iTunes library Management - Adding Movie & TV Shows

[aaagat111]

Here is the situation:

I have a large iTunes music library that is updated daily (songs are added) and right now my iTunes library is all songs. I have the advanced preferences option checked in iTunes to automatically organize and copy any imported songs to the default location on my mac --> Music/iTunes/etc... So I store all my music locally, since when I bring around my laptop with me I want to be able to access all my music. But with video...its a different story.

I now want to add my video media library to iTunes so that all my digital media will be in one place, and I can organize and search shows by genre, artist, etc. First, all my videos are .avi, so I figured that since iTunes accepts only .mp4 I have to convert ALL of them which will take SOO LONG. Any easy way of batch converting?? Should I even store my videos and tv shows in iTunes, or do people do it differently? (I want to do something other than just putting them in folders)

But my main question is, because I store all these videos on an external drive, I simply want to link them to iTunes and keep them in their original paths, since they won't fit locally. I can accomplish this by simply un-checking the advanced preference option of copying the files to the default location, but that means I have to turn this off and then back on each time I want to import video. I understand this is not a HUGE deal but wanted to see if this was the proper/most efficient way of going about this.

I wanted to ask if people run into this situation often, and what they do? Or is there a direct solution to this? How do people with large media libraries (both music and video) utilize iTunes?

Thanks,

Alex

 

[GGJstudios]

From iTunes Help function:

Adding items to your library without copying them to your iTunes folder
When you import a song from a CD or download a song from the Internet, the song file is placed here:

[Home]/Music/iTunes

When you add an item to your library by dragging it to the iTunes window or choosing File > Add to Library, iTunes places a copy of the file in your iTunes folder; the original file remains in its current location.

You can change this setting so that the item appears in iTunes without being added to the iTunes folder. You might want to do this so that, for example, you could save video files in a location other than your hard disk.

To add files to your library without adding them to your iTunes folder:

1. Choose iTunes > Preferences and click Advanced.
   
2. Deselect the “Copy files” checkbox.

The next time you drag a file to your library or choose File > Add to Library, the item will appear in iTunes, but the actual file will not be copied or moved.

Tip: When dragging files to the iTunes window, you can temporarily reverse the checkbox setting by holding down the Option key while you drag.

Personally, I don't let iTunes manage my library or copy files, as I prefer to do that myself. My library spans over 2 drives, internal and external, as it won't fit on my internal drive.