iTunes Naming Convention for TV Shows and Boxee

[travistubbs]

First off, I do have to say I'm loving Boxee so far. Of course, buggy, but hey. Everything I've done so far with it has been incredible.

I am trying to get my iTunes Library into Boxee. I first tried just adding my whole Library at first (which is located at Drobo HD:Media:iTunes:Library). Unfortunately, Boxee had a very hard time recognizing my TV Shows (kept thinking they were Movies instead). So, I figured that I would instead add each folder individually...

Movies - Drobo HD:Media:iTunes:Library:Movies
Music - Drobo HD:Media:iTunes:Library
TV Shows - Drobo HD:Media:iTunes:Library:TV Shows
(I left Podcasts out as I'm sure that would just add to the trouble.)

Unfortunately, whatever method I use, Boxee is unable to recognize the TV Shows. This may be due to me having iTunes organize my Library for me (since it's easier for me that way). For example, Episode 12 of Scrubs, titled "My Catalyst", from Season 3 is located at

Drobo HD:Media:iTunes:Library:TV Shows:Scrubs:3-12 My Catalyst.mp4

From what I can see, Boxee doesn't read the MP4 tags to gather information about the file (I'm probably be wrong on this). Is there any way in which Boxee can understand the file structure it's reading is from iTunes, therefore properly set up the files into the appropriate sections?

[iBog]

You're correct that Boxee currently doesn't read metadata embedded in the file. It scraps the file name and tries to look it up.

You'll have to name movies something like TITLE.(YEAR).EXTENSION. For TV Shows use TITLE.S##E##.EXTENSION.

There's been alot of discussion about metadata in the forums for more details. I hope this is one of features that will get added soon.

In the meantime, you could just browse the media source and navigate the folders to get to the file you want (I know it's not an elegant workaround).

[travistubbs]

That's a real bummer to hear, but hey. The rest of the program is looking great! This is going to be even more incredible once the additional features (such as iTunes integration) has been added.

[iBog]

Specifically, I expect metadata support and not necessarily iTunes integration.

[perrin21]

I agree, Metadata should be standard, if it finds any extra info about the file great, if not ive spent countless hours setting up my meta data to be detailed and now its being ignored.

[jon123]

Any news on when metadata may be used? I have a bunch(a few hundred) of TV shows with proper metadata, but their file names are not correct... Not going to bother fixing it manually.

[cleeland]

Check out Doug's Applescript website (http://www.dougscripts.com). There may be a script to rename files based on metadata, or something you could use as a basis for making your own script.

[dna3e8]

That's a real bummer to hear, but hey. The rest of the program is looking great! This is going to be even more incredible once the additional features (such as iTunes integration) has been added.


I like the media organization i have on my Apple TV (iTunes) i Really want to add Hulu via Boxee.... but i sounds like the iTunes media will turn into a big hard to navigate blob :(

[Tom Dibble]

I like the media organization i have on my Apple TV (iTunes) i Really want to add Hulu via Boxee.... but i sounds like the iTunes media will turn into a big hard to navigate blob :(

Only within Boxee. You'll still be able to switch out to the normal FrontRow interface.

That's what I do currently. I don't have much iTunes non-music content, and I find Boxee's music interface to be far less elegant than the FrontRow interface, so when listening to music I switch over to FrontRow and when watching TV/movies I switch over to Boxee. Works rather well, although switching back to FrontRow is slower now with the MultiFinder Launcher (before, Finder/FrontRow was always running in the background so all that happened when switching to FR was Boxee quitting; now Finder isn't kept running, so it needs to start up).