Filed under: Cool tools, How-tos, Tips and tricks
Batch tagging your iTunes videos the easy way
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare, Romeo and JulietIf we applied Shakespeare's logic to today's digital age, then it would also mean that watching mis-tagged or untagged videos on your Apple device (be it a Mac, iPhone, iPod or Apple TV) would be just as enjoyable. Okay, you got me, they'd probably be just as good. But this doesn't mean you're excused from tagging your videos appropriately.
First, a bit of background. The vast majority of videos purchased from the iTunes store, as well as "digital copy" (iPod/iPhone pre-formatted videos that are sometimes included on DVDs and Blu-Ray discs), will come pre-tagged. So, the situation for those in this camp (myself included) is peachy, especially when using an Apple TV. Your videos show up on the screen screen with proper titles, season and episode numbers, actors, and descriptions. Just the way Steve likes 'em.
But what if you already own the DVD and want a version for your iTunes library? For those of you with the time and patience to rip an MPEG-4 version (and believe me, this takes some patience, especially if you use H.264 encoding) of your favorite videos, a HandBrake-MetaX martini make tagging your videos a bit more of a pleasurable experience - as if it wasn't fun enough already.
A bit about both apps: HandBrake is an open source app that takes DVDs and a variety of other video files and converts them into a host of formats -- among them MPEG-4 versions suitable for playback on iPods, Apple TV and the iPhone. It's an app you'd use, say, if you wanted to rip a DVD into your iTunes library. MetaX, on the other hand, is a meta-data tagging app capable of batch tagging MPEG-4 as well as QuickTime videos.
One of the cool things about MetaX is its integration with tagChimp and Amazon.com. And this provides a good starting point for setting up your MetaX preferences. Enabling data from these two sources will pass on information (cover art, summaries, and the like) from them to their destination files. While tagChimp alone may be more than adequate for the job for many, Amazon will act like that special restroom cleaner for getting to those "hard to reach places." You know, the movies that nobody remembers or cares enough to tag, but that Amazon happens to carry.
While HandBrake isn't hooked into MetaX by default, enabling the feature is simple. Just go into HandBrake's preferences and check mark "Send to MetaX." When established, successfully converted videos will be passed onto MetaX.
In my case, I'm going to be ripping an episode of Arrested Development entitled "Pier Pressure." One of the features of MetaX (via preferences) is that it can automatically begin a lookup based on the file name. As a result, I find it a good practice to name the file (or make sure it's already named correctly) accordingly - be it the name of a movie or episode. In my case, I'm going to use the episode name, "Pier Pressure," as my file name.
After half an hour, HandBrake has completed the conversion process, and the file is now in the hands of MetaX. One of the options (available in MetaX's preferences) to make this an even more hands-off process is to automatically export the file to iTunes after tagging has been completed.
So, I'm presented with two tagging options to choose from. After going through both of them, I decide on the second one. In addition to nicer cover art, it has more extensive information about the cast, air date, and episode description. After clicking on "Write tags," the rest, as they say, is history.
Sure, you could leave the video as is and have it show up as "ARRESTED_D2_S1_E10." The content on the video would look no different. But why not go the extra mile and let a rose be a rose. Whether viewing the video iTunes or on my Apple TV, everything just "looks nicer." And the universe is in balance again.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rafe H. said 10:15AM on 6-30-2009
Very nice article. Never knew about MetaX. I see from your picture it has a tab for "Chapters". Will it set the chapter titles correctly so that, for example on AppleTV when you hold down the Play button you'll see a scrolling-list of chapters with appropriate names?
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Gary said 10:33AM on 6-30-2009
Rafe, this is correct, Meta X will search tag chimp for the correct chapters. Chapters can vary between DVD releases and regions, so it isn't always 100% accurate. These chapters show in iTunes and AppleTV.
Tyler R. said 10:55AM on 6-30-2009
MetaX will, however, notify you if the number of chapters don't match between your file and the tagChimp data. It also allows you to type in your own titles.
