but I thought that copy/pasted artwork is embedded.

Thanks,

Matthew

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Matthew Attoe

Hi,

Are you saying that iTunes 7 doesn't embed copy/pasted artwork into the music files?

It appears he's saying that, but he is wrong. Pasted album art is stored in the music files itself as you can easily verify by comparing modification date and file size before and after.

Anyway, pasting in album art will not affect your music at all. The bytes that represent the audio are not changed. The file format is designed to hold the audio stream and additional metadata like the album art, so you're not damaging anything.