# Windows Media: The Album Art feature

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 14, 2002, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454 "2002-09-14T21:31:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\
**Post date:** [September 14, 2002, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454/1 "2002-09-14T21:31:53Z")

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I put a CD in my computer this morning, and an application called Windows Media popped up.  
It’s got a feature that lets you watch things on the screen while the music plays. Most of these things are brightly coloured shapes and swirls, but one of the is labeled ‘Album Art’.  
I selected Album Art, and the blinking spirals were replaced by a picture of something very much (but not exactly) like the album cover.

I thought that was pretty neat. (On the other hand, if you click on the picture, it takes you to a website that tries to sell you the CD you’re playing.) So, I tried some of my other discs, and tried it while I was disconnected from the net as well.

Turns out, it only works for ‘Naveed’… the first disc I tried. And it works whether or not I’m online.

Or so I thought. Later this afternoon, I put in another CD. Lo and behold, up popped the album cover for ‘Music @ Work’. I tried my other discs, and it worked for most. I was on-line at the time, mind you.

So what’s up? Does anyone know where this thing is getting it’s info? Is there a website somewhere that contains reasonable facsimiles of the album covers for a select group of CDs? Or is there maybe a special hidden file on the disc?

Thanks, Stu.

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**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2002, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454/2 "2002-09-15T07:12:08Z")

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I’m guessing the album art is on the CD itself. I don’t think it needs to be online to work. Google, “windows media player album art”.

[http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/whatsnew.asp](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/whatsnew.asp)

> [@](#):
>
> Offline Media Information support w/ new view album art in Now Playing  
> Now you don’t need to be connected to the Internet to view the most common and popular types of media information. In fact, you can even turn display resizable album art in addition to visualizations in the media player’s Now Playing window.

[http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/experience.asp](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/experience.asp)

> [@](#):
>
> Album Art automatically added and displayed when copied to PC

FWIW.

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**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2002, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454/3 "2002-09-15T12:19:30Z")

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I’m guessing it downloads the art when you play a CD while connected to the internet, then stores it in a database to display while you’re offline.

Also, I would suggest you use a program like [Winamp v2.81](http://classic.winamp.com/) to play your music. Windows Media Player has rather low sound quality compared to the rest, and requires a lot more memory and CPU power. Winamp features crossfading, support for more types of audio, and a fully functional equalizer with a load of presets.

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**Author:** ![Alereon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alereon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alereon)\
**Post date:** [September 15, 2002, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-media-the-album-art-feature/128454/4 "2002-09-15T12:22:04Z")

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Sigh. “Oh it’s just a URL tag, what could go wrong?” I said…:rolleyes:  
Anyway: [Winamp v2.81](http://classic.winamp.com/)