My media collection contains quite a number of TV travel documentaries. As it appears, for quite many of these shows meta information cannot be retrieved automatically. Instead, I get meta data pulled which is totally messing up my collection. As an example, I have a tv show about Madagascar (which also is the title of the file), but I end up with the cover and description of the animation movie “Madagascar”. You get the idea.
I know that I can edit the metadata. However, I seem to be limited to choose from a list provided. But in many cases, the title isn’t on the list. Now I just can’t figure out how to change artwork and description for such a file to my liking. But I’m confident that some of you clever guys will be able to give me a hint!
@ Gingerbeardman Thank you for assisting me, I really appreciate it.
The problem is, these files usually don’t have any metadata embedded. No artwork, no description, nothing. they only have their file name = show title. I have switched on Embedded Metadata, but it seems not working for me neither. The file name is replaced by a random title that Infuse thinks would match - but doesn’t. In such cases I guess I’d prefer to switch off metadata at all and manually enter title, description and artwork. Not systemwide, however, just for such files.
So I guess I’ll have to update about a hundred original files with some kind of meta data (maybe use iTunes for that task?).
Btw: Is there an easy way to edit metadata, like, say, right clicking a file and chose “edit metadata” or something similar … ? Or would I have to use iTunes?
Manual corrections to metadata can be made by using the Edit button on the details page, though it sounds like Infuse is treating these videos as movies instead of TV shows.
A bit more info on the supported naming style for TV shows can be found here.
Thank you, James, for the link to the instructions.
Following these instructions I would name an episode something like “show-name_s01e02.mp4”. Thats working perfectly fine for the usual suspects like “House of Cards”. But what if the show in question is not part of a season, but rather kind of a “standalone” show? I’ve recorded quite a number of tv documentaries, oftentimes broadcast by regional tv. Because it’s neither in a season nor an episode, right now I’d name such a piece just by the title, like “Madagascar_Beautiful_Island.mp4”. In this case, Infuse brings up some weird stuff from movies database, as I pointed out. (However, when manually editing and looking for alternatives I find that none of these individual tv documentaries seem to be in the databases at all.)
Could you give me a hint how to name such a single piece so as to at least get it off the “movies” train?
Is this the TV series by chance? http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=230371&lid=16 If so, you’d still want to use a season and episode number, even if there is only a single season. Special episodes would be classified as season 0.
For videos that aren’t listed in any database, you can use your own artwork along with an XML (or NFO) file to add your own metadata. Just be sure to give the PNG/JPG and XML files the same name as your video. E.G. Madagascar_Beautiful_Island.jpg, Madagascar_Beautiful_Island-fanart.jpg, and Madagascar_Beautiful_Island.xml.
@ James: It’s not this series (was just an example, because nobody out there would know anything about franconian restaurants and wine cellars and such ). But I appreciate your help anyway. I’ll check out your recommendations and see if I can get it running how I want it. Thank you very much, again.
The sample.xml start with [media type=“Movies”]. I guess an XML file for TV shows should start with [media type=“TV Show”] then, right? Or won’t it matter?
It’s obvious that I have to include a single xml file for every episode. How about artwork? As there is one dvd cover for the whole series, would I want to add this one cover for all episodes of the series (title is “Weindynastien”), and name it something like
• “Weindynastien.jpg”;
or one for every single episode, named accordingly, like
• “Weindynastien_s01e01 Schmitts Kinder.jpg”
• “Weindynastien_s01e02 Winzerfamilie Stahl.jpg”
• “Weindynastien_s01e03 Winzerfamilie Fürst.jpg” and so on?
I’m having a hard time adjusting metadata with tv shows. blush None of the XML and JPG files I’ve added to folders seems to have any impact on what is shown within Infuse on Apple TV.
Could it possible be that metadata is fetched in this order:
Online database
If unavailable: Data included in video file from iTunes
If unavailable: XML and JPG files in folder
This might explain why none of my XML and JPG files seem to work. Or could there be another explanation?
And yes, I have switched on “Embedded metadata”, as recommended by Gingerbeardman (thanks for that).
(Mediacenter is an external HDD connected to Time Capsule via USB. Under ‘Sharing’ I’ve activated SMB and Windows Sharing - couldn’t connect Apple TV to MediaCenter HDD without the latter.)
I found out that metadata are shown when only one file/episode resides in a folder. Seems it’s considered a single movie and that’s fine. However, can’t get it to work with several tv episodes inside a folder.
). But I appreciate your help anyway. I’ll check out your recommendations and see if I can get it running how I want it. Thank you very much, again.