Does AVRCP 1.3 support album art?

Question

Does AVRCP 1.3 support album art? Based on list of media attributes, album art is not included in the list. If AVRCP 1.3 do support album art, how do the information pass?

Petrolatum

Got any clarity on this since you asked the question? – Hardden

This page claims that the 2014 BMW 328i xDrive Gran Turismo supports album artwork over Bluetooth. No idea if the author is correct. :) – Mesothorax

It seems like it is cddb behind the curtains there as well; xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/x-m-forum/…. – Albertson

Yes there are models that use that (and this may help to explain odd balls like older droids appearing to "work"). But it is true this was a real thing on BMWs with apple devices, though through their proprietary bluetooth service (and it's not even speculation, we know that since already about 2013 the feature is internally spelt as Entertainment Bluetooth Audio Streaming iPod Accessory Protocol Coverart). – Rettarettig

Answer 1

The short answer is no, it does not support album art. As you mentioned, AVRCP 1.3 does not support album art. As you mention, Appendix E: List of media attributes in AVRCP 1.3 is the source. Neiter does the latter versions.

In theory, you could use one of the reserved bytes to define your own album art metadata field. How well this would work practically would depend on a bunch of factors, e.g.

• Both the sender and the receiver are able to interpret the new information,
• The Bluetooth stacks on both sides allows the actual extention.

And of course, if you extend the protocol, you are not conforming with the standard anymore.

Albertson

Thank you for official reference. The Tesla Model S supports album artwork over Bluetooth, e.g. from an iPhone. Do you suspect that this is hacked AVRCP, or BIP, or something else? – Mesothorax

It seems that Tesla fetches its information from CDDB according to this post: teslatap.com/questions/music-cover-art-control. The Tesla is connected by 3g, so it is at least plausible. – Albertson

Wow. That would be very interesting if that was their approach. Thanks! :) – Mesothorax

This discussion claims that the Prius also supports displaying artwork, and also surmises that it must be coming from CDDB. – Mesothorax

Just spoke with an expert from a company supplying Bluetooth products, who said that they supported album artwork via BIP. – Mesothorax

"BIP" sounds the way AVRCP 1.6 would do it. And by 2015 that should have been shipping in the SDK of most bt manufacturers (though hardly in any final product). But take note this is still an optional part of the standard, meaning that version alone doesn't guarantee support (e.g. Android only added it in 2021, which is years after they implemented 1.6). Then, up-revving hacks aren't completely unheard off, but it seems extremely unlikely. – Rettarettig

Answer 2

Album Art is supported in AVRCP 1.6 and up. A great many autos are actually getting the cover art via some form of onboard CDDB database like gracenote. This is NOT sent over Bluetooth.

Maulstick

Answer 3

"A great many autos are actually getting the cover art via some form of onboard CDDB database like gracenote. This is NOT sent over Bluetooth." My 2013 year car (Toyota RAV4) is getting cover art from MP3 files over bluetooth, at least it was getting cover art before my phone's system has been upgraded. I don't know what version of AVRCP was using before, now only version 1.3 is working and no cover art is available anymore.

Unriddle

Since 2013 toyota bundles an offline database powered by Gracenote (newer models can be easily updated but older ones required a visit to the dealer). You probably aren't seeing it working because of course 2024 music isn't to be found in a decade-old lookup table (and if something really changed after a phone update I'd bet it's metadata transmission altogether). – Rettarettig