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Tagging TV shows like the iTunes store?

TwinCities Dan

TwinCities Dan

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 19, 2008
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Double Parked out front of the Courthouse
Okay, I have done my share of ripping movies from DVD's and tagging them with MetaX so that they look good in iTunes.

I am ready to venture in to TV land. Before I get too crazy ripping and tagging I just have a few questions about how iTunes wants the data, more specifically how Apple tags their TV shows.

1) I've noticed the iTunes store use a square 600x600 artwork, is this pretty common for TV shows (not rectangular DVD cover style)?
2) Does iTunes sort shows into "season" sub-folders (like in music it sorts Artists->Album folder)?
3) Is the episode number actually part of the file name or just the tag (i.e. "01 Pilot.m4v" or just "Pilot.m4v")

A little background:
I store all movies on a drive hooked to my AEBS and stream to the TV, keep music on the computer, would like to start some TV shows on the external drive to stream to the TV.

Any tips would be appreciated... :)
 
hey TC dan! I'll try to help out a fellow twin citian...

600 x 600 is the standard. you might be familiar with getvideoartwork, or thejosher but just in case you're not. They are very helpful for the art.

I'm happy to report that with iTunes 9, there is an option so that TV shows will now be sorted into season. Go to File -> Library -> Organize Library and then choose the Upgrade to iTunes media Orginaztion. The other option, the consolidate one (which I don't suggest), will copy your itunes library and take up a lot of hard drive space.


I believe the episode number is part of the file name in the itunes folder but it won't show up on the show name in iTunes or AppleTV. there is a section on metax where you can put the show number in. You may of knew that already but I didn't at first and I sure wish I did.

sweet. have fun.
 
As of iTunes 8 (and maybe 7.. I can't remember entirely), you can do almost all of the important tagging of files directly in iTunes.

If you use iTunes new sorting method (File > Library > Organize Library), iTunes sorts your tv shows into Show > Season structure.

I use square art for my TV Shows to retain a neutral appearance. In some cases, I can crop the artwork from a DVD season art I find online and it looks fine. Other times, I have to stretch the image. Here's a couple examples:

2zozmsk.jpg


I Had to stretch/squeeze this:

51q9na.jpg


Whereas this:

6r62r6.jpg


was able to be cropped and look fine.

5nw0tu.jpg


Once you have all of your shows added into iTunes, I use the show name for the artist, album artist. I use show name, i.e. "Married... With Children, Season 1" for the album. For the composer, I put the original network the show aired on, but you can leave this blank or use anything. I use the track fields for each episode. So for the first season, episode 1 is track 1, episode 2 is track 2, and so on. I put the season number in the first field of the disc number. This helped me arrange shows in explorer in airdate order before iTunes upgraded their media organization.

So to answer your last question, whatever iTunes names the file itself outside of iTunes is irrelevant, the truly important thing is the tag. However, depending on how you tag your file, you may end up with different naming. Since I use the track field (for episode number) and disc field (for season number), I end up with something like "1-01 Pilot.m4v" This means that things are sorted in order in explorer.

The really important stuff though, comes with the "Video" tab when you right-click, Get Info.

Here, you can go to TV.com and put the season number, episode number, episode ID and TV Show name in their respective fields. You can also put in a brief description of the show in the description field (this will show up on the Apple TV and maybe in future devices that support the field).

So I've never really needed anything other than iTunes to tag my shows. I used to use tagger and maybe an odd program or two, but now its all done in iTunes.
 
1. Yes, 600x600
2. I think it will, but I option dragged my episodes into my library from my external drive so they didn't fill up my iTunes Music folder
3. Not part of the file name, part of the tagging. This also separates the seasons in the thumbnail view/coverflow
 

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I used to use meta an external program to tag files and it is not working anymore. I would download lostify, its a great simple app that allows tagging of videos and will install in the itunes script menu.
 
