Thursday 26 December 2013

Best way to add movies to iTunes

A better way to add movies to iTunes

Add movies to iTunesIf you have a TV show that you have recorded and you want to watch at a later stage using iTunes, one of the problems is that when you add it to iTunes it goes into Home Movies. When it is in Home Movies, what you have to do then is to go into the meta data through Get Info, go to the video tab to put in the details for the television show such as number for the series and the number for the episode. Then you need to go to the options tab and in the options tab you inform iTunes that it is a television show where it says Media Kind. Sometimes you also have to put a check box room where it says remember playback position and also for skip when shuffling. Only then do you have your TV show in the correct place ready to you to watch. Having to do this I find is tedious and annoying and I am delighted to say that I found a better way of doing this using an application called iVI Lite.

Using iVI Lite to get movies into iTunes

With this application all you have to do is to drag the files that you want to put into iTunes into the main window. The application goes off to the internets and gathers information about the file that you have put in there. Unless there is any Meta data within the file it helps to give the application iVI Lite some information to help it get what it needs. Where I would use this program is to get a TV programme I have downloaded through the BBC iPlayer that I want to watch on the television rather than on my computer. It could be possible to send my computer screen to the Apple TV and I would do that if I was in a hurry, but I find that it messes things about too much, with my computer and I would rather put it into iTunes.

IVI Lite Edition and File Details Circlecount How to SD for Apple Devices m4v and Movies

iVI Lite seems to be quite clever in that it will not only find the details for the series and for the episode numbers, but it will also add a title if it finds it and often other information. I don't know where it gets its information from but I have had great success with this so far. If you have more than one file in the application you can click on the button to Convert All or use the button Convert if there is only one movie to work with. Another little window opens up and after a very short wait it will convert the file and then send it directly into iTunes in the proper place. No more fiddling about with the meta-data in iTunes to let it know that it is a TV show and not a movie. From within iVI Lite there are buttons available let you say what type of video it is. So obviously if it is a movie it goes off and looks in the proper places to get the information which by the way also includes artwork.

iVI Lite - Job done all sorted

This is the light version of the application and so far I haven't found any need for getting the paid for version. I think that the application iVI Lite is full featured except for the number of types of files that you can convert to. The free version of this application works great and I can highly recommend it as it works quickly and accurately. It is much better than you doing it manually and then having to go and find out where iTunes has put your movie.

Tuesday 3 December 2013

How to get your photos into Aperture

Importing photos into Aperture

The easiest thing is to put your SD card into the slot and Aperture pops up with your photos all checked and all you need to do is hit the Import button and all the files are sucked into Aperture. There again you could use some of the import settings and save yourself some time and effort later. In the video I show you how you can set a number of things into motion, including backing up the photos as they are imported, change the files names, add keywords, put in copyright info and even alter the versions of the files with effects presets.

Aperture

Look to the right of the screen

You will see all of the option in a drop down at the top of the right side bar, it is called Import Settings. You can the Aperture app where you want to put the files by choosing a new project and naming it or choosing a project already present. Tick the box if you don't want duplicates to be imported and if you want to see the photos split into projects automatically. The photos get split by date.

I like to name files based on the syntax of Year-Month-day_hour-min-sec and this means I will always have unique names for the files. If I had two cameras taking picture at exactly the same time (which is not going to happen often) the application will add a number to the end of the filename to make it unique.

Metadata in photos

The camera will put some info in the file that is your photo. If you look you will see that the camera make and model is recorded and other details such as the lens and the settings in use for that image. When you import the photographs, why not add you name, telephone number, contact email, and your web site url. Then is someone steals your photo you will have details that prove the photo is yours and the thief can't say I didn't know how to contact you to be able to offer to pay for the use of the image.

In the previous video we looked at adding keywords to photos and I think it is better to add keywords using the HUD for that in Aperture. You can be sure of the spellings and that you will not have a confusion of having similar words that would make things harder for searching later.

Back ups of photos automatically

As the photos are put in Aperture the import settings can take care of making a back up of those photos. Set up this default setting once and you will have a level of back up in place that will keep your files safe. It is worth doing so that the photos also get sent to another disk too, or to an online storage facility.

Not just your photos in Aperture

You can add movies and also audiofiles into Aperture and this makes the app even more useful, especiallly if you are guy that works with various types of media. Good to have all your stuff looked after in one place, especially as you can use Aperture to help you find files based on the keywords, file type, length of file and with loads of terms in the metadata. Aperture is such a useful application for photographers of all types and level of professionalism.