1. How does VideoDrive add metadata to my videos?

VideoDrive is ideally suited to add additional information (metadata) to your videos, including the name, genre, release date, viewers rating, description and much more. There are two ways to add this information: automatically and manually. When adding metadata automatically, VideoDrive analyzes your video file names, folder structure and QuickTime annotations to determine the right information. Additionally, VideoDrive will look on the Internet to get missing information (from IMDb) and cover art (from Amazon). Alternatively, you can add metadata manually: you are in control of specifying every piece of information. The metadata is stored inside the video files that are added to the iTunes library.

2. How does VideoDrive process movies when using Automatic Metadata?

By default, all videos added to iTunes will be categorized as movies. The name of the movie is taken from a QuickTime annotation (if present), or alternatively from the file name. If the option ‘Identify movies by folder name instead of file name’ in the ‘Automatic Metadata’ preference panel is enabled, you indicate that all videos in one subfolder are part of the same movie. Then, the name of the subfolder will be used as the movie name, instead of the file name.
Next, the name will be cleaned (if the option ‘clean file and folder names’ is checked) and used to browse for additional metadata online (if the ‘Search Online’ options are checked) . If your file or folder names are heavily polluted it is possible that VideoDrive will identify the movie incorrectly and retrieve the wrong metadata. Therefore, it is best to enable the option to ‘ask confirmation before saving information found online’. When all videos are imported and online information is retrieved, VideoDrive will present you with the found information where you have to ability to accept, reject, edit or search again.

3. How does VideoDrive process TV shows when using Automatic Metadata?

If you enable the option ‘Identify TV Shows’ in the ‘Automatic Metadata’ preference panel, videos will be identified as TV Shows if and only if season and episode numbering is present in the file name or folder name. The numbering must be present in the file name in one of the supported formats (for example S01E04, 01x04 or 01-04 to indicate episode 4 of season 1). The part before the numbering is considered to be the show name, the part after the numbering is the episode name. Note that if show or episode name are ‘polluted’ with unwanted text fragments, the option ‘clean up file and folder names’ allows to clean these fragments out.

As an example, consider the following videos that are to be imported. They will all be added as Movies, except the four Lost episodes and the one Prison Break episode, which will be identified correctly as TV Shows.

If the file name does not contain enough information to correctly identify TV Shows, there is an alternative. If the name of the folder the video is stored in, contains the word ‘Season’ the video will also be identified as a TV Show. In that case, the show name is taken from the folder one level up, the season number is retrieved from the folder and the episode number is determined by counting the files in the folder. In the example below, the six videos will be added as episodes 1 to 6 of season 1 of Prison Break. The name of the episodes will be equal to the respective file names. Any possible season or episode information in the name will be disregarded (e.g. video S01E03 will be added as episode 5 instead of episode 3 because it is the fifth file). 

As a conclusion: make sure your TV Shows contain correct season and episode information in their file name, or put them in a subfolder starting with the name ‘Season’ and make sure they are ordered correctly according to their name in Finder. If you have to start renaming all your videos, consider using the ‘Manual Metadata’ option of VideoDrive as it will most likely be less work.

4. How does VideoDrive process music videos when using Automatic Metadata?

If you enable the option ‘Identify Music Videos’ in the ‘Automatic Metadata’ preference panel, videos will be identified as music videos if and only if they are shorter than 10 minutes, and if their name does not contain the words ‘sample’ or ‘trailer’. Videos identified as music videos are added to the music collection of iTunes. No additional metadata is added.

5. How does VideoDrive process videos when using Manual Metadata?

If you want full control over the information that is added to your videos, you can use the ‘Manual Metadata’ option. Click the ‘Manual Settings’ to add all information for the videos you are about to add. Note that all videos you are going to add will end up with the same data (except for their name of course). Also, you can still have automatic season and episode numbering. VideoDrive will number your TV Shows according to how they are arranged in Finder. Each new subfolder is seen as a new season, and each video file as a new episode. They are numbered according to the natural order in Finder (based on their name). For instance, a video named ‘Lost S2E5.avi’ will only be numbered as season 2, episode 5, if it is the fifth video in the second folder it encounters.

5. Can VideoDrive deal with episode 0 of a TV Show ?

No, as iTunes does not support it.

6. Why can’t I see the cover art added to a TV Show?

iTunes groups episodes of the same show together. If one ore more episodes do not have cover art, it is possible no cover art is shown. This can be easily fixed by re-importing all episodes with the same cover art, or by editing all episodes in iTunes and adding the cover art manually.

7. 7.Can VideoDrive add individual descriptions for each TV Show episode?
   

Yes. Select ‘Automatic Metadata’ in the VideoDrive Preferences. Click the ‘Automatic Settings’ button and make sure the option ‘Search for individual TV Show episode information’ is checked. When VideoDrive identifies a video as a TV Show, it will look for individual descriptions. If found, this will be indicated on the online results window (see picture). To read the individual descriptions in iTunes, click on the (i) in the description column.

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