Understanding how coverart works

[Gos]

Hello,

First off, I am new to the whole podcasting debacle, so hopefully someone can shed a bit of light on my question.

From what I have read myself up on, there is three places I need to place my cover art.

Show cover art
Show cover art iTunes
Episode cover art
Episode cover art iTunes
Episode cover art - embedded in the media file.

Now, with Apple deciding that established standards are rubbish and should not be followed, I have lost track of what's what.
According to Apple's specifications, the cover art needs to be a minimum of 1400x1400 (max 3kx3k) and from what I gather, this also applies to episodes?
Although it seems like many podcasters use 300x300 for episodes?

The main question is then, can someone with certainty complete the following matrix?

Show cover art                                                      Min xxxx                     Max xxxx
Show cover art iTunes                                           Min 1400x1400          Max 3000x3000
Episode cover art                                                   Min xxxx                     Max xxxx
Episode cover art iTunes                                        Min xxxx                     Max xxxx
Episode cover art - embedded in the media file.     Min xxxx                     Max xxxx

Yours faithfully,
Gos

[Shawn Thorpe]

For show cover art in both the iTunes and RSS feeds, go with 1400x1400 px, try to keep the file size under 500KB if possible. Or at least, keep it as small as possible where it still looks good. Sometimes, people use super high-res versions (large files) and the iTunes Store doesn't like that.

If you're adding episode-level artwork to your RSS feed, it's probably best to stick with the same specs as the cover art above.

For the artwork you embed into your media files, actual file size is more important than pixels. If the file's too big, it can cause problems with podcatchers reading your media files' header information. I usually create 600x600 px images to embed in my media files and that seems to work fine.