[Oznatsoca]

Anyone have any luck figuring this out? I tested with updated ID3 tags and had no luck. Seems so silly to have that bland image of a music note sitting there any time music is played from the USB!

 

[giggabotch]

Subaru uses Gracenote for displaying cover art. So if your using audio files from your phone, depending on how old the music is, the art will display. I have no idea on how to receive updates from Gracenote. If, however, your using the built in streaming apps, you will receive the cover art with the stream

 

[RickNC]

Except for songs that were ripped from an older CD. I even see album art over FM in many cases.

 

[mathiasparks]

I have a 2016 Limited with the 7" HU. I normally stream via Bluetooth from my iPhone and use Spotify, but will sometimes use iTunes. I've NEVER seen anything but the ugly genre album artwork.

 

[giggabotch]

The Canadian XV's Spotify app in not activated on our cars so I can't speak to that but Aha radio does stream pictures when I run the app on my phone. Radio album art is none existent on my HU. When streaming from my phone sometimes I see album art it depends on how old the song is. I have a BlackBerry Z10 using the stock player. I also have Neutron player but I've never used it to stream in the car.

 

[jeromium]

I have the 7" Infotainment system. Select home > settings > audio > display cover art.

Never knew about this, but I've wished for album artwork pretty often. I'll try this out when I get back to the car.

 

[jg2000]

It depends on the ID3 tagging. If you using MP3's that where ripped from CD or other sources other than a digital music store, chances are the album art information is not included with the file. You can manipulate you ID3 tags using a batch file editor tool like TagScanner. For me all my art info shows on my 7" HU using Bluetooth.

Could you share what you do to get the HU being able to show the album art?
Do you download the music from a digital music store? Could we know which store works for the HU in terms of display of album art?
Or do you rip CDs and use TagScanner to add in the album art?
When you say you use Bluetooth, is that Bluetooth alone or thru the Starlink app on your phone?

Thank you.

 

[unsub1]

I have the 2016 7" non-nav stereo and it shows the album art most of the time via Bluetooth. When it doesn't, maybe 15% of the time, it just shows the generic Bluetooth logo. Over USB, it always seems to work, though takes a few seconds to load the artwork.

 

[giggabotch]

Could you share what you do to get the HU being able to show the album art?
Do you download the music from a digital music store? Could we know which store works for the HU in terms of display of album art?
Or do you rip CDs and use TagScanner to add in the album art?
When you say you use Bluetooth, is that Bluetooth alone or thru the Starlink app on your phone?

Thank you.

Ya I have to rescind that paragraph. What I've discovered since I wrote that is that Gracenote is used in the HU's to display album art when playing mp3's. depending on how new your files are, the album art will not display. I have a lot of classical music and I've found that Gracenote is hopeless when it comes to classical music. I'm flabbergasted as to why the decision to use Gracenote for Album info as opposed to just reading ID3 tag information. I don't know if a database update is possible.

 

[remenakb]

Ya I have to rescind that paragraph. What I've discovered since I wrote that is that Gracenote is used in the HU's to display album art when playing mp3's. depending on how new your files are, the album art will not display. I have a lot of classical music and I've found that Gracenote is hopeless when it comes to classical music. I'm flabbergasted as to why the decision to use Gracenote for Album info as opposed to just reading ID3 tag information. I don't know if a database update is possible.

I am not familiar with gracenote. It looks like that is an online database of album info. Does that mean the HU needs to have a network connection in order to get album art for their music on a USB stick? Or does it mean that they have a gracenote database in the HU?

From what I see it seems like the 6.2" HU does not show album art for a USB stick and the 7" does.

 

[CRAZYHAWK]

Gracenote works with iTunes.
Copied from their site;
Matching Your Music

With Gracenote music recognition technology, iTunes users can rip CDs into their library without having to type in all of the track names, or artist and album information. Gracenote automatically does this for them, instantly recognizing the CD and delivering the correct music metadata and Album Cover Art from the Gracenote Database.

 

[giggabotch]

I am not familiar with gracenote. It looks like that is an online database of album info. Does that mean the HU needs to have a network connection in order to get album art for their music on a USB stick? Or does it mean that they have a gracenote database in the HU?

From what I see it seems like the 6.2" HU does not show album art for a USB stick and the 7" does.

It wouldn't be so bad if Gracenote was online with our HU's, but it looks like the database resides locally in the HU. For me it works fine for most of my music pre 2015. The latest album artwork I can recall seeing was Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back (2010)

 

[Crooked Cop]

So I figured out how to display artwork 100% of the time from a cell phone. You have to embed the artwork in all mp3s and you have to use a music app that supports artwork over Bluetooth.
Not all of them do. The new Groove Music player app with the latest update does this and it's available on all mobile platforms.
I've tested this with a Lumia 950XL phone and it works flawlessly with mp3s stored locally on the phone and streaming from the cloud via OneDrive. Hope that helps.

 

[cement_head]

I have never, ever, ever seen album artwork. Not from over the air broadcast, not from CD, not from BT, not from USB. I am at a total loss, and getting extremely frustrated. I am going to write to the CEO of Subaru.

The SAME USB in a 2015 Subaru Outback works perfectly, and displays ALL the artwork from any source.

 

[djriful]

Clarion sucks. That's the maker of the HU now.

I am swapping for JVC/Kenwood, other option Alpine / Pioneer are better than stock Clarion piece of junk.

 

[llamafilm]

The owners manual for my 2015 XV Hybrid states that it supports AVRCP v1.4. Album artwork over Bluetooth is only supported since v1.6. BT specification: https://www.bluetooth.org/docman/ha...5.2128549895.1540361119-1841477823.1540361119

I think the UI is terrible on this stereo. If the artwork can't be displayed, there shouldn't be a big empty square for it.

 

[BearCat62]

I had about 250 mp3 files on a USB stick. Some artwork was displayed, others were not. Looking at the mp3 tag info, I found that artwork file size was an issue. Images above about 1Mb would not display, images below 1Mb would. I replaced the mp3 tag images with smaller files and bingo...

 

[FLCrosstrekker]

Thanks for that info. I could never figure out why sometimes I got the album art displayed on the HU while other times it was some crazy disco era photo of a karaoke singer with a microphone. :jackie-chan-meme-sm

 

[jg2000]

I had about 250 mp3 files on a USB stick. Some artwork was displayed, others were not. Looking at the mp3 tag info, I found that artwork file size was an issue. Images above about 1Mb would not display, images below 1Mb would. I replaced the mp3 tag images with smaller files and bingo...

You are right that too large will not display.
Another criteria is that the size needs to be in the hundreds.
Hence 300 x 300 will work
but 188 x 188 will NOT work.
(have not tried what is highest resolution that will work; did try 700 x 700 but that did NOT work)
Also, need to make sure the setting on the Subaru head unit is set to display album art.
If the checkbox has a faint tick, it is OFF.
I thought it was on but only when I clicked it, then the tick became darker and then that was ON and the art could be displayed (if the other conditions above are fulfilled).

Tool that is useful to cater to above:
MP3Tag - Mp3tag - Download

• Load MP3 files into tool
• Right click MP3 (can multi-select)
• Choose Action(Quick)
• Choose Adjust Cover
• Change to 300 max size (or other hundreds) and click ok
• Can check left panel bottom for actual size created (if smaller than 300, then may still be non-hundred number e.g. 230; for these, may need to change max size to smaller e.g. 200)

[Tip: Make a duplicate copy of your MP3s for Subaru Crosstrek use. You can then afford to downsize the album art resolution without affecting other copies of same MP3 used on other media players that can handle better resolution]