Resuming video from last playback position

I also have issues with this feature. As I understand it, you're supposed to bring up the "Get Info" dialog for the video file in iTunes, and make sure "Remember Playback Position" is checked under the "Options" tab.

I did a couple of experiments to try to figure out how iTunes and iPod interact when synching and/or playing back and found:

iPod doesn't save its position: if you play the movie file and then play something else, it loses your place.

iPod will synch your position to iTunes, but only if the movie is currently playing (or paused) on your iPod when you connect it. If you play a movie on your iPod, stop halfway, and decide to play some music, it will lose its place and won't synch your position to iTunes.

iTunes seems to get it right. It remembers your playback position for every video no matter what you do in-between watching. It also seems to correctly synch the playback positions for all the files to your iPod. So when you play the file on your iPod, it resumes from where you left off in iTunes.

The problem is, I never watch video in iTunes. I watch it on my iPod, usually, in short, 15-minute intervals. And of course I'm not going to leave the movie paused until I get back to my computer just so it will save my playback position.

Hopefully an iPod firmware update is in order to correct the problem. I understand that the "Remember playback position" has been available in previous versions of iTunes and can be applied to any file (not just video), and should synch correctly to any iPod with click wheel. I have a 3rd Generation iPod and a 5th Generation iPod, so I'm not able to test it out to see if it's just a problem with 5th Generation. I'd be curious to know if anybody has had some experience using this feature on a 4th Gen model.

Another thought: maybe it bookmarks your position for content purchased off the iTunes Music Store.

I remember it used to be that the only audio files that would remember their playback position were audiobooks purchased off the music store. You could of course "trick" iTunes into thinking it was dealing with an audiobook file by changing the extension of any AAC file to .m4b.

I wonder if there is a similar scenario with video now. I'm not about to pay $1.99 to find out. 🙂

Has anyone actually purchased videos off the iTMS and played them back on their iPod? Help.

I'm not sure exactly what I did (or maybe why it worked), but it seems to be working now on my iPod.

First, I played a video and scrubbed it to somewhere in the middle. Then I pushed the "Next" button to go to the next video in the playlist. Then, when the next movie was playing, I pushed "Menu" and went back to the first video I was playing. It did resume playback, but it only did it sometimes. I tried to repeat the experiment, and only had it succeed about half the time. (Weird...)

Then, as another experiment, in iTunes I checked "Remember Playback Position" on an audio file (instead of video) to test it out. I synched my iPod and ejected it. It resumed playback just fine on the audio file. So I tried video files and they all seemed to be working as well.

I synched my iPod again, and all my playback positions moved over to iTunes!

Okay Michael. I think I have your answer.
It's in iTunes!
Click on each video (one at a time) and [Command]+[ i ]
then on the info popup, you can toggle the button that says "Remember Playback Position"
This should do the trick for you...

I noticed that whether the playback position is resumed or not depends on how I exit out of the video. If I press the "up" button to exit, then it will resume on the next play of that video, regardless of how many videos I view in between. When I don't want it to resume on playback, I click on the "right" button to end it.

You can't check the box with multiple items selected. It only lets you edit the info tab when you have more than one file selected (i.e. Title, Artist, Album, etc.). The Options tab isn't available.

The fastest way I know of is to check the box, and click the 'Next' button until all of your files are checked.

I got a mac and i dont seem to have any problems playing where i left off... all i did was go to my ipod preferences in itunes and check off remember playback position.. so i guess for PC users it doesn work... hope that helped...

As a new iPod user, I didn't know what to think or expect. In any case, the "Resume" feature appears to work on my unit in the following manner. If I pause video during play, it appears to bookmark my position. If I them navigate back to the top menu by repeated pressing of the "Menu" (top) key, then a new option is added to my menu list -- "Now Playing." Thereafter, selecting this option and pressing the "center" key will immediately return me to my running video in the location where I last paused play. If I again pause the play, it will bookmark my new position. At this time pressing the menu (top) key will immediately return me to the top menu where I can use "Now Playing" to later return me to the latest point where I paused video play.

Position appears to be lost if video is exited by use of the "Menu" key without first pausing the running movie. Further, only the last bookmark appears to be associated with "Now Playing" option. Thus if I pause in one movie, begin a second video, pause that movie, again navigate to the top menu level, and press "Now Playing," you are return to the last movie played without any option to select previously paused movies.

Lastly, the "Now Playing" option appears to be lost each time I sync the iPod. (I have yet to play with the iTunes preference setting mentioned above.)

I checked the option " Remember playback position" but the music videos downloaded from I tunes will always start from the beginning whereas the Pixar movie will resume from where I left off after pausing it, going back to menu and selecting again. So do the ripped movies. Can anyone tell me why the music videos don't create a bookmark???

Thank you.

Jordi

I checked the option " Remember playback position"
but the music videos downloaded from I tunes will
always start from the beginning whereas the Pixar
movie will resume from where I left off after pausing
it, going back to menu and selecting again. So do the
ripped movies. Can anyone tell me why the music
videos don't create a bookmark???

Thank you.

Jordi

In response to 'Why don't iTunes bought music videos resume from last playback position?' - all I can say is that I just

- went into an iTunes bought music video (which will not have Remember Playback Position ticked by default in the Options page of 'Get Info')
- and then ticked the Remember Playback Position box
- and then updated the iPod
- and on testing it (by playing the video then another and then returning to the original video)...

...it had remembered where I left off. So if you followed all of these steps then you're not doing anything wrong.

I've read all of the posts about resuming video playback as I had 1 video that wouldn't. There was no reason for it at all, I had other videos that were identical in profile which resumed without a problem.

The only thing that has cleared this for me is to navigate on the iPod to Settings > Reset All Settings > Reset and this seems to have cleared the bug. (Although it brought back the clicker - but that's soon fixed if you don't want it).

Hope this helps anyone who like me couldn't find a cure in the previous posts.

iMac G5 iLife 5 Mac OS X (10.4)

Reset all Settings in the iPod setting menu got all my video bookmarks to work too. i.e. "remember playback position." I tried everything everyone else suggested but to no avail, but once I reset the ipod settings, everything worked like a charm.

After reading this, I tried several times to get that to work, and I'm going to have to say that that review was incorrect.
It wasn't an Apple review was it?

cool. points for you. now find me a way to do that in bulk for extra points 😀