iTunes meta data lookup

The Garage
#1

I’ve used a number of different apps over the years to automate adding information to my freshly converted MP4 TV Shows before adding them to iTunes.

iDentify doesn’t seem to work anymore, Video Monkey is long gone…

The workflow is currently Handbrake (Windows) → iDentify (Mac) when then automatically copies everything into my iTunes library.
The encoding is done under Windows because it’s a VM on my server, is accessed remotely and runs 24/7 so can spend all day and night encoding when it needs to without having to leave my MBP on.

So do people do these things anymore? What applications do you use to add the metadata?

edit: It’s also worth adding that album artwork needs to be 600x600 (or square at least) to work on the iPhone (at least it used to before iOS 10… I haven’t checked if anything has changed).

#2

I have used iFlicks, but its now $38 in the App Store. I did buy it when it was on special at some point.

1 Like
#3

I’ve also used iFlicks2, works better than iDenitfy did, I feel

I didn’t realize it was so expensive though now, it may be worth it,but obviously depends on how much you use it.

#4

I’ve just downloaded and tried iFlicks2 and while it appears to have pulled the meta data for the couple of test files I threw into it, it hasn’t pulled any artwork at all. I’ve tried a range of files from Blackadder to the Simpsons and none of them are giving me images.

Am I missing something or are you supposed to manually add artwork?

edit: I’ve added in a few movies and it appears to be pulling images for those, just no TV shows :frowning:

#5

Uses this data base for TV shows, which does not seem to be working to well at the moment. Website is not loading.

#6

I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few days to see if it gets any better.

Interestingly the things that I was re-encoding before have essentially just copied over form their MKV containers into m4v format. They seem to be syncing and playing just fine on the iPhone too… which is a huge time saver and very awesome.

As long as the meta data starts coming up this is looking like a nice bit of kit.

#7

I use subler. Works with TheTVDB and TheMovieDB for metadata. Does everything I need.

#8

My go to in the past as well. Not as automated as other options?

#9

I’ll have to have a look at that one too.

iFlicks took a bit of manual tinkering to clean up the files.

It was a bit strange really, I was pulling through Blackadder and some episodes were getting artwork, all seemed to get the correct show name, series number and episode number (although that could be down to my very neat file labelling??). Some got the episode screen date and description. Those that failed to get details seemed to use the full file name as the title, which I had to correct manually.
When it comes to artwork I did have to manually replace everything, even if it did find artwork. It appears to be a common problem that these meta data adding tools have, they all want to use the DVD cover artwork, which looks pretty in iTunes but doesn’t display at all on the iPhone which seems to demand a square image :frowning:

The real upside was that there was no transcoding required, everything just copied across to iTunes and is working beautifully on the iPhone, so the time I save in transcoding is way way way more than the time it takes me to clean up the file names.

So it’s pretty awesome, I’m just not sure if it’s $40 worth of awesome.

#10

Agreed Hawke, it’s a great app, but $40 is pretty expensive, it’s something that you do not use to often.

1 Like
#11

It’s only $33.89 if you buy direct. It seems they put the price up on the App store to cover some of those fees :stuck_out_tongue:

My last meta grab worked perfectly and while the artwork still looks rectangular they seem to be showing on my iPhone now… Maybe iOS 10 lets that work?? In any case, I’m a pretty happy nerd right now and will probably drop the cash on this one :smiley: (I scored an extra 7 day trial because I did a clean install of Sierra ;))

#12

So I ended up buying this and it’s been working a treat until tonight when none of the meta data is coming through at all :frowning:

Are any other iFlicks 2 users havings issues?

#13

aaaaannnd again.

Even though it doesn’t appear to have been updated iFlicks 2 wont even start. I can add files, it scrapes the meta data but pressing the “start” button does nothing. Is anyone else having issues or is it just me?

When it works it’s brilliant, but when it’s not I’m left with nothing :frowning:

#14

The team over there are pretty quick, I emailed them last night and got this response waiting for me this morning:

[quote]sorry for the inconvenience. We can confirm this problem and are working on a solution.

In the meantime, until the problem is resolved, please use iFlicks from setapp ( see: https://go.setapp.com/stp144 ) for free (30 days) instead."[/quote]