Why does Plex default to low resolution album artwork in music libraries?

General Discussions
1

I’ve created a new premium music library but for some reason Plex defaults to the lowest resolution artwork for many albums. It’s matching the music correctly and I can go in and select higher resolution artwork in the Edit > Poster section. However, I certainly don’t want to do this for each album. Why doesn’t Plex use the highest resolution artwork by default?

2

Plex cannot distinguish the resolution of artwork. It uses either embedded cover art, or if a external cover art graphics file is present it uses this preferably.

You need to clean up your music folders.
I bet you have ultra-low resolution cover art in there, most likely dropped there by Windows Media Player.

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3

I noticed it also does this with movie posters and background, not just with the metadata being pulled off the web but higher resolution artwork I’m uploading myself. Is there a quality setting somewhere or is this just how plex works across the board?

4

I use mp3tag to add 1000x1000 pixel album art to my mp3. Plex still goes online and get low res album art. I have to edit the poster setting for each album to get the high resolution image back in use.

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5

Please follow my link above. I’m pretty sure this is your issue as well.

6

revivie this

7

I have to agree with @OttoKerner on this one. WMP has generated numerous 75x75 jpg’s in my music folders over the years. For the albums associated with those folders, Plex tends to pick up those lower res jpg’s that WMP created. As far as why it defaults to the lower res file, my guess is it’s a sorting issue. The WMP 75x75 jpg is typically named something like AlbumArtSmall.jpg while the “higher res” WMP version (typically 200x200) is named folder.jpg.

I have spent considerable time updating the album art in all my music files to 500x500 size jpg’s and using the same graphic for the folder.jpg file in the album folders. Plex will still go for the 75x75 AlbumArtSmall.jpg file (if it exists in the album folder) and I have to manually select a higher res picture.

8

Plex should make an easy on-off switch to default to displaying the highest resolution images found for audio media. If they want to be in everyone’s media room, on their big screen TVs, it’s a shame to walk by and see plex playing an album and you can’t even make out the cover due to pixelation. Figure out that platform adoption is all about UX; and best UX is impossible with pixelated UI.

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9

I have to agree. I embed 800x800 artwork into my music files and then at the folder level I have up to 1500x1500 artwork named both folder.jpg and cover.jpg. I did have 75x75 AlbumArtSmall.jpg files but I got rid of those when Plex was picking those up instead of the higher quality artwork. I understand if Plex maybe can’t determine the res of a file but how about using something more simple like the size of the file. Just assume the larger size file is the best artwork. Or do like with Movies and TV artwork and if I have file called “cover.*” then just use that. The whole reason I got the 1500x1500 artwork is so that it would look nice on big screens. Instead it goes for the 75x75 artwork and looks pixelated and horrible.

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10

I am also having this issue. This is a brand new library and there are no hidden cover artwork files, I always have show hidden files on as default. Every single album was personally checked over and the cover art is embedded into every single track at a minimum of 600X600 dpi, but usually higher. Once Plex scanned the library, however, more than half of the album art being displayed is low-res from some unknown source and I am forced to update them manually as I notice them. This is ridiculous! There should be a setting that forces Plex to use te embedded artwork.

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11

Not only ‘hidden’, you also need to check for files marked as ‘system’.
(this is a different checkbox in the settings for the file explorer and it should not be left to ‘on’ for daily work)

2 Likes
12

I forgot about the second checkmark, thanks for reminding me. Over 8,000 jpgs showed up. I have now deleted them all and hopefully a rescan of my library will give me only the embedded artwork.