Home > Handbrake, iTunes, Metadata
Video tutorial: "How to edit iTunes mp4 files"
Around iTunes and devices like iPod and AppleTV, Apple has built an ecosystem to produce, buy, store and consume movies.
It is based on MP4 format and iTunes library as main repository.
SimpleMovieX is a good companion to build your iTunes video library, with important features:
Features:
Chapter Markers:
Handbrake can create mp4 files with chapter markers. Those, however, are not visible in QuickTime nor in most video software. iTunes and SimpleMovieX detect those chapters and display them.
SimpleMovieX allows quick and easy chapter marker editing, and saving in native format without reencoding.
Unicode encoding for chapter name is automatically used for non-ASCII characters, thus making them compatible with QuickTime and iTunes.
Detecting special features:
If the movie contains hidden tracks, multiple audio, or metadata, SimpleMovieX displays an Information badge.
Clicking on it has the same effect as doing File > Show Infos, and will reveal what those special features are:
Here for example we have a metadata block, iTunes-style, that contains the name and the cover flow artwork of the movie.
Preserving Metadata:
iTunes and other programs use Metadata to store attributes of the movie like Title, Director, Genre, or Coverflow picture. When you build a video library of hundreds of movies, it's getting important to "tag" them properly so they can be classified, searched and accessed easily.
iTunes and MetaX are also metadata editors. Use them or use directly SimpleMovieX to enter the movie metadata:
SimpleMovieX is good at editing, in particular native mov, mp4 and chapter markers.
But as metadata is encoded inside the movie file, few movie editors can preserve metadata through saving or export. SimpleMovieX preserves metadata through saving (mov, mp4) and exporting to mp4 formats.
Setting iTunes artwork:
iTunes artwork is what represents your movie in the library. It's important to have a representative picture that identifies well the movie.
A movie artwork can either be one of its frames (called poster frame), or any other picture (called Cover Flow Artwork).
SimpleMovieX lets you set the poster frame.
Just place the playhead on the frame you've chosen, and do Navigation > Set Poster Frame. Then save and add the movie to iTunes library.
Note that poster frames are not well supported by Finder, even its cover flow view. The image seen in Finder is often 5 seconds before actual poster frame.
If both artwork and poster frame are set, iTunes shows the artwork.
SimpleMovieX preserves poster frame and artwork through saving (mov, mp4) and exporting to mp4 formats.
Multiple Audio tracks:
See Multiple Audio and Languages