iPod How do YOU tag your TV shows?

[Jigga Beef]

I have been ripping LOTS and LOTS of TV shows from DVD's I own. I rip all of the episodes Video_TS folders with Mac the Ripper than encode them alll at once with Handbrake. After that I generally

Example if i am tagging The Office: Season 3:
1) Add them to an iTunes Playlist: The Office Season 3

2) Use AppleScript (From Doug's AppleScript) "Set Video Kind of Selected" to set , TV Show, Show Name, Season # and Episode #.

3) I use another Applescript to auto-tag the Track #'s.

4) Batch Tag Artist, Album Name, Disc Number, Grouping
Artist: The Office
Album: The Office: Season 3
Disc Number: 3 (I always do the season number in the disc number, if the show is over than i will the final season number in the out of box)
In Grouping I put the network the show airs on

5) Manually Add Episode Name, Episode ID and Episode Description.
I get the names and descriptions from TV.com, i tag the episode IDs as
301 for Season 3, Episode 1

6) Open Entire season in Meta-X for Album artwork, Show Rating, TV Network and Date Aired
I get the artwork for that season on DVD off Google, I use the rating of the show. Than i add each dated aired from tv.com

It's quite a long process, I have most of the tagged automated but I thought maybe i am missing something or don't know about an easier way to do something. The only things i really do manually are Episisode description, Episode ID.

Anybody else have a better/more productive way of tagging entire seasons?

 

[spice weasel]

I use Lostify. It's not an automated process, but it only involves one piece of software and some cutting and pasting. I usually get the episode descriptions from tv.com.

 

[jaw04005]

I used to use MetaX, which used to have decent episode matching, but for some reason it’s quit working with TagChimp.

I really wish someone would take up development on MetaX or something similar. Lostify is time consuming considering there’s no automatic fetching of metadata.

I’d gladly pay Visual Hub-like pricing for it.

Did something happen to the MetaX for Mac developer?

 

[JonHimself]

I rip them all as you do then add a whole season into MetaX at once.

When all of the episodes are highlighted I'll add the show name, actors, producer, network, ratings, etc and select each episode individually to add the episode name, description (from tv.com or wikipedia), and episode/track numbers.

All very tedious but I'm looking to replace the DVDs (ie put them in a box and never use them) so I'm ok with taking the extra time to add in a bunch of information... you should see my music library - BPMs, producer, label, recording studio, etc...

 

[bohbot16]

I rip the episodes following the naming convention:
{showname}.S{season number}E{episode number}.m4v
ie Lost.S03E01.m4v

I then pull the files into iFlicks, which tags them using data from thetvdb

 

[rmb7984]

I rip the episodes following the naming convention:
{showname}.S{season number}E{episode number}.m4v
ie Lost.S03E01.m4v

I then pull the files into iFlicks, which tags them using data from thetvdb

This is great. I just downloaded it and gave it a try. I only wish it would allow me to save in a .m4v container.

 

[jaw04005]

This is great. I just downloaded it and gave it a try. I only wish it would allow me to save in a .m4v container.

Same here. I haven’t checked yet, but by converting a .M4V file to an .MOV does it remove the AC3 track?

 

[bohbot16]

Same here. I haven’t checked yet, but by converting a .M4V file to an .MOV does it remove the AC3 track?

No, it contains all of the same audio and video streams from the m4v, plus the added tags.

 

[kolax]

Do not use iTunes to tag your videos! It doesn't actually write the meta data to the file but uses an iTunes file to store it. So if you import the file again, it has no meta data. Use something like MetaX (best there is imo) to tag your videos, as it writes the meta data to the actual video file itself.

I encode in VisualHub, then tag using MetaX (with artwork, descriptions etc) then import into iTunes.

I use tv.com for episode guides. I use southparkstudios.com for South Park though - I actually use the proper episode artwork for South Park seeing as they provide it and it is recognisable when flicking through episodes.

 

[bohbot16]

Do not use iTunes to tag your videos! It doesn't actually write the meta data to the file but uses an iTunes file to store it. So if you import the file again, it has no meta data.

This is why the iFlicks developer "flattens" the .m4v file to a .mov. The mov file actually contains the tags, unlike the m4v.

I understand that MetaX actually adds tags to m4v files, but it seems to have been cut off from Amazon's API recently.

 

[kolax]

I understand that MetaX actually adds tags to m4v files, but it seems to have been cut off from Amazon's API recently.

Yeah.. not tagged a movie for a while, so didn't notice any issues with Amazon's API. Still, I swear by MetaX.

 

[jaw04005]

MetaX also doesn’t seem to have access to new Tag Chimp data. For example, it couldn’t find “Up.” I’m liking iFlicks. However, it keeps overwriting my manual artwork and ratings even though I wait for it to automatically fetch metadata first. So, I end up having to save the automatic data, then reimport it to iFlicks to adjust the cover art and rating again.

And I guess iFlicks doesn’t support chapters, right? I can’t seem to find it.

 

[bohbot16]

MetaX also doesn’t seem to have access to new Tag Chimp data. For example, it couldn’t find “Up.” I’m liking iFlicks. However, it keeps overwriting my manual artwork and ratings even though I wait for it to automatically fetch metadata first. So, I end up having to save the automatic data, then reimport it to iFlicks to adjust the cover art and rating again.

And I guess iFlicks doesn’t support chapters, right? I can’t seem to find it.

I'm not sure if chapter editing exists/is planned.

iFlicks support is at: http://groups.google.com/group/iflicks

 

[Scarpad]

I'm not sure if chapter editing exists/is planned.

iFlicks support is at: http://groups.google.com/group/iflicks

Thats why TV Scrapers are nice, I've gone over to XBMC all I have to do is drop my properly loaded file into the correct directory, the scraper goes to thetvdb.org and gets the info, and it's already there.

 

[rspeaker]

With Handbrake'd files, I add to iTunes, and add as much information as it will allow (title, show, album, track/disk/episode number, sorting info, change to TV show if necessary.) It's nice that I can add info for multiple items within iTunes. I then run the files through Lostify, which pulls all the info I put in iTunes, and I'll add air dates, networks, actors and directors for movies.

Using iTunes to fill in most of the information makes Lostify a less tedious (though still time-consuming) process.

 

[jendrik]

I’m liking iFlicks. However, it keeps overwriting my manual artwork and ratings even though I wait for it to automatically fetch metadata first. So, I end up having to save the automatic data, then reimport it to iFlicks to adjust the cover art and rating again.

Have you tried using the beta version from http://www.iflicksapp.com/download/iFlicks_beta.dmg?
It allows you to set custom rules. That way you can define your own artwork, ratings, ... for yout TV Shows.

And I guess iFlicks doesn’t support chapters, right? I can’t seem to find it.

Not yet, but this will be added to future versions.