ITunes Video Tag Information

[mrfrosty]

Having converted quite a few DVD's for my Apple TV I started to edit some of the tag information to make things more friendly. When i change say the genre on one film it takes around 10 minutes !!! Has anyone else had a similar issue ?


Just to clarify it does it one every file i have, even if i start with a new empty itunes database.

 

[pavloskgr]

well......

Just to clarify it does it one every file i have, even if i start with a new empty itunes database.

i remember that sometimes(definitely not on every item) when i tried for example to insert a new cover flow to a movie or just changing the name of a TV show, itunes needed around 10 minutes to accept it(it seemed like the app was not responding) but after that everything was ok! Again i cannot clarify when was that exactly and under which circumstances , but i can recall taking some time for some files to edit their tags.......

 

[OldSkoolNJ]

I too have seen this. However I always blamed it on being a large file and also all my vids are on external. I havent noticed as of lately though. Maybe was a glitch and now fixed in an update?

Kevin

 

[Mernak]

I too have seen this. However I always blamed it on being a large file and also all my vids are on external. I havent noticed as of lately though. Maybe was a glitch and now fixed in an update?

Kevin

I hope that is the case, I haven't tried it since the update. When I changed tags, some of the time it would be instantaneous but most of the time it would essentially copy the movie adding tags (I presume) and the replace the original . This copying seems to take a while.

 

[brucewayne]

I hope that is the case, I haven't tried it since the update. When I changed tags, some of the time it would be instantaneous but most of the time it would essentially copy the movie adding tags (I presume) and the replace the original . This copying seems to take a while.

It depends on whether the format of the file supports the metadata tag or artwork you are changing.

It is similar to using Quicktime to convert a .mov to .mp4 using Export>Passthrough. The audio/video stay the same but the 'container' changes.

So when you drag artwork into a video that doesn't support it, itunes changes the container to one that does. This is why it takes so long.

There isn't a way around this, but you can use a program like atomic parsley to do batch changes of artwork and metadata before importing into iTunes.

 

[Scarpad]

the only tags I mess with now is the ones on the main entry and video tab, I also add episode descriptions from TV.com into the comments field they show up under Apple TV

 

[williedigital]

It will depending on how the tag "atoms" have already established in the file. If the files was encoded in certain ways, changes will be instantaneous. If other ways, itunes will need to completely rewrite the file (not re-encode, but re-mux). The wait should be longer on larger files, since it's basically copying the file over to the correct atom format. If you change the artwork after letter the 10 min copy complete, it should be nearly instantaneous.

 

[Shoesy]

Parsley's nice for garnish but...

There isn't a way around this, but you can use a program like atomic parsley to do batch changes of artwork and metadata before importing into iTunes.

Please don't use atomic parsley for changing tags (or lostify for that matter!) , it is vastly less useful than the 'Set video Kind of Selected' script available at Doug's Scripts...

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=setvideokindofselected

Much better, and it works right in itunes too!

You're right tho about the slow change times for pictures, and this script won't help you there. I force quitted whilst itunes sat there thinking about it for about half an hour- this resulted in my video having a plain white coverflow image I had to simply delete it in the end.

Does this make me vain?

 

[Mernak]

Please don't use atomic parsley for changing tags (or lostify for that matter!) , it is vastly less useful than the 'Set video Kind of Selected' script available at Doug's Scripts...

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=setvideokindofselected

Much better, and it works right in itunes too!

Does this make me vain?

All of that can be changed within iTunes without a seperate program, whereas with atomic parsley you can change almost any tag. I personally prefer Lostify over almost any other program for changing iTune info, even compared to iTunes itself.

 

[neven]

I use iTunes exclusively for tag-editing, and the container stuff described above is correct. The way I look at it, it takes me at least two hours to convert a movie, so what's another 5 minutes? (though it never takes anywhere near that long on my G4 - more like one minute).

 

[brucewayne]

All of that can be changed within iTunes without a seperate program, whereas with atomic parsley you can change almost any tag. I personally prefer Lostify over almost any other program for changing iTune info, even compared to iTunes itself.

I use Lostify as well. There is certain metadata that can be changed with AP that Lostify doesn't do (and vice versa) but I can't remember what off the top of my head.

The other advantage using an external program like AP or Lostify is that they have status bars so you don't go 10 or 20 minutes wondering what is going on.

 

[Shoesy]

All of that can be changed within iTunes without a seperate program, whereas with atomic parsley you can change almost any tag. I personally prefer Lostify over almost any other program for changing iTune info, even compared to iTunes itself.

I guess the main advantage I find with the lovely script is not having to change the damn video type for each video individually. iSquint (for one) always outputs files output direct to itunes with the 'video kind' tag set as 'Movie'- the script can set multiple items to be tagged as 'TV Show' at once, and set the series name and number at the same time- this saves a lot of watching rotatafying sand orbs .