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How to get more information to display on Movies screen?

GhostMac24

GhostMac24

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 27, 2011
322
5
NC
Title says it all. I'd like more the ATV to display more information than is there. Really all I'd like to be added is year and could care less about actor, director, and producer. If possible, I'd like to set it to show only:

Genre:
Length:
Year:

TIA for any help!

ps. I've added a pic to illustrate what I am referring to.
 

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I don't have a real answer but an idea you can check out.

The information that shows has to come from somewhere. As such, you might be able to edit the info and include the year/date.

First place I would check is in the "get info" on the file. Maybe type in the year of the movie in one of the areas that shows up on the screen while using ATV.

If you try this, please post if you are successful or not. My first attempt would be to put the date at the front of the description/summary of the movie. I think that is under "video" in the get info look up of the file.
 
The answer is no...you can not change the way in which your information is seen...you get what you get from apple and that is all. The only way around this would be to create custom playlists in itunes. for example: Movies from the 70's or Movies starring Tom hanks. then use smart functions to sort your movies by year 1970-1979 or by artist tom hanks etc
 
Just select a movie in your iTunes library and hit command + I. You can add the year it was made and genre. Then on the video tab you can add a description if you so desire.
 
Whoiare, is correct. You can add all of the info you want using Get Info, but it will not display on the aTV. Beautiful full descriptions with detailed info is reserved for the iTunes Store content.
 
phrehdd said:
I don't have a real answer but an idea you can check out.

The information that shows has to come from somewhere. As such, you might be able to edit the info and include the year/date.

First place I would check is in the "get info" on the file. Maybe type in the year of the movie in one of the areas that shows up on the screen while using ATV.

If you try this, please post if you are successful or not. My first attempt would be to put the date at the front of the description/summary of the movie. I think that is under "video" in the get info look up of the file.
Click to expand...
I'm thinking this is the only way and now hearing some of the other comments, it really might be the only way. I'll experiment and report back. It make zero sense (but not surprising from Apple) that we can't select what we want to view of the information that is in the INFO part of the video!


whoiare said:
The answer is no...you can not change the way in which your information is seen...you get what you get from apple and that is all. The only way around this would be to create custom playlists in itunes. for example: Movies from the 70's or Movies starring Tom hanks. then use smart functions to sort your movies by year 1970-1979 or by artist tom hanks etc
Click to expand...
Thanks for the input. The rationale for my desire to put the movie year is that I have hundreds of movies in my iTunes library and there are so many times when we sit down to watch a movie "what year did this come out"? Not that it is laborious, but I end up having to open my IMDB app and check.

dvdlovr24 said:
Just select a movie in your iTunes library and hit command + I. You can add the year it was made and genre. Then on the video tab you can add a description if you so desire.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the input. However, I already populate all that info from my time converting all my DVDs/Blu-rays to my iTunes library.

mic j said:
Whoiare, is correct. You can add all of the info you want using Get Info, but it will not display on the aTV. Beautiful full descriptions with detailed info is reserved for the iTunes Store content.
Click to expand...
Yup, drives me nuts that I populate all the info fields for my media I have converted and I only get Genre and Length and then all my iTunes purchased content (like the pic in my OP) gives way more than I care for. It would be great if iTunes had an interface like Mail where you can select/deselect what you want to show (i.e., from, time received, time sent, mailbox,......)
 
GhostMac24 said:
I'm thinking this is the only way and now hearing some of the other comments, it really might be the only way. I'll experiment and report back. It make zero sense (but not surprising from Apple) that we can't select what we want to view of the information that is in the INFO part of the video!
Click to expand...

To possibly dull the pain you might feel...just a little, remember that the metadata fields you populate were originally designed and used for viewing movies in iTunes not the aTV. The "modern" aTV came along later and just taps into that metadata and obviously decisions were made by Apple on how to use the limited screen space. Hopefully, there will be improvements when/if a new aTV is released...then again, maybe not, as Apple has never been very supportive of using local content.
 
mic j said:
To possibly dull the pain you might feel...just a little, remember that the metadata fields you populate were originally designed and used for viewing movies in iTunes not the aTV. The "modern" aTV came along later and just taps into that metadata and obviously decisions were made by Apple on how to use the limited screen space. Hopefully, there will be improvements when/if a new aTV is released...then again, maybe not, as Apple has never been very supportive of using local content.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I didn't even think of that but it makes sense. Thanks again for the input.
 
mic j said:
To possibly dull the pain you might feel...just a little, remember that the metadata fields you populate were originally designed and used for viewing movies in iTunes not the aTV. The "modern" aTV came along later and just taps into that metadata and obviously decisions were made by Apple on how to use the limited screen space. Hopefully, there will be improvements when/if a new aTV is released...then again, maybe not, as Apple has never been very supportive of using local content.
Click to expand...

