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add support for animated "cover.mp4" retrieval via albumart or an additional protocol command #2500

@iconoclasthero

Description

@iconoclasthero

Feature request

I noticed in the [un]relase[ed] notes that #2460 is something slated for version 0.25:

  • support filename "cover.jxl" for "albumart" command

and that https://covers.musichoarders.xyz/ has some animated cover art options, e.g.,
from this search:
https://covers.musichoarders.xyz/?album=Luna&artist=Anna+Lapwood&sources=applemusic
there's a .jpg and 2 .mp4s; the latter being animated cover art.
I assume that there will be more rather than fewer albums for which animated covers are available going forward* so this is a feature request for albumart to also retrieve "cover.mp4" files.

Relatedly--and this is probably something for a separate FR--but the protocol documentation section on albumart states:

This is currently implemented by searching the directory the file resides in for a file called cover.png, cover.jpg, cover.jxl, or cover.webp.

I assume that since in my testing the cover.png is chosen over cover.jpg this is the order of preference for cover art files? An option in mpd.conf that allows the user to specify the order preference of these files gives the user more control over which files are preferred. And, if already implementing something like that, I suppose it would be worth considering the possibility of allowing for user-specified naming conventions such as %albumartist% - %album%.<ext> based on all or a useful subset of the tags available in the protocol.

That said, since animated cover art is different enough from static images, a separate protocol command, e.g., animatedart or animatedcover could also be considered for v0.25 which would allow for retrieval of animated and static artwork independently of a fixed mpd.conf setting like mp4 > jpg > png > webp > jxl so that the retrieving program could do e.g., if not animatedart then albumart or display animatedart in a separate context.

* From what I found Tidal and Apple both provide 1:1 animated art options which are both sources for musichoarders.xyz and have been doing so for about 5-6 years:

Apple Music has been providing animated album art (officially called "Album Motion") for over five years, originally rolling out the feature in December 2020 with the release of iOS 14.3 and macOS 11.1.](https://rateyourmusic.com/list/boingbeat/apple-music-and-tidal-animated-covers-archived/)

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