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mlody

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 11, 2012
1,587
1,216
Windy City
A dvd in my kids room finally died and instead of replacing it with a new one, i would like to buy them Apple TV and let them stream their movies from my computer when they want to watch something.
I use my Windows 8 to rip the disks using handbrake using Apple tv 3 settings and everything seems to be fine, but I am missing movie artwork (cover page) when browsing them on ATV or iTunes.
What is the easiest and free way to add the missing artwork to all those movies I rip? I have heard about meta date and honestly, I do not think I care or need it, just the art work is what I would like to have so my kids could easily recognize the movies by the covers. Any suggestions?

Thank you
 

salohcin

macrumors member
Jun 5, 2008
91
21
If it's something that's also in the iTunes store, I would use this site to grab the artwork: http://bendodsonapps.com/projects/itunes-artwork-finder/

If that does work, or it's not in there, I usually use http://getvideoartwork.com/
They have some really nice custom artwork, all in high quality. They don't update the user submissions very often, so if you can't find what you're looking for by browsing, try the search function and you'll usually find a lot more items.

If that also fails, try http://www.themoviedb.org/ They don't always have the best quality, but they usually have good enough quality, and their selection is much wider than the other two sites.


Once you get the artwork, just add it by selecting "Get info" on the movie and going to the artwork tab, and add the file there. It can take a while, but it's worth it, IMHO.

Good luck, and I hope this helps.
 

henders98

macrumors member
Jun 15, 2009
32
0
Do yourself a favor and pick up a little program called iDentify from the Mac app store. I think it's around 10 bucks. It makes it very simple to add tags and artwork to your media files. If you're going to be doing this more than a couple times, you'll quickly appreciate its usefulness.
 

nosaj72

macrumors member
Dec 18, 2002
70
23
I think he said he is on Windows, so mac programs won't help (subler is the best for movies, btw). If all you want is artwork, you can do that through iTunes itself. Right click on the movie and Get Info. There should be an artwork tab - click the add button and add the artwork you want.

I like this site for getting artwork - it gets it directly from the iTunes store (while it sill works)

http://bendodsonapps.com/projects/itunes-artwork-finder/
 

dnelms

macrumors regular
Jul 19, 2011
104
0
McGee's Crossroads, NC
I am on WIndows and I use MetaX for Windows. You can find it here:

www.danhinsley.com

I retrieves info about the movie and artwork. It writes info to the tags that iTunes will recogonize and the ATV in turn.

Used it it for all 150 plus of my dvd rips.
 

cwazytech

macrumors 6502
Jan 7, 2009
381
86
Colorado
Well, if you're up for a little DIY and you want the exact art used by iTunes you can get it for free pretty easy. First, find the Movie via the iTunes web store. I usually Google, "iTunes Movies" followed by the name of the movie. Once located, right click on the artwork and "copy image address." Then in a new window, paste the address and remove the dimensions, hit "Enter", and voilà, the artwork.

For example, the image address for Avatar is:
http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/025/Video/be/c6/dd/mzl.chdcjxzz.227x227-75.jpg

but if you take out the "227x227-75" you'll get the full art work.

http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r1000/025/Video/be/c6/dd/mzl.chdcjxzz.jpg

Then use an app like Subler to tag it. All of this is free, but involves a little DIY.
 

mlody

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 11, 2012
1,587
1,216
Windy City
I greatly appreciate all the responses and info. I was quickly able to find the art work to some of my movies and add them to iTunes without any problems. This is great! Thanks again.
 

DP812

macrumors regular
Aug 13, 2009
177
1
Japan
Valkae.blogspot.com also has some good ones, but their selection is pretty limited. TheMovieDB.org is my usual go-to source, since they've got a wide variety of choices. MoviePosterDB.com also has some good stuff, but the resolution is much lower than the other sites.

Also, never underestimate the power of Google Image Search. Found some good stuff on there as well.

If you don't care about metadata, then the simplest way is just right-click, select Get Info, and click on the Artwork tab. On Mac you can just drag and drop the artwork from your browser into the iTunes artwork. Not sure if that's the case on Windows as well. If it's not, you can save the artwork to your drive and then use the Add button to attach it to the movie.

The simplest way would probably just to get a good metadata editor, drop your movie files into it, and then let it search for the correct titles. If you're not picky about the metadata or the cover artwork, you can do a whole batch of them in no time at all.
 

Deadeyeshark

macrumors regular
Aug 1, 2011
248
144
England
I use iDentify to pull up Artwork and Metadata. Got it from the App Store, not sure if there is a windows alternative, but I've yet to come across a file it doesn't recognise.

But like an earlier post suggested going into the Get Info file properties in iTunes and then dragging and dropping from an artwork search does the trick if you just want the artwork.
 
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