HTML0000 said 2:41PM on 6-30-2009
Not only will the chapters appear in itunes and on apple tv, but a modern ipod will also display them. There's even a view to choose chapters on the touch and iPhone.
suburb said 5:42PM on 6-30-2009
MetaX is GREAT....once. But if you ever go back to edit tags or fix errors, the file often becomes corrupt and you have to go on back to re-rip. Argh...
MNSearcher said 11:23AM on 6-30-2009
Any options for Windows users? I use Handbrake with DVRMSTOOLBOX to automatically covert TV shows for my iphone
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Drifter71 said 1:12PM on 6-30-2009
There is a MetaX for windows as well. Works great.
HTML0000 said 2:44PM on 6-30-2009
Why do you read TUAW if you're a windows user?
Tired_ said 4:25PM on 6-30-2009
iPod/iPhone
james said 11:05AM on 6-30-2009
what about users with extensive libraries of movies in formats that aren't readable by iTunes/Front Row? I really wish that the native programs supported codec plugins ala VLC, but until it does, I need to use a different program to manage media on my Mac. VLC and Boxee aren't making it easy for me to tag and group tv series with proper metadata. What would you recommend as a media manager/tagger/library browser for Movies that may be in a mix of video formats like .avi/.mkv/.mov/etc....?
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Gary said 10:31AM on 6-30-2009
I do love Meta X, AppleTV is so much classier with cover art, cast and descriptions. That said, it would be nice to search by series name, not just episode name - just try searching for 'Pilot'!
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ramiltonii said 10:31AM on 6-30-2009
Great article. I used to use the same process & loved Meta X, but i have found a better/easier/faster tool for automatically tagging movies & tv shows. The program is iDentify at http://iDentifyapp.wordpress.com. It's free & uses thetvdb.com to get the info. all you do is drop the media into the app's ico & it does the rest tagging all info including episode info, actors, rating (PG-13 etc.) & artwork! It is a great app & free/donation. just my 2cents!
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Gazoobee said 10:48AM on 6-30-2009
Great article, but seeing as I am struggling with this very problem at the moment, it seems to only answer about half of the questions I have about the process. For instance purchased iTunes content appears to have tags and description fields that are not available for editing either in iTunes or in this plug-in. It's all very confusing (the process not this article), and one can't but see that if all this stuff wasn't so "quasi-legal" there would be clearer information out there, better and easier to use programs, and it would be so much easier for everyone concerned.
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Tyler R. said 10:58AM on 6-30-2009
Just curious which tags aren't available for editing. I've found that MetaX allows you to edit pretty much every tag that I've wanted, including those not available for editing in iTunes, like Short and Long descriptions, Date of airing, rating, actors, director, writers, producers, etc.
Gazoobee said 11:38AM on 6-30-2009
@ Tyler re: tags.
I could be wrong of course esp. since I admit to being confused. All I notice is that a purchased movie in Apple TV displays all kinds of meta information like Director, Film company etc. on the screen that appears to have no entry fields and does not even show in the iTunes database. I'm not home right now so I can't list them out for you.
I always assumed previously that some of these items were just a text dump in the "description" field, but when I started processing my own movies I realised they it's not. It seems more like the "hidden" tags in iTunes music files that contain your account name and such. A program for reading the hidden tags would be useful of course, but it would be better again if there were no second level of hidden tags in the first place in media files in general. i.e. - it would be better if all this was totally free and above board instead of an activity on the margins as it were.
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Dov said 1:04PM on 6-30-2009
Those are available on the Video tab of MetaX, and I use them all the time - my movies and TV shows are indistinguishable from iTS content.
suburb said 5:45PM on 6-30-2009
Also, the tags you put in place using iTunes don't "stick" if you put them on another computer, etc. If you tag it using MetaX, they're actually embedded in the file and don't lose any of the info when transferred, etc.
Vic said 12:40PM on 6-30-2009
Lostify is seemingly barebones, but it's quite a good program. Allows you to add all the film tags that the above poster was looking for.
I do have one thing I've been hoping for. Does anyone know a tagger that lets you set videos as "HD"?
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ozozo said 3:01PM on 6-30-2009
Subler!
http://code.google.com/p/subler/
DJFriar said 5:21PM on 6-30-2009
I prefer Lostify for editing audio files (I like the Explicit tags to be accurate) and MetaX for video content. Works great for me.