Mass change video tags in iTunes 8

Sep 12, '08 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: Eric DP

One of the missing features of previous iTunes versions was the ability to mass edit and update ID3 tag video information of self created/ripped video content. The only available solution up till now was using third party scripts -- for example, the excellent AppleScript "Set Video Kind of Selected" from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes. Alternatively you could edit them one by one.

This missing feature was particularly annoying since the "Movie kind" info seems to be written into the iTunes library database, rather than in the movie itself as an ID3 tag. I can only hope Apple had a good reason for having it implemented this way, because to me, it doesn't make any sense -- especially since other related video information is written directly into the files.

So whenever reorganizing your self created/ripped movie files into a new iTunes library, the "Movie kind" info would be missing and your TV shows would be added into the Movies library rather than the TV Shows library.

iTunes Version 8 remedies this situation dramatically. The "Movie kind" information is still written into the iTunes Library database. When you edit multiple files at once, however, you now have multiple tabs in the info window, allowing you to mass-update video-related information. The need for third party scripts has been eliminated as a result.

Funny enough, I discovered this new iTunes feature when launching the iTunes_vidkind Visual Basic script on my Windows computer, and getting an error message stating that version 7 of iTunes was needed. So in a way, I'm fortunate to have chosen a Windows box as an iTunes Apple TV server, because with Doug's AppleScript I wouldn't have discovered this, as the script kept working fine with version 8 of iTunes.

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