Correct, Once apple allows all those fields to be present on the ATV, then maybe we will finally have a way to use all the fields to SORT our 100s of movies easier. My plan is as such: keep tagging all movies/tvshows/music/books/photos whatever itunes handles properly when i add them to itunes the first time. Then pray that all my hard work will pay off when apple eventually moves ATV from hobby to product and i will be able to use all those fields properly. As it is now i do what i recommended before. I tag all james bond movies in the Group Metadata as Bond, and all pixar movies in grouping as Pixar and just create smart playlists of each so that everytime i add a new bond or pixar movie they show up in the proper playlist and i can view any of them on my multiple ATvs by accessing the Bond or Pixar Playlist.
 
whoiare said:
Correct, Once apple allows all those fields to be present on the ATV, then maybe we will finally have a way to use all the fields to SORT our 100s of movies easier. My plan is as such: keep tagging all movies/tvshows/music/books/photos whatever itunes handles properly when i add them to itunes the first time. Then pray that all my hard work will pay off when apple eventually moves ATV from hobby to product and i will be able to use all those fields properly. As it is now i do what i recommended before. I tag all james bond movies in the Group Metadata as Bond, and all pixar movies in grouping as Pixar and just create smart playlists of each so that everytime i add a new bond or pixar movie they show up in the proper playlist and i can view any of them on my multiple ATvs by accessing the Bond or Pixar Playlist.
Click to expand...
Same here. It's just a few seconds more of work but it's in there and if we ever get to display it, then we have those sort fields ready to go!


MonkeySee.... said:
I thought the info automatically expanded when you waited on your selection? :confused:
Click to expand...
Nope. The only "expanding" I see is if the title is longer than what fits, it starts to (expand) by scrolling horizontally. Heck the description doesn't even expand when the amount of lines exceeds what they allow. Instead you just get a few dots (......) at the end.

----------

What would be great is if you could SELECT the movie without playing and instead get that movie as a single page with ALL the info tagged much like when you go to PURCHASED list to play the item and select the movie from there. For example, one of the movies that we bought from iTunes shows up both in our movies list AND the purchased list. The movies list is just like the pic I posted in the OP, but the purchased option gives me ALL the info before I play it. That would be nice.
 
Another oddity is on the iPad with my movie rips. The year will display on the iPad but not on the ATV as noted. Another is the actors. If I sync a movie to my iPad the actors is not shown (using the videos app) but actors are shown if I connect to my iTunes library. Actors will not even display unless I use Subler to add the "cast" metadata field. Also the Plot Summary on the iPad will not display unless I add "long description" with Subler, the normal description in "get info" does not display on the iPad.
 
You need a better Metadata tagging software in order to access all that stuff.

iTunes does not allow access to the Ratings, HD label, or a couple other fields. You need to use an external metadata program to add those tags. I personally use MetaX on Windows. It was $10 to buy, but I use it a ton, so I am happy with it.

metax.jpg

metax_grav.jpg


EDIT: as you can see you can make errors when tagging yourself as noted by my "Godzilla (!998)" title :)
 
That MetaX looks pretty slick. Do you see more than what I posted? If that could do YEAR, then I'd be happy to drop $10
 
GhostMac24 said:
That MetaX looks pretty slick. Do you see more than what I posted? If that could do YEAR, then I'd be happy to drop $10
Click to expand...

No, it doesnt matter what metadata tagger you use. I use a combination of subler and identity2....All the info shows up great in itunes but the ATV wont use all of it.
 
mic j said:
Whoiare, is correct. You can add all of the info you want using Get Info, but it will not display on the aTV. Beautiful full descriptions with detailed info is reserved for the iTunes Store content.
Click to expand...

well thats not true. you can add most of the same info that the itunes purchased version of a movie contains. However, year isnt one of them.
 
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