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iTunes and Storage Question

dnelms

dnelms

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2011
104
0
McGee's Crossroads, NC
Before I make the jump and go from my WDTV player to the Apple TV, I want to make sure I understand the concept of exactly how iTunes stores info.

Am I correct in assuming (always dangerous) the following? I have 2 different external 2Tb drives with movies/TV Shows on them. When I want to add a movie in iTunes I go to add file or folder. Does this make a complete new file under the iTunes library (thus taking up space already used on my external drives) or does it simply act as a pointer to the file location?

If I do then get an Apple TV, the interface will then get it's info from iTunes and stream the mp4 or m4v to the unit, correct? Having seen videos of the interface, I assume these movies will show under under computers in the ATV interface. Short of jailbreaking the unit, is the only info that will show up with my movies will be the cover art, no synopsis OR does it/can it get all it's info from whatever is in iTunes (from the Summary, Info & Video tabs)?
 
It depends, if you have itunes setup to organise your media, then it will want to copy all your films into its own directory and then use that copy for playback. If you set it not to organise it will just use whatever you tell it.

For the info, it will use any info available to it in itunes, but you may have to manual add that in the first place, unlike music, itunes doesn't go and fetch stuff automatically for films/tv not bought in itunes.
 
DefBref said:
It depends, if you have itunes setup to organise your media, then it will want to copy all your films into its own directory and then use that copy for playback. If you set it not to organise it will just use whatever you tell it.

For the info, it will use any info available to it in itunes, but you may have to manual add that in the first place, unlike music, itunes doesn't go and fetch stuff automatically for films/tv not bought in itunes.
Click to expand...

I have always had my settings to manually mange, so that is good. I also had figured that I would have to add the info myself, but I'm willing to take the time to do that if it renders nicely on the interface.
 
You've got the idea on how this works. I'll tell you about a program available in the Mac App store, iFlicks. Its $20 but it is an all-in-one type program. It will retrieve the metadata, including cover art and info on the show\movie. Plus, it will perform whatever transcoding is needed to add it to iTunes. Its a pretty solid solution and I recommend you try the free trial and see if it will meet your needs.
 
nwcs said:
MetaX for Windows then may be a good option.

http://www.danhinsley.com/metax/metax.html
Click to expand...

Thanks, I found that right after I realized the suggested programs were Mac only. Developer for MetaX has even added support for using XML files created by MyMovies which is what I have used as my movie collection software for years. Hopefully adding this info has just gotten alot easier.
 
Question on Iflicks. If I have a Large group of MKV files in a Folder, will it convert those files to Itunes Compatible and then DL all the Metadata and add to itunes, does it let you specify the quality of the encoding? How does it's encoding stack up against Handbrake's ?
 
I've purchased Iflicks, and it does most of what I'm looking for, if they could add the ability to adjust the video output it would be perfect, as of right now there are no way to correct interlacing and frame rate issues that mar some of the conversions.
 
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