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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-17-2008 @ 12:41PM
mingistech said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 6:33AM
Tom said...
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!
5-17-2008 @ 12:41PM
goobi said...
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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5-17-2008 @ 12:53PM
Doctor Creek said...
MetaX does this and more for free.
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/24994/metax
Leopard only though....
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5-17-2008 @ 2:26PM
2shae said...
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.
5-17-2008 @ 2:29PM
Vic said...
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.
5-17-2008 @ 1:08PM
Jak Logan said...
Why not use this FREE Applescript?
http://dettmer.maclab.org/movie2itunes.html
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5-18-2008 @ 8:52AM
Tom said...
It is impossible to add cover artwork to videos added with this script (And clearly VideoDrive offers far more features)
5-17-2008 @ 6:10PM
johnjkle said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 6:37AM
Tom said...
Yes, it's mentioned on the support page ( here ): must be a corrupted QuickTime installation caused by other software or codecs.
5-17-2008 @ 7:31PM
Dalton said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 12:00AM
dbr said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 6:31AM
Tom said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 7:56AM
johnjkle said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 8:52AM
Tom said...
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
5-18-2008 @ 9:03AM
Bart said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 1:49PM
Daan said...
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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5-18-2008 @ 5:02PM
Tom said...
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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