My Music Library is giving me headaches and don’t know what else to try. The symptom is most of my Album Art is low quality (low-res) to the point that it looks blurry. I have tried different options and can’t find the root cause.
For most of my music I use MusicBee to edit MP3 tags including embedding hig-res Artwork in the files, if I check with a differ app like Mp3tag I can see embedded image is clear with 1200x1200 or 1000x1000 resolution, plus the image is saved as both cover.jpg and folder.jpg in the same folder.
In Plex Agents -> Plex Premium Music, I set Local Media Assets (Albums) on the top, followed by Plex Premium Music. I deleted my old library and created one from scratch (a few hours wasted by the way) to avoid leaving any metadata in the system. When I start adding content I can see Plex pulls between 3 and 5 posters but always defaults to the lower resolution one.
I tried changing the agents and setting Local Media Assets (Albums) on top which brings a hi-res artwork but it many cases it downloads the wrong metadata from LastFM (not Plex fault), this proves the problem is with my artwork.
I tried removing embedded images from the MP3 using Mp3tag, leaving both cover.jgp and folder.jgp in the folder. Plex then loads one of the jpg files (don’t know which one first) but again lowers the resolution. I tried the other way around and removed the jpg files leaving the embedded image only and frustratingly again the image is loaded in low-resolution.
I tried Emptying Trash and Cleaning Bundles, but still doesn’t fix it. I don’t know what else to try.
You need to check the “use embedded metadata” in the advanced section of the music library settings. Then everything will work fine. I think you might need to add the library again from scratch for the setting to work though but I’m not sure. Hope it helps.
Verify the resolution of your artwork with PMP in ‘TV’ view mode. This gives you the biggest cover view.
I am using the same agent configuration and Plex uses all my external high res folder.jpg artwork:
Are you being fooled by the new transition effect in the web app, where it first loads a low-res version of the cover, but refines this after 1 or 2 seconds?
You need to check the “use embedded metadata” in the advanced section of the music library settings. Then everything will work fine. I think you might need to add the library again from scratch for the setting to work though but I’m not sure. Hope it helps.
Thanks d2freak, I ticked use embedded tags, I think it works for text tags only.
@OttoKerner said:
Verify the resolution of your artwork with PMP in ‘TV’ view mode. This gives you the biggest cover view.
I am using the same agent configuration and Plex uses all my external high res folder.jpg artwork:
Are you being fooled by the new transition effect in the web app, where it first loads a low-res version of the cover, but refines this after 1 or 2 seconds?
I thought I could be transition but it get low resolution in both Plex App, Plex Web, Androind, iPad and Roku.
This is what I see in the Web App, you can see the image is low-res
This is the folder image where you can see the image has a 1000x1000 resolution, didn’t take a snapshot of the image but both Folder and Cover are high res
If I edit the Album there are 5 images to choose from, all hig-res but one. I can only think the images are (1) Embedded, (2) Folder.jpg (3) Cover.jpg (4) Plex Premium (Fanart) (5) ???. For some reason Plex prefrers the lower qualify image.
I’ve not come across this myself in Plex, but maybe your files have multiple embedded covers and/or the embedded artwork is too large (in MBytes)? Not sure what Plex would do in this situation.
I also use Bliss (blisshq.com) to check through my music files. You can setup embedded artwork requirements (max/min size, max/min resolution, single embedded artwork), and will also auto-rename files in accordance to a profile you set etc.
As far as I can tell, after cleaning my music collection using Bliss, Plex is picking up the MP3 tags and artwork correctly.
@ojgarciah said:
This is the folder image where you can see the image has a 1000x1000 resolution, didn’t take a snapshot of the image but both Folder and Cover are high res
@ojgarciah said:
This is the folder image where you can see the image has a 1000x1000 resolution, didn’t take a snapshot of the image but both Folder and Cover are high res
Thanks OttoKerner. I had activated display of hidden files but System Files didn’t cross my mind. When I unticked "“Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)” it displayed an AlbumArtSmall.jpg file 5KB in size (75x75) in each folder which were the images Plex was picking by default. The answer was there right in front of me but couldn’t see it.
Not sure which program created these little $%^$#*&$# files but my suspicion is WMP. I have some cleaning to do but it would be great is Plex picks higher resolution images by default not the lowest.
Thanks a lot OttoKerner and everybody who took to time to help.
