Correct Album Art not shown for M4A files when multiple Album Art are present

[HJicub Jiikol]

Poweramp shows the wrong album art when m4a files have multiple covers, instead of the primary one (mp3 files work correctly however).

Below screenshots are from musicbee showing that the m4a file has multiple covers (3 in this case, one is marked as "primary")

After some testing I have seen that all other players on android always show the art marked as "primary" but not sure what logic Poweramp follows because here it is showing second one, and it never shows the first image in case of m4a files.
(NOTE: only foobar android has capability to show other arts as well)

 

Art shown by Poweramp:
 

 

I have tried multiple other players and none so far have this issue, they all show the primary one correctly: 
AIMP : PlayerPro : Foobar : Musicolet : PhonoGraph Plus (screenshots respectively)

 

Sample file for test:

 

Foobar2000 can show different images too but by default shows the primary one:

 

[andrewilley]

I think Poweramp just uses the first image it finds in the file and ignores anything else. I'll move this to Feature Requests as I agree it would be nice to follow the item descriptors.

Andre

[MotleyG]

7 hours ago, andrewilley said:

I think Poweramp just uses the first image it finds in the file and ignores anything else. I'll move this to Feature Requests as I agree it would be nice to follow the item descriptors.

Andre

Unlike other players that use the first image saved in the file, Poweramp shows the last one. There have been other posts about this same issue. Ideally if there was a way for PA to rotate through the covers for files that have multiple images, that would be great. If not, I too would prefer that PA uses the first main image. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by MotleyG

[andrewilley]

I couldn't remember if it was the first or last image that was used. As PA only handles one image per song, it must be overwriting the first found image with each new one that is scanned from the file, so ending up keeping the last one in the file.

Andre

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, andrewilley said:

As PA only handles one image per song, it must be overwriting the first found image with each new one that is scanned from the file, so ending up keeping the last one in the file.

I think this is most likely correct, as the last image is consistently the one PA shows whereas most other players show the first. 

[maxmp]

Poweramp selects mp4 image based on image size. Unfortunately, tracks in the wild often have very low quality as first image if multiple images are embedded, this is why this approach as chosen. Also, there is no notion of front, back, or leaflet images for the format (there is no standard on "covr" atom at all) - just a list of images is there which we must interpret one way or another.

Also, this logic was slightly modified to choose first image if it's size is large enough (50kb).

[Fitzian]

2 hours ago, maxmp said:

Poweramp selects mp4 image based on image size. Unfortunately, tracks in the wild often have very low quality as first image if multiple images are embedded, this is why this approach as chosen. Also, there is no notion of front, back, or leaflet images for the format (there is no standard on "covr" atom at all) - just a list of images is there which we must interpret one way or another.

Also, this logic was slightly modified to choose first image if it's size is large enough (50kb).

But there is logic present for other formats?

Ie, front, back, leaflet, etc.

This cover type is shown when files are inspected with tool like mediainfo.

[maxmp]

@Fitzian some tagging formats support that, but not the "covr" atom in m4a/mp4. By convention 1st image is front.

[MotleyG]

7 hours ago, maxmp said:

there is no notion of front, back, or leaflet images for the format (there is no standard on "covr" atom at all) - just a list of images is there which we must interpret one way or another.

So then for m4a, and all other formats, is there no plan to support multiple covers in Poweramp at some point? This would avoid the issue of having to choose just one. Just have them transition while playing at a selectable rate, from as often as something like every 15s, to as slow as every 60s. Or turn the rotation off if preferred.

7 hours ago, maxmp said:

Poweramp selects mp4 image based on image size.

Perhaps just by coincidence, but in every case where I have songs with multiple covers it is always the last image added that Poweramp shows. My default is typically to choose art that is truly 1:1 600x600 jpg for standard covers, and some include back covers and liners cropped to the same dimensions. I suppose the amount of picture detail could influence the overall file size, but at least some should show the first cover - yet PA never does for me.

[andrewilley]

Some tagging programs do seem to allow specifying cover types in M4A files, but I guess like all things that came out of iTunes there is no officially published spec to follow and they've just reverse engineered, it or made it up themselves based on the ID3 spec:

Picture type:
$00  Other
$01  32x32 pixels 'file icon' (PNG only)
$02  Other file icon
$03  Cover (front)
$04  Cover (back)
$05  Leaflet page
$06  Media (e.g. label side of CD)
$07  Lead artist/lead performer/soloist
$08  Artist/performer
$09  Conductor
$0A  Band/Orchestra
$0B  Composer
$0C  Lyricist/text writer
$0D  Recording Location
$0E  During recording
$0F  During performance
$10  Movie/video screen capture
$11  A bright coloured fish
$12  Illustration
$13  Band/artist logotype
$14  Publisher/Studio logotype

$11 always amuses me, it's what you get when you let geeks define underlying technical standards.

I do agree that it would be nice to have an option defining how to handle files that contain multiple embedded images though - so the user could set a preference for Front Cover, Back Cover, Artist, Other, Largest Image, or Cycle.

Andre

[HJicub Jiikol]

19 hours ago, maxmp said:

Poweramp selects mp4 image based on image size. Unfortunately, tracks in the wild often have very low quality as first image if multiple images are embedded, this is why this approach as chosen. Also, there is no notion of front, back, or leaflet images for the format (there is no standard on "covr" atom at all) - just a list of images is there which we must interpret one way or another.

Also, this logic was slightly modified to choose first image if it's size is large enough (50kb).

In the sample file I attached, the first art is more than 50 KB so by this logic Poweramp should show first image but it still doesn't pick it for some reason, see the cover sizes below:

Anyways now I know which image Poweramp picks and how it picks, so I can work around by upgrading the cover quality
1. 

2.

3. 

 

And you're right it doesn't seem like "leaflet", "illustration" or other options shown by MusicBee are standard, however Front cover is shown correctly as such by mp3tag as well. I shows other covers as "others" though lmao

Edited November 7, 2023 by HJicub Jiikol

[6b6561]

Just curios, could you push the file through https://mediaarea.net/MediaInfoOnline? (Online mediainfo program) And post the image part of the output?

[Fitzian]

8 hours ago, HJicub Jiikol said:

In the sample file I attached, the first art is more than 50 KB so by this logic Poweramp should show first image but it still doesn't pick it for some reason, see the cover sizes below:

Anyways now I know which image Poweramp picks and how it picks, so I can work around by upgrading the cover quality
1. 

2.

3. 

 

And you're right it doesn't seem like "leaflet", "illustration" or other options shown by MusicBee are standard, however Front cover is shown correctly as such by mp3tag as well. I shows other covers as "others" though lmao

If you right click, does setting the cover type "stick" when applied?

[HJicub Jiikol]

11 hours ago, 6b6561 said:

Just curios, could you push the file through https://mediaarea.net/MediaInfoOnline? (Online mediainfo program) And post the image part of the output?

 

MediaInfo.txt

[HJicub Jiikol]

5 hours ago, Fitzian said:

If you right click, does setting the cover type "stick" when applied?

Not sure what you want me to do but yeah, the set cover type does "stick".

I can move the file to a different location and reopen in musicbee and it shows the types that I set, it seems to be stored in the file, not in musicbee database if that's what you're asking.