Filed under: Multimedia, Software, Video, iTunes, Apple TV
VideoDrive: easy iTunes video importing and tagging
In a recent Ask TUAW we addressed a question about getting divx video files to register properly as TV Shows in Front Row. In the discussion that followed one of our readers suggested VideoDrive as an easy way of accomplishing this. Basically, VideoDrive allows you to import your videos into iTunes without converting them, while still having full control over the metadata, including the tags that control placing videos either in the TV Shows or Movie categories. That way they will appear in the appropriate submenus in both Front Row and on the Apple TV. VideoDrive can also download cover art form Amazon as well as clean up file names and more. Keep in mind, however, that the appropriate codecs must already be installed to use this (check our Perian for this purpose).VideoDrive is €12.99 (~$20) and a demo limited to 12 videos is available for download.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
goobi said 12:41PM on 5-17-2008
This is freaking great! Wow! All my troubles are solved. I had to previously save each movie as a quicktime reference file, and then change the video type to TV show and all that. This is excellent!
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mingistech said 12:41PM on 5-17-2008
Or you could just open the file in Quicktime and save as Quicktime Movie. Then drag the file into iTunes and tag it in there.
Thats how I do it with all my divx and xvid TV Shows.
I also have perian installed... so Quicktime can play every format under the sun. :)
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Tom said 6:33AM on 5-18-2008
good luck doing this for let say 300 videos. With VideoDrive you just drag the folder to the application and it does it for you. Including metadata and covers!
Doctor Creek said 12:53PM on 5-17-2008
MetaX does this and more for free.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24994/metax
Leopard only though....
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2shae said 2:26PM on 5-17-2008
MetaX only does .mp4
VideoDrive also does .avi.
Seriously one of the best apps I've bought (bought 2 in my whole live
:P).
It makes your videos in Frontrow look just like the Apple Trailers
section of Frontrow.
And also gathers the movie summary discription + image.
Vic said 2:29PM on 5-17-2008
Doctor Creek,
No, Meta-X does not do more than VideoDrive. VideoDrive can also tag MKV and AVI files for use with FrontRow. Meta-X can't do that without converting the files first.
VideoDrive is also smarter about grabbing video descriptions.
Jak Logan said 1:08PM on 5-17-2008
Why not use this FREE Applescript?
http://dettmer.maclab.org/movie2itunes.html
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Tom said 8:52AM on 5-18-2008
It is impossible to add cover artwork to videos added with this script (And clearly VideoDrive offers far more features)
johnjkle said 6:10PM on 5-17-2008
How does this work? Every video I try to add fails with "Import of ***.avi failed because QuickTime could not process your video. Make sure the video can be played in QuickTime and try again:QuickTime Player got an error: Can't continue . (error: -10000)" but QT can play the videos fine! Only using VideoDrive produces this failure. Anyone have any idea why?
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Tom said 6:37AM on 5-18-2008
Yes, it's mentioned on the support page ( here ): must be a corrupted QuickTime installation caused by other software or codecs.
Dalton said 7:31PM on 5-17-2008
For an AVI file to show up in AppleTV, it has to be hacked, no? Just making sure I understand the story correctly... I would *love* to play AVIs on my AppleTV, but I'm not willing to open the box.
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dbr said 12:00AM on 5-18-2008
Saphire (a Front Row/AppleTV plugin) does this in a slightly less round-a-bout (and free) way:
http://www.entertainmac.com/2007/12/safarire-media-browser-for-frontrow.php
It shows up in Front Row as another icon (like movies/photos/etc) - you can add any directories/drives to the it's library. It grabs film/TV-episode information, keeps track of watched/unwatched files etc. The screenshot only shows the film section, but the TV-show handling is very good.
http://appletv.nanopi.net/manual/install-leopard/ is the install instructions for OS X Leopard.
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Tom said 6:31AM on 5-18-2008
VideoDrive is indeed a great tool: I use it for all my videos and as I don't want to waste time with reconversion this is perfect. I drag every video I get to the application icon and it's added immediately. And it's quite smart indeed: in 99% of the time I don't have to change the suggestions it makes for me.
The greatest feature is season and episode numbering of TV Shows. I used to do this manually, but now it's done for me. Including individual episode descriptions. This tool saves me lots of time. Definitely worth the (low) cost!!
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johnjkle said 7:56AM on 5-18-2008
I kind of doubt there is anything wrong with my QT installation since I clean installed Tiger two days ago and the only codecs I have installed are Perian 1.1 - and as mentioned, every AVI plays fine in QT yet fails to work with VideoDrive. This sounds like a great application - if it worked (the Applescript mentioned by Jak Logan does)...
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Tom said 8:52AM on 5-18-2008
Apparently, the link to the support page was not shown: you can find it here (there is also a compatibility tool) http://www.aroona.net/VideoDrive/Open_issues.html
Bart said 9:03AM on 5-18-2008
Great tool!!! Front Row finally looks the way it should with my 250+ movies and shows added to iTunes with VideoDrive
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Daan said 1:49PM on 5-18-2008
I just found out about this app a day before this post :) Wish I found it earlier! Great app but kinda slow when adding artwork to mp4 files generated by VisualHub... but iTunes itself is slow with those files too. Anyway, VisualHub is out now since I don't have to convert my files to mp4 now.
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Tom said 5:02PM on 5-18-2008
A new version 1.5.8 has been released just now adding support for Presets. You can now save your metadata settings to files (and load them again off course).
There's a new version out almost every week now, each time with new great features. Looking forward to the next one!
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