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Issue 52: Proper iTunes Tagging
2 people starred this issue and may be notified of changes. Back to list
Status:  Fixed
Owner:  ----
Closed:  Dec 2008


 
Reported by smacdiarmid, Dec 6, 2008
What steps will reproduce the problem?
1.
2.
3.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?


What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?


Please provide any additional information below.
Use a program like Atomic Parsley to correctly tag files as TV shows.  Including tagging the Show 
Field and Episode Title Field correctly.


Dec 7, 2008
Project Member #1 yoav.yer...@gmail.com
I'm reading up on atomic parsley now.  Looks like it's gonna be a bit before it gets
integrated, but in the meanwhile, if you choose to import to itunes, it will put
whatever metadata tags it has into the file via the itunes options..

  (yes, not the perfect solution.. but at least it works for itunes users  :(


Status: Accepted
Dec 7, 2008
Project Member #2 yoav.yer...@gmail.com
oh.. it sounds like you're using the itunes thing..
  how is it setting the show and episode titles incorrectly?

  (i.e. it seems to be setting them up right for me).


Dec 7, 2008
#3 smacdiarmid
You have the episode ID in iTunes tagged with the Episode Title.  The episode title should be switched to the 
"Name" field.  The name field currently shows "Show Name" - "Episode Title" (i.e. Friends - The One with)
Dec 7, 2008
Project Member #4 yoav.yer...@gmail.com
Ok checked in the change... should make it to next build
Status: Fixed
Dec 14, 2008
#5 snov...@gmail.com
I'm going to have to disagree a bit here -- I think the iTunes tagging should be done somewhat differently.

Tagging the videos for both iTunes and the iPhone turns out to out actually be a very difficult task.  If you just 
want to use the phone's Videos app, then it's pretty simple -- but the Videos app doesn't have playlists.  
Instead, you can trick the Music app into displaying video playlists if you just stick a single audio track in your 
video playlists (e.g. I have an mp3 that's just ten seconds of silence, which I put at the start of the playlist).

But then the videos are displayed using the tags for audio data: the Name field (normally the track name for a 
song) displays in large bold text across the top, with the Album Name (and Artist) displaying in smaller text 
below.  So, somewhat counterintuitively, I wind up setting the Name to "[Show Title] - [Episode Title]" (though 
the limited screen width means the episode title is usually cut off after a few letters), and the Album Name to 
the episode name.  I then also set the Artist to the show title, so sorting by Artist can be used to sort by show.

Then you run into two more problems.  First, some shows often don't have episode names (e.g. The Daily 
Show – sometimes it lists the guest as the episode name, but sometimes it doesn't list anything).  Second, I 
want a way to sort the episodes by when they aired.  Both of these problems can be solved by embedding the 
capture date as the start of the episode name, so the episode of The Daily Show from November 18 becomes 
"2008-11-18 The Daily Show".  (Prepending the capture date to the filename is a *really* handy feature that's 
in TivoButler, but currently not in iTivo; maybe you could add it?)  (Note this also means that the Nam)

Finally, I set the video tags.  We've already got the Show Name, and I fill in the Episode ID with the episode 
name.  The episode number is a bit trickier, both because TB doesn't give my script a way to access that, and 
some shows don't have episode numbers (e.g. NFL Primetime).  This field can only be a number, and I want to 
be able to sort by it.  My solution is to use the capture date (without hyphens) as the episode number.  So the 
Daily Show from November 18 is given Episode Number 20081128.

This is a bit hack-ish, but I think it's superior to the current tagging scheme.  Note that I disagree with the 
earlier poster that Name should be set to the episode title — I think it was correct earlier, when you put the 
episode title in the Episode ID field (and shows downloaded from iTunes put the episode title there), and 
Name should be a full program name (again, "[show title] – [episode title]" being my suggested string, 
although because I also suggest embedding the capture date into the episode title, that would really become 
"[show title] - [date] [episode title]").

Anyway, that's my suggestion, and yes, it's very complicated -- but as you can see, I've thought this one 
through quite a bit.

-Scott
Dec 14, 2008
Project Member #6 yoav.yer...@gmail.com
whoa. Ok that's some long reply  :).
  I seem to be getting requests to do metadata using lots of different ways for
different setups.  (I'm seperating the file name from meta data.. I'll deal with that
in a sec).    I guess the nice solution was supposed to be the XML file which has all
the data, and from which tools can be used to extract the values you want and put it
into whatever metadata system you use...

  The iTunes metadata values are 'standardized' (for whatever that's worth), and I
*think* I'm following the correct rules..  Read
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/the-complete-guide-to-managing-itunes-videos/
for more.  There is the option of adding more values (the ones that aren't already
defined), and if you can point out ones that I can easily add.. I'll happily do that.

  the AtomicParsley value settings are similar.  I'm happy to add/change those if I
have easy access to the values.

  It sounds like you have a different allocation of the meaning of the metadata tags.
 I don't think I'm going to move towards an entirely flexible 'assign meanings to
metadata' advanced prefs.  BUT if you do want to use a different assignment, it's
entirely doable:  Write a script (shell, perl, or whatever language you like) that
takes as input the filename, uses that to figure out the .tivo XML file, reads the
values you care about from that, and sets the metadata for the filename appropriately
(using atomicparsley or any other program you like).  Then tell iTiVo to run that
script when the download completes.  This will set your metadata exactly how you want it.

  Now the second thing you're talking about is the file name.  This is entirely
independent from the metadata, and is more an issue of preference (programs fall back
to using the filename as the source of metadata if nothing else is available).
  It's clearly the case that there are tons of opinions here on what the 'right'
filename should be.  Especially in cases where some data (like episode name) is
missing.  Right now I just use 'showname-tivoid' if an episode name isn't there, but
that's mostly a convenience.

  So, the right thing for filename is to let the user specify (under Advanced options
or whatnot) a filename pattern.  I'll make a new 'issue' to mark that as an
enhancement request...
Dec 14, 2008
#7 snov...@gmail.com
ah, I do like that guide.  It's hard to argue with that about what the official naming scheme should mean.  I 
guess I'm just being forced to do something quirky – sensible, I think, but admittedly quirky – because the 
stupid iPhone doesn't handle video playlists well at all.  I wish Apple would just do something about this on 
their end...

Thanks again for all your work on iTivo, by the way -- I've been very impressed by the rate of things you've 
been added recently.  I have some very major HandBrake-based encoding option improvements to send you 
soon (should make for a pretty dramatic improvement in quality, or allow comparable quality at a much lower 
filesize), but I'm just waiting for one of the HandBrake folks to get back to me on one more thing (I discovered 
an interesting bug while tweaking some of the settings).

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