"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

If 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.

In the past we've covered the Mac application TV Shows, which automates starting bittorrents for tv show episodes. Sadly, it hasn't been updated in a while (though the main page still promises an update soon). However, I recently ran across another application that works in a similar way called ted.

With ted you can select various shows, even see summaries of episodes, then send the torrents off your your favorite bittorrent client (e.g. Transmission). Unfortunately, ted is a cross-platform java application, but it should run fine on any modern Mac.

ted is a free download from sourceforge.

[via Gizmodo]

The Australian iTunes Store has become the latest to offer television programming for purchase.

Shoppers will notice that pricing is standard across all shows at $2.99 AUS per episode. There are no season passes available as of this writing, and several American shows, like Lost, Pimp My Ride (we're sorry), Hannah Montana (we're really sorry) and Scrubs (we're indifferent) are available along side Australian shows like Sleek Geek and We Can Be Heroes.

ABC Studios, Disney, MTV, Nine Network and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation are represented in iTunes.

[Via MacNN]

Here's a nice bit of information. Many iTunes customers bought season passes to television shows in iTunes that never aired as a result of the recent writers' strike. As of this writing, Apple has begun addressing their concerns.

In an email that has been delivered to some customers, Apple describes how customer plans will be extended into the next season, or refunds will be issued:

"We will make all additional episodes which are broadcast during the 2007-08 season available to you as we receive them. If the season does end up with fewer episodes, you will receive a partial refund to make up for the difference."

Also, some customers are finding an instant iTunes Store credit that may be used towards the purchase of any two TV episodes, music videos, or short films on the iTunes Store.

Let us know if you receive one. Thanks, Apple!

[Via Uneasy Silence]

Following on the heels of the Universal Music/iTunes rift, NBC/Universal has declined to renew its iTunes contract according to the NY Times. The current deal is due to expire this December. 1500+ hours of NBC Universal content, including The Office and Heroes, will remain on iTunes until that time. So what happens after December? Between now and then, the two parties may return to the negotiating table--or they may not. Seems to me that iTunes sales have got to be putting some money in NBC/Universal's pocket. iTunes almost singlehandedly turned The Office into a hit, allowing people to catch up and join in with its episode backlog. To quote our own Scott McNulty, this continues the trend of content providers trying to "show their might and put Apple in its place."

The Mac media center market is heating up lately, with a healthy collection of competitors to Apple's Front Row offering unique features and different UI experiences. This is great news for anyone who wants to turn an older Mac into a media center, or if Front Row simply doesn't float your boat. CenterStage, while still very much in alpha and under heavy development (they're always looking for more developers to lend a handy, by the way), is a promising open source media center that brings a strong style, some exclusive features and the promise of an impressive UI down the road.

For now, CenterStage covers the meat of what a media center needs to be pretty well: it can play movies, music and your photos; nothing too much to write home about there. CenterStage can already do interesting things like play TV shows recorded with EyeTV, but highlights from the planned features list, however, is what might peak more of your interest:

• Bonjour support is coming to allow access to the media of other machines on the network, which will include viewing photos and slideshows from other computers (take that, Apple TV)
• Subtitle support for playing movies
• Live TV viewing
• Live and scheduled TV recording
• Game support - playing CD-ROM, Flash and emulation games

For now, CenterStage has released a significant v0.6.2 update which the team calls the "most fully functional release to date." For the future, however, the CenterStage crew have also produced a slick video of what the interface will eventually become, with demonstrations of browsing the library and a few other choice features.

Like I said though, CenterStage is still very much an alpha product so if you give it a spin, definitely treat it as such. Still, the project seems to be progressing nicely and it will be great to see the day when it is a formidable competitor to the likes of Front Row and equinux's MediaCentral.

Of all the products Apple has been rolling out in the past few years, the Apple TV is easily one of the most debated. While I haven't seen any specific figures from Apple on how well or poorly the device is selling, Apple's first foray into the living room seems to be getting off to at least a decent start. Jobs made another uncharacteristic move in revealing upcoming plans to support YouTube next month. But could the Apple TV be a dud? CNN Money's Brent Schlender sure thinks so. In fact, Mr. Schlender goes so far as to take a jab at the Apple TV's development: "Apple TV is so Zune-like, you'd think Jobs was so busy with the iPhone that he outsourced the Apple TV project to the folks up in Redmond." He then follows with a list of the largest complaints against the device, which includes:

• No DVD drive
• The perceived requirement of an HDTV (though we know that to be not-quite-true) even though you can't buy full HD content from the iTunes Store
• The fact that you can't shop the iTS right from the Apple TV despite its internet connection
• The annoying conundrum with only being able to use images from one computer's photo library, even though most people's pictures are probably the one batch of HD-ready media that isn't rights-managed in any way and completely sharable over a network and amongst friends or even strangers

Schlender is quick to point out, however, that the one other device everyone expected to be able to shop online via its wireless connection - Microsoft's Zune - can't do that either.

Say what you will about the video quality of iTunes content, but it sure is convenient to download an episode or two of a show that you missed when it aired. The web elves that run the iTunes Store are determined to make it even more convenient it would seem, as they have gathered all the TV season finales available for purchase on one page [iTunes link]. Everything from American Dad to Battlestar Galatica is listed for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to check back because shows are going to be added daily.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find out if Sylar is stopped (warning, if you don't like spoilers I wouldn't click that Sylar link).

This falls into the category of we report, you decide (what to do with it). TV Shows is an open source project that simplifies bittorrenting. It is not itself a Bittorrent client, rather it interfaces tvRSS together with your bittorrent client (whatever it happens to be) to let download shows automatically. Basically, you run the TV Shows client and pick whichever shows you want downloaded. After you close the client, a daemon runs in the background monitoring tvRSS and when a new show is available it downloads the torrent automatically and sends it to your default bittorrent client.

TV Shows is open source and a free download from Sourceforge.

Thanks, Bradon!

Macworld reports that some Sony shows have just been added to the iTunes store. Amongst the new offerings are:

• Charlie's Angels
• NewsRadio
• Starsky and Hutch
• Till Death
• Spiderman

All the more content for that brand new Apple TV you just bought (you knew I had to work that in somehow).

After just three months, Disney has sold more than 1.3 million movies through the iTunes store. Fears that digital sales would cannibalize DVD sales led to recent disagreements with retail partners like Target, however, those fears seem to be unfounded as brick and mortar DVD sales remain healthy. Experts do expect a long-term downturn in DVD sales as the market matures and consumers turn to other viewing models including iTunes and Netflix, but for now DVD sales of titles such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest have reached record highs.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of movie buyers these days: those going for convenience and instant gratification, for whom the iTunes store is the perfect fit, and those looking for long-term durability, who want the portability, device independence, and physical reality that DVDs offer.

As far as TV shows go, Disney has sold more than 20 million downloads in addition to their movie titles.