iPod iPod black and white, coverart...pointless!?

[jp45678]

Hi, I have a 4th gen 20GB iPod, the last one i think to have a black and white screen. It just sits in my car connected to the stereo until i sync it to update some podcasts.
I have just got a new macbook, so put all the music onto it and decided i would make coverflow so spent quite a while getting album artwork for each album, which took ages!
I then went to update my iPod today and found that because i have added album art to songs, it must update the songs i added album art to, and i could see the free space bar in itunes going down, implying that itunes was copying across album art to my iPod even though it cannot be displayed.

I'm pretty close to filling my iPod completely. Is there any way, without deleting album art off itunes, to stop album art going to my iPod.

Surely i can't be the only person to have noticed this...!?

 

[bamaworks]

I do believe there's a setting in iTunes or the iPod menu in iTunes that says not to download album art. Maybe not. I might just be delusional.

 

[bartelby]

My 40GB 4G iPod has 89MB of "Other" on it. I'm not sure that's enough to fit 600 odd albums of cover art though.

 

[madmaxmedia]

How big is the art you are putting in? I try to stay within 600 x 600 or so, which doesn't add too much size to the files- maybe 50kb or so?

The art is embedded in the mp3/AAC file, so that part can't be changed. But I imagine there should be some way to stop iTunes from automatically copying songs back over. Is your iTunes set to automatically manage your music?

Hi, I have a 4th gen 20GB iPod, the last one i think to have a black and white screen. It just sits in my car connected to the stereo until i sync it to update some podcasts.
I have just got a new macbook, so put all the music onto it and decided i would make coverflow so spent quite a while getting album artwork for each album, which took ages!
I then went to update my iPod today and found that because i have added album art to songs, it must update the songs i added album art to, and i could see the free space bar in itunes going down, implying that itunes was copying across album art to my iPod even though it cannot be displayed.

I'm pretty close to filling my iPod completely. Is there any way, without deleting album art off itunes, to stop album art going to my iPod.

Surely i can't be the only person to have noticed this...!?

 

[jp45678]

yeah, i've kept the album art fairly small, but it's just because of the sheer volume of songs. Is it really embedded in the mp3? that shocks me, what an inefficient way of storing album art. does that mean each song in an album has copies of each others album art? you'd think it would be a linked thing.
I had a quick look through the itunes preferences but couldn't find anything. I only ask because i'm getting pretty close to my limit for my ipod and i want to keep my music but don't want to have to tick/untick songs.

 

[peeaanuut]

does the option that says display coverart on your ipod actually stop it from being loaded or just shown? I have it checked.

 

[madmaxmedia]

yeah, i've kept the album art fairly small, but it's just because of the sheer volume of songs. Is it really embedded in the mp3? that shocks me, what an inefficient way of storing album art. does that mean each song in an album has copies of each others album art? you'd think it would be a linked thing.
I had a quick look through the itunes preferences but couldn't find anything. I only ask because i'm getting pretty close to my limit for my ipod and i want to keep my music but don't want to have to tick/untick songs.

Gotcha. I think you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, since you're iPod is almost full but you don't get the benefit of displaying covert art on your iPod, only the increased file size.

I think it actually makes sense to embed the artwork (as long as you're careful about image size), since this makes the mp3 or AAC files totally portable. I figure adding another 50 or 100 kb to an average 4 MB file is no big deal overall. I think iTunes might do it both ways, I'm not sure if it always embeds the artwork. But I do know in general art work can be embedded into the file (Finder shows the cover art as a file icon if it is.)

The only time it was an issue for me was when I was creating ring tones for my RAZR. I had to manually delete the cover art, because they were literally doubling the file sizes! (super low bitrate, 15-20 second clips.)

On the positive side, sooner or later your 20GB iPod is going to crap out, and you're going to get a new iPod with a color screen for album art.