Why does iTunes show purchased 1080p movies as 'unknown album'?

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Level 1

64 points

Why does iTunes show purchased 1080p movies as 'unknown album'?

I have purchased a couple of 1080p HD movies. When listing all movies in my iTunes library (the Movies 'playlist' under LIBRARY), as a detailed list with cover art, the 1080p movies are shown as 'Unknown Album'. This is also the case when listing purchased items (the purchased 'playlist' - not the the feature in the store where you can re-download purchased items).

Bug or feature?

Note that the movies play just fine and look amazing when viewed on my Sony HD TV over HDMI. Only the old color banding annoyance is there still, which I guess is an artifact resulting from the very high compression. After all, you can't expect a 1080p movie compressed to 10-20 percent of the size of a real Blu-ray movie to look perfect.

iMac 21.5" Late 2009-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.1), 16 GB RAM, 2 TB HDD

Posted on Mar 20, 2012 12:46 PM

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Answer 1

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Mar 20, 2012 1:32 PM in response to abubasim66

It's certainly not a feature; the 1080p movies I have all have the "album" field blank and displays nothing for that field regardless of the view. Any chance you have some other software that might be manipulating the tags on your content?

Regards.

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Answer 2

abubasim66 Author

Level 1

64 points

Mar 20, 2012 8:38 PM in response to varjak paw

Nope, no software for editing tags. I have attached a screenshot to show what I meant by 'detailed list with album artwork':

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Answer 3

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Mar 21, 2012 6:35 AM in response to abubasim66

Thanks; I understood that was where you were referring to, but I appreciate the confirmation. I don't see that on my HD movies, but I do see it on a couple of others from the iTunes Store which I didn't check yesterday. It doesn't appear when you look at the Info for the movie, and for me only appears for those movies that have Extras, so it's almost certainly a bug in the display when Extras are present. It's a pretty minor issue and appears to be harmless, but you can report it to Apple if you wish:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Regards.

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Answer 4

abubasim66 Author

Level 1

64 points

Mar 21, 2012 7:17 AM in response to varjak paw

Yes, I agree this is harmless bug, more of an annoyance. I have reported it to Apple as suggested.

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Answer 5

RabbM

Level 1

5 points

Sep 26, 2012 2:39 AM in response to abubasim66

I know it has been awhile since this was posted but there is a solution. The "Unknown Album" issue exists for any movie with iTunes Extras (It has nothing to do with it being 1080). Under get info just copy the movie name and paste it into the album name slot for both the movie and the iTunes Extra. The "Unknown Album" will then be replaced with the movie title but you have to paste it into both the movie files and iTunes Extra ablum name slot. Otherwise it will split the files in your cover flow view. More info here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3087108?answerId=17691332022#17691332022

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