MetaX is a great app for tagging movies and television shows. It'll give you access to lots of tagging options that iTunes uses but doesn't expose.

Plus it moos.
 
Wikipedia is a good place for popular shows as well. I like the layout a bit more, though you have to browse for typos (though I've found typos on TV.com as well).

I prefer Wikipedia's layout more since all the necessary info is on one page, whereas with TV.com I have to move around pages.
 
Ozzie7876 said:
Do you guys use those even though they get cut off in iTunes?

David
Click to expand...

Just shorten them so that you don't get cut off mid-sentence.

If you use MetaX, you can get extended info, so when you click on the little info "i" symbol, you get the full show description.
 
GermanSuplex said:
Wikipedia is a good place for popular shows as well. I like the layout a bit more, though you have to browse for typos (though I've found typos on TV.com as well).

I prefer Wikipedia's layout more since all the necessary info is on one page, whereas with TV.com I have to move around pages.
Click to expand...

I enjoy Wikipedia's layout as well. The only time I go to tv.com is when the show descriptions are too long to just copy/paste from Wiki.
 
I wrote my own small Windows application to tag an entire season of a TV show using info from theTVDB.com

All you do is select the TV Show and which season it is your tagging drag and drop an artwork image into it and then point the program to a folder containing the episodes, it then fetches all the info for each episode for you.

If anyone with a Windows system wants to try it drop me a PM.
 
Sonicjay said:
1. Yes, 600x600
2. I think it will, but I option dragged my episodes into my library from my external drive so they didn't fill up my iTunes Music folder
3. Not part of the file name, part of the tagging. This also separates the seasons in the thumbnail view/coverflow
Click to expand...

The problem I am having is like how your Lost seasons show up out of order. WIth multiple-season shows, I have all of the info the same format in the Info, Video, and Sort fields, but some shows show up with their seasons in order and some shows' seasons are out of order. Any way to fix this?
 
Perrumpo said:
The problem I am having is like how your Lost seasons show up out of order. WIth multiple-season shows, I have all of the info the same format in the Info, Video, and Sort fields, but some shows show up with their seasons in order and some shows' seasons are out of order. Any way to fix this?
Click to expand...

Select the first Season of the TV Show in question an open the Get Info window. Go to the Sorting tab, and change the Sort Show option to, for example, Red Dwarf 1. Do the same for all other Seasons, so Red Dwarf 2, Red Dwarf 3 etc.
 
Perrumpo said:
The problem I am having is like how your Lost seasons show up out of order. WIth multiple-season shows, I have all of the info the same format in the Info, Video, and Sort fields, but some shows show up with their seasons in order and some shows' seasons are out of order. Any way to fix this?
Click to expand...

If you've got all yours shows tagged with the correct Year and you're using iTunes 9, just go View>Sort Albums>Within Artist>Year!


The apps that people have mentioned to tag heaps of their videos (eg. lostify and metaX, etc.) are there any that can change the tagging in iTunes without having to reimport them. If they're just sitting there in iTunes and I can then change the Release Date, Director (for movies) and other stuff? Without reimporting!? please let there be!!!
 
nlivo said:
The apps that people have mentioned to tag heaps of their videos (eg. lostify and metaX, etc.) are there any that can change the tagging in iTunes without having to reimport them. If they're just sitting there in iTunes and I can then change the Release Date, Director (for movies) and other stuff? Without reimporting!? please let there be!!!
Click to expand...

Yes, MetaX has a plugin that you can use directly from iTunes. Just right click on the episode of the show and the last menu option should be something like "Edit with MetaX".

The episode will then open in MetaX where you can add your tags as you wish.

You might want to make sure that the setting in MetaX to auto import to itunes is turned off though since I'm not sure what that would do (it might try to re-import it, or it might do nothing, I don't want to test it though).

Once MetaX is done tagging the file I just select 'Get Info' on the episode from iTunes to refresh the listing with the new data.

Hope this helps!
 
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