Animated cover art
Cover images, whether drawn or based on a photograph, have been an essential part of any artist’s album for as long as recorded music has been traded. The ERN standard supports the communication of such art work as “secondary resources” (as opposed to the sound recordings or music videos themselves which are classed as “primary resources”).
Static cover art
To communicate an album with a cover art image, the record company or distributor must include the image file (usually a JPEG file) alongside the audio files and reference this image file from an Image composite in the ERN message. This Image must have a Type of FrontCoverImage and be referenced from the LinkedReleaseResourceReference in the album release's ResourceGroup composite.
Animated cover art
The approach described above can be used for static cover art images. It can also be used for animated cover art images, as long as the relevant secondary resource is provided as an image, e.g. in JPEG (including motion JPEG) or GIF (including moving GIFs).
In cases where an animated cover art is provided as a video (e.g. as an H.263 or mp4 video), the record company or distributor must include two secondary resources:
A static cover image file described in an
Imagecomposite with aTypeofFrontCoverImage-- for devices and services that cannot make use of animated cover art; and
An animated cover video described in a
Videocomposite with aTypeofFrontCoverVideo-- for devices and services that can make use of animated cover art.
Both of these must be referenced from the album release’s ResourceGroup composite as described above.