iTunes Remote App

July 10, 2008   0 Comments
As promised, Apple has released the iPhone/iPod Touch Remote application. This app allows you to control, navigate your iTunes library on your local wireless network. After playing with it for a while, all we can say is that its freaking amazing.

The application mimics the iPod interface currently found on the iPhone/iPodTouch where you can quickly navigate Playlists, Artists, Albums, Search, and More (Audiobooks, Video, Music Videos, TV Shows and Movies) For those of you with multiple libraries on multiple computers, don't worry, you can associate more then one with this app.

To set up your Remote App:

1. Ensure 'Look for iPhone & iPhone touch Remotes' is checked in the Advanced System preferences.
2. Downloand and install the Remote Application from the iTunes AppStore.
3. From the Remote App, select Add Library
4. Enter the 4 digit code into your iTunes 7.7 application.

From there you should be all set to navigate and take control of your iTunes Library. We hope that Apple ads further support for FrontRow, as many of us that use the Mini and AppleTV as a Macintosh HTPC would love to have this feature. Currently Remote Buddy and Telekinesis are the only polished methods of doing this.

Labels: iTunes, Remote

iTunes 7.7 is here.

July 9, 2008   0 Comments
Apple has released iTunes 7.7, just in time for the projected iTunes Apps store Opening on July 10th. This release looks to be mostly for 3G iPhone support MobileMe, and App Store support.

As we previously covered this release will also allow for iTunes Remote capabilities from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Once we get our hands on the Application expect a full review and comparison to RemoteBuddy and Telekinessis.

The update is waiting in Software Update and weighs around 47.9mb.

Labels: iTunes, Remote, Software Update

iTunes 7.7 includes Remote Capabilities

June 26, 2008   0 Comments
When the iPhone SDK 8 beta was released today, it included a pre-released version of iTunes 7.7. Closely inspecting the iTunes 7.7 documentation, it appears that the new version will include remote control features, built-in to the software.

Once iTunes App Store has been opened (July 12th), Apple will have a free remote control download for your iPhone and iPod Touch, that will interact with iTunes 7.7. This functionality is similar to RemoteBuddy and Telekinessis. However we find it unlikely it will include all the same features such as FrontRow control, system browsing, and mouse & keyboard controls. Based on the documentation, it appears the capabilities will be executed over your home wireless network.

Here's the incriminating evidence in the iTunes 7.7 Read Me file:

Labels: Apple, AppleTV, iTunes, Remote, Remote Buddy

iTunes 7.7: Coming July 11th

June 9, 2008   0 Comments
With the debut of the 3G iPhone, we expect to see iTunes 7.7, to be released just before the iPhone, and according to the specs we're right! Currently at version 7.6.2, the new version will pop up on the Apple Website and through Software Update. Perhaps with this release they will fix the ultra annoying TV show by season listing in FrontRow. Fingers Crossed!

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.6.1 helps with AppleTV 2.0

February 21, 2008   0 Comments
It was a matter of time before we saw this. It seems anytime there is an iPhone, iPod, QuickTime or AppleTV update there a matching iTunes update to go along with it. The basics behind this latest release is the standard 'several bugs' line but also addresses compatibility with AppleTV software version 2.0.

Along with the software update, iTunes is also introducing the movie of the week. The 99¢ movie is a promotion sent to iTunes Movie Rental customer.

The update is waiting in Software Update and weighs around 44mb.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

NBC and Apple trying to reconcile?

January 26, 2008   0 Comments
The rumor floating around the internet tubes, is that NBC and Apple are working to resolve their differences and bring NBC content back to iTunes. A healthy NBC/Apple relationship benefits both parties, so despite their tiff last year, most anticipated discussions once the air cleared. The most encouraging worlds came from NBC's Zucker last monday, stating: 'We've said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple... ...We're great fans of Steve Jobs.'"

We are curious what is sparking these conversations. Perhaps NBC has realized that launching their own video download service is not as easy as it looks. We assume that NBC did not retain their local customers when switching to Hulu or Amazon, and thus lost money pulling their shows from iTunes.

