embed covers into oggs

Oin · 2007-09-02 06:55:55

Does anyone know of a program that can embed album covers into ogg files? Searching through the forum or google didn't give good results.

I know that nobody generally wants to do this as most media players can search for the cover in the current directory and so there's no need for repetition. However, my iriver x20 can only read covers from within audio files.

Thanks

robertp · 2007-09-11 13:44:44

Doesn't EasyTag and albumart-qt support pictures in ogg/vorbis?

MrWeatherbee · 2007-09-11 16:57:33

robertp wrote:

Doesn't EasyTag and albumart-qt support pictures in ogg/vorbis?

Pretty sure EasyTag's support for embedded album art is limited to MP3. At least that was my experience when I tested it about a week ago. For example, it would not display embedded images in my FLAC files nor my MPC files, but embedded MP3 images did display.

OGG is a different story altogether, however, as it doesn't directly support embedding like some formats such as MPC, FLAC, or MP3.

It requires a "hack" which basically consists of converting an image (cover art) to base64 and then placing the resulting text in a custom comment field.

Here is a sample of the possible, relevant tags for an ogg file prepared in this manner (i.e., using 'base64' to convert a jpg file and using 'vorbiscomment' to place the comment in the file):

COVERART=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
COVERARTMIME=image/jpeg

If you decode the base64 text (in the COVERART field above), you will see that it is a very small Arch Linux banner resized from the one available at the bottom of the following web page:

http://www.archlinux.org/art/

Note that I said "very small" when describing the resized banner. I could only get 'vorbiscomment' to accept comment lines of 1026 characters (+/- a couple) without reporting "bad comment". This is very restrictive, obviously. Also, the GUI tagger I normally use (MP3Tag) would accept the full-length tag input without any error message, but it would truncate the text. As such, even manually trying to reconstruct the jpg using the field text with base64 would fail.

Though I could manually create the base64 text as shown above (see man for 'base64'), and create the custom fields in which to place the text (see man for 'vorbiscomment') pursuant to some constraints, it should also be noted that hardly any taggers or players support this methodology or anything similar. The only one's that I am aware of that use a similar method (converting binaries to base64) are all Windows based:

Tag&Rename ($)
http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm

AudioShell (Freeware)
http://www.softpointer.com/AudioShell.htm

JRiver Media Center
http://www.jrmediacenter.com/

Since I have not used these tools (only tried AudioShell for a short while), I am not sure how they are getting around the comment size restriction that I encountered. Either they are getting around it, or the embedded cover art is so small or compressed that it is essentially worthless.

I'd be interested to see what others might know. HydrogenAudio forums have had some discussion on the base64 topic, but I have never seen any information on field size restrictions and the implications of that for creating base64 embedded image fields.

robertp · 2007-09-11 17:22:41

Since OGG container format allows for more than one track there is chance that album art (in formats like JPEG or PNG) may be muxed into OGG file just like any other audio track. I don't know whether this method is used at all (especially by small portable players).

Last edited by robertp (2007-09-11 17:24:13)

MrWeatherbee · 2007-09-18 16:24:13

UPDATE:

This Java-coded tagger also supports base64 embedding in Ogg files:

Jaikoz - http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/

However, it appears that it is only supported in the Windows and OSX versions even though a Linux version is available.

From the online help files for Windows and OSX:

http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/jsp/help/w … ggCoverArt
http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/jsp/help/o … ggCoverArt

3.2. Cover Art
There is no offical way to add cover art to Ogg Vorbis but Jaikoz supports the common defacto standard of base64 encoding the image as used by Audio shell http://www.softpointer.com/AudioShell.htm, a restriction of this is that only one image can be added. For maximum compatbility with other applications you should try to add images that are not too large, so that the 64kb limit is not reached
Jaikoz supports all the fields within the Metadata View for use with OggVorbis. Other fields within OggVorbis are not currently shown within Jaikoz but will be preserved.

That section is conspicuously missing from the Linux online help found here:

http://www.jthink.net/jaikoz/jsp/help/linux/help.html

Hmm.

teratomata · 2010-07-29 05:32:40

Anybody know if this problem has been fixed?

.:B:. · 2010-07-29 05:41:09

This is a topic that is over 2,5 years old. We don't do bumping of topics that old here.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … Bumping.27

Arch Linux

#1 2007-09-02 06:55:55

embed covers into oggs

#2 2007-09-11 13:44:44

Re: embed covers into oggs

#3 2007-09-11 16:57:33

Re: embed covers into oggs

#4 2007-09-11 17:22:41

Re: embed covers into oggs

#5 2007-09-18 16:24:13

Re: embed covers into oggs

#6 2010-07-29 05:32:40

Re: embed covers into oggs

#7 2010-07-29 05:41:09

Re: embed covers into oggs

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