-Brading Software Message Board
+--Forum: Mp3/Tag Studio Suggestions
+---Topic: Auto-add Album Image from Amazon.com started by James
Posted by: James on Mar. 07 2004,23:25
I could do with a tool which integrates with the album database at amazon.com (now that they've opened up their API), grabs the album cover (based on the MP3's album/artist tags) and embeds the image in the MP3. And does it in batch mode.
Posted by: Magnus Brading on Mar. 07 2004,23:54
Do you have a link to more info regarding this "open API"?
Posted by: James on Mar. 08 2004,21:27
Yup - there's a download link for the Amazon.com Web services Developer's SDK here: < Amazon Web Services SDK >
To use it, you apparently need to apply for an Amazon Developer's Token, but that's free of charge, according to the FAQ.
From what I can make out, it's operates using SOAP and/or XML over HTTP, so my guess would be that you'd send a request for product info using SOAP or XML, get back the message in the format you request, extract the image URL then download it and embed it in the MP3 tags.
By the way, this has a practical(ish) benefit for people who, like me, use an Archos MP3/multimedia jukebox for their main stereo - while it's playing a track, Archos displays any embedded images (the front album cover at least) on its display. And it's also designed to be hooked up to your TV, so with an embedded image you get a decent picture, with the song details scrolling in front of it, instead of just text-on-a-black-background.
Posted by: James on Mar. 08 2004,21:36
I just had a look through the licensing agreement at amazon.com - I can't see anything there which would prohibit using their web services in this way, but auto-adding a link to the Amazon.com (or Amazon.co.uk, if you provide that as a user-configurable option) product page to buy the album to the "URL" ID3 tag would be a courtesy, and I can't see many users objecting.
Another thought - providing a "buy this album from Amazon" button in Tag Studio's UI (based on the artist/title/album ID3 tags of the selected MP3) might even generate some income for you, if you sign up to be an Amazon associate, and would be well within the letter and spirit of Amazon's license agreement.
Posted by: Disposable Hero on Mar. 09 2004,01:28
This might be a handy feature, but I would suggest that a source beside amazon be found.
Directly related to this topic: their images are small and frequently of low quality.
Unrelated to this topic: IMO they are anti-union and litigiously defend ridiculous IP patents. Feel free to Google around for info on those topics. I don't buy anything from them, I don't link to them, and I don't assist any efforts which might profit them.
Posted by: James on Mar. 09 2004,23:25
Well, Amazon's scan of - say - Sgt Pepper's cover (to take an extreme example) certainly won't give you the glory of the vinyl cover sleeve (or even the shrunken CD insert card), but I'd say it's usable (for a portable device like the Archos, or for display on a TV-resolution screen):
Also, I don't know of any other accessible, online queryable, databases of album artwork. Are there any?
Posted by: James on Mar. 09 2004,23:34
Addendum:
And I thought I was being so original. Apparently, there's a plugin for iTunes on the Mac which does precisely what I've described above - downloads MP3 album art from Amazon, using its XML interface, to be embedded in MP3 files. It's called "Fetch Art" (see )< Fetch Art for iTunes >
Ah well, at least that shows that the idea's workable. Now if you can get it running on Windows, inside TagStudio's batch interface...
Posted by: Elbow on Mar. 19 2004,03:19
< All Music Guide > have quite good quality album art.
Its not as good quality as Amazon but I do find if its not on Amazon its almost always on < All Music Guide >.
Have you tried Gotcha Covered? (Hope its ok to mention this magnus)It only imports album art based on either your Directory name or your tags.
If you used this to harvest your missing cover art and then if possible a future version of MP3TS may be able to import the art from the album folder into the mp3 tag.
Sorry, dont know techy words, Im just a blunt instrument.
Posted by: James on May 03 2004,01:37
Just tried it out, but I don't really want to download a load of cover art if the next version of MP3 Tag Studio (which is planned for when, exactly..?) may be able to find (possibly better quality) art automatically and embed it in the ID3 tags (which no existing program does, as far as I can tell).
A few programs will download the art work (but not embed it), though they're hard to try out, on account of being crippledware or buy-before-you-try and I don't really fancy buying half a dozen more apps if the one I already bought (MP3 Tag Studio) is about to add the feature I want...
I did find two programs which will embed the artwork in an ID3 tag. Unfortunately, one of them will only allow you to copy an image from from MP3 to another (but not add an image from a file or from the web - weird UI design there) while the other crashes often under win98SE and won;t even run on winXP Pro :-( Plus, I misplaced the name of the second one...
Posted by: Magnus Brading on May 03 2004,12:48
The next version (which I worked on all weekend btw, and which is planned for "soon") will not be downloading cover art from the internet.
Posted by: noddy on May 11 2004,03:33
Magnus,
I've just done a searchon your board for "add picture", andthis was the first thread I read after that search.
And although I'm sidetracking myself, I'm intrigued....
What new features can we expect?
Is there a way to, if I already have the artwork, add a picture to multiple MP3's at a time?
My apologies if new features are covered elsewhere... I'll searchon that too.
Posted by: Magnus Brading on May 11 2004,03:55
The new features will be revealed when the update is released, stay tuned (you will find some hints scattered around the forum though)...
And what you are suggesting about the album art will be possible in a future upgrade, not necessarily the next one though, or at least not the first beta of it, there are much bigger and more general new features that has main focus...
Posted by: Guest on April 02 2005,00:06
to be practical unless you have a dozen people doing this
I think the amazon way is the best and most logical solution.
Posted by: tHiNkBoNe on April 11 2005,16:10
IMHO - while having a nice hi-res folder.jpg for album cover artwork, actually embedding duplicate copies of potentially large images in every single MP3 in an album is redundant, and pointless.
However, there are lots of tools out there that do exactly what is requested. Most are commerciall/shareware however there is a nice simple open source solution available here:
< http://louhi.kempele.fi/~skyostil/projects/albumart/ >
tB
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