NBC was one of Apple's first studios to provide downloadable content for $1.99 per episode. Episodes of NBC's The Office, Law and Order, Heros, House, and My Name is Earl, were consistently some of the more popular titles on iTunes at the time. NBC wanted to make more money and suggested raising the price per episode for a test run. Apple stuck with their fixed price point model and rejected the suggestion. Apple and NBC would but heads for the next few months, resulting in NBC not renewing their iTunes contract, and pulling all NBC Studio content from the iTunes Store, where we are today.

Labels: Apple, Hulu, iTunes, NBC

iTunes Movie Rentals (Officially)

January 16, 2008   0 Comments
Once again a rumor through the grapevine becomes reality. At today's Macworld Keynote, Steve introduced us to iTunes Movie Rentals, with all major movie studios already signed on. This includes 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures, MGM, Lionsgate, and New Line Cinema. iTunes users will now be able to rent movies as low as $2.99 and view them on their computers, iPods, iPhones and AppleTVs.

The iTunes Movie Rental launch will have over 1,000 titles immediately available for rent. Over 100 of these titles will be available in 720p high definition and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound for $1.00 more. Existing titles will utilize the $2.99 standard definition and $3.99 high definition price points, and new releases will be available at $4.99.

Once rented, the movie is downloaded to your AppleTV or iTunes Library, over your high-speed internet connection, and can be viewed almost immediately. Customers have up to 30 days to view the movie, or 24 hours to watch it multiple times. After the 24 hr period or 30 days, the movie is removed from the library and deleted to save hard drive space.

Labels: iTunes, iTunes Rentals

Fox + Apple = iTunes Digital Copy

January 15, 2008   0 Comments
When Apple and 20th Century Fox inked their movie rental deal in December, they also signed a deal to include a Free iTunes Digital copies of films on their DVD's. Similar to purchasing a movie from the iTunes Store, the digital copy can been transfered to iTunes, iPhones, iPods or AppleTV.

Days before MacWorld copies of "Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest" that were pre-ordered appeared with the first Digital Copies. When customers attempted to open these copies in iTunes, it would error stating it required iTunes 7.6 to play. This of course wasn't released until after the MacWorld Keynote.

Fox CEO Jim Gianopulos says that DVD buyers have been asking for a method to play their media on their media devices. With iTunes Digital Copy this is now possible. The process requires entering a unique number associated with the digital copy, which will imports the movie into iTunes. Its also important to not the movie will transfer only to one iTunes Library.

Labels: Fox, iTunes, iTunes Digital Copy

iTunes, FrontRow, QT, iMovie Updates

0 Comments
Following the MacWorld Keynote today, Apple has released several software updates. We assume the majority of the updates have to do with iTunes Movie Rentals and HD Content. Here are the details that are provided by Apple.:

iTunes 7.6 (44.7MB)

QuickTime 7.4 (57.9)

iMovie 7.1.1 (16.9)

FrontRow 2.1.2 (17.4MB)

Labels: FrontRow, iMovie, iTunes, QuickTime, Software Update

More iTunes Rental Agreements

January 7, 2008   0 Comments
Apple continues to court movie studios for its future iTunes Rentals program. In late December reports came in about Apple and Fox Studios inking a deal to bring Fox's library of movies to a new iTunes Rental program. BusinessWekk is now reporting Apple is close to finalizing agreements with other studios in time for next week's MacWorld. These agreements include new studios such as Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, and Lions Gate. These deals would bring favorite movies such as Napoleon Dynamite, Transformers, Shrek, Mission Impossible, 300, Oceans 11, and Batman Begins.

The iTunes Rental feature is needed to help save the struggling AppleTV project. Without fresh content AppleTV, remains to be a stale device sitting under your TV. Rentals may not save the device which is already on life support, but providing downloadable content to the AppleTV is a step in the right direction.

Labels: iTunes, Movie Rentals

AOL now selling Amazon Unboxed