Where does the radio get it's album photos from?

Does anyone know how the sound system gets it's photos from? When I have my iPod connected, some albums have their own artwork stored in the file that is being played, and this is displayed. Some, however, never had an image from when I imported them...and somehow the radio downloads them. Does it get this from the satellite radio connection? What happens if I let the subscription lapse (as I am going to)? Does it get it from the cell phone connection via bluetooth? Any one know this for sure?

 

The radio stores info from grace note. Not sure how this stays up to date though

 

XM is wonky on this radio for me. In the Entertainment genre when it's on the screen it doesn't even fit on one line of text. It's "Entertainmen" and the a "t" all by itself on the next line. And other times it completely miscategorizes things. Mike & Mike on ESPN radio is considered electronica and another program is urban.

 

Gracenote is a database stored internally on the radio and can be updated... by your dealer.

 

I don't know, but the other day there was a song on XM by Sam Phillips (female) and the photo was of the Sam Phillips who founded Sun Records. Got a chuckle out of that.

 

If you are using satellite radio, it gets the image from that transmission. If you are using FM/AM it uses the HD radio signal as it is uses technologies to send data over the analog wave 10 to 20 dBs lower on the current signal you are tuned into. If that fails, it can use your entune app on you phone assuming you are registered and have it running. This also applies to the weather and traffic if you got the Nav. I did some research on this yesterday because I have no plans on keeping the XM. Tired of the yearly fees for a service that isn't worth it when I can get it for free or nearly so.

I was looking into this more and more and it looks like FM can actaully send up to 200 kbps of data with this. It's cool to see this is becoming more and more widespread as more stations adopt the equipment to transmit HD signal.