How to mark videos as "tv hows"

I have an episode of Lost from iTMS. In Get Info, on the Info tab it has genre of "TV Shows", on the Options tab it has "Video Kind" of "TV Show" which is greyed out so it cannot be changed.

can you open you itunes music library xml file (open it using text edit) and find that lost episode you have and send in all the info on the show so i can match that info

<key>Track ID</key><integer>33919</integer>
<key>Name</key><string>Lost (Pilot, Part 1) [Premiere]</string>
<key>Artist</key><string>Lost</string>
<key>Album</key><string>Lost, Season 1</string>
<key>Genre</key><string>TV Shows</string>
<key>Kind</key><string>Protected MPEG-4 video file</string>
<key>Size</key><integer>220107300</integer>
<key>Total Time</key><integer>2549249</integer>
<key>Disc Number</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Disc Count</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Track Number</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Track Count</key><integer>25</integer>
<key>Year</key><integer>2005</integer>
<key>Date Modified</key><date>2005-10-17T07:37:03Z</date>
<key>Date Added</key><date>2005-10-17T07:09:32Z</date>
<key>Bit Rate</key><integer>128</integer>
<key>Sample Rate</key><integer>44100</integer>
<key>Artwork Count</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Series</key><string>Lost</string>
<key>Season</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Episode</key><string>100A</string>
<key>Episode Order</key><integer>1</integer>
<key>Persistent ID</key><string> *not sure what this is, deleted *</string>
<key>Track Type</key><string>File</string>
<key>Has Video</key><true/>
<key>TV Show</key><true/>
<key>Location</key><string> *path cut *</string>
<key>File Folder Count</key><integer>4</integer>
<key>Library Folder Count</key><integer>1</integer>

Okay - I tried going into the XML, changing the variable for Movie for TV Show for a video that I added, to match how Lost does it. No go. Soon as I open up iTunes, it changes it back to Movie.

I also tried to add tags like Season, Series, and Episode, and those just went away.

Yep. The XML file is just a copy of what is in the iTunes Library binary. iTunes doesn't read it for configuration.

I wasn't sure if it would work or not for things that don't get their metadata hard-coded into them. Had to at least give it a shot.

well how about taking the video out of itunes and geting in to the video metadata using somthing else and then putting it into itunes again ...

I was wondering how to do this also since the option to tag video files as TV Shows is unavailable. Since the UK iTMS is not going to release Desperate Housewives or any content like that anytime soon if ever i am just going to encode them from the season DVD that i bought, it would be nice to be able to just tag them correctly as TV Shows in iTunes. I'll see if the meta date is editable in Quicktime Pro....

If anyone who works for the UK iTMS and is reading this, could you please please please release some TV show content via the store? Doing things this way is such a pain, so much so i would be more than happy to pay £1.99 an episode over again just to be rid of the hassle.

The problem with that is that it won't work unless it is in a container that allows the editing of metadata with a re-save.

If I add things like an MPEG1 or MPEG2 video file to iTunes, I can add a bunch of metadata to it, like artist or album or whatnot, that doesn't actually get stored in the video file directly, but in the iTunes database.

Some tags, however, seem to be locked out - Season, Episode #, things like that. I think the solution isn't getting into the video file and editing metadata there, but figuring out how to get iTunes to let us to those "other" tags.

Thought, there might be a way to do it directly to the file. I know that under Tiger, through Spotlight, metadata can be added to ANYTHING, even totally new user-created tags - it is just that, outside of the Terminal, there's no means yet for your average user to get to it. I wonder if you could get into the Terminal and see the tags that iTunes is using, or add those tags and have iTunes read them.

I guess the first question as to which route to go would be, simply, for things like Video Type, Season, Episode #, etc., how is iTunes dealing with that data? If it is part of an iTunes database, a solution needs to go along that route. If it is using information available outside of iTunes, then that is the route we need to look into.

Maybe the TV studios don't want people ripping their own DVDs, so Apple don't make it easy for us to label the video kind as a TV Show. However, I have an EyeTV and I don't think there's anything illegal about converting those recordings to be viewed on an iPod so, really, Apple should allow some files to be labelled as TV Shows even if they're not purchased from the store. I'm sure someone will find a way to do it!

Use this little command line app that adds the video kind "TV Show" to your non-iTMS video files:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20051215113315990

Hi there,

for marking videos the right way just download the program "lostify" by clicking on the following link: http://home.comcast.net/~lowellstewart/lostify/ I is very easy. drag an drop the original file on to the program icon, than make the changdes you wish and ready you are.

don't for get to remove the old file en drag en drop the new one into itunes.

Gr thijs

Imac G5 20 inch Mac OS X (10.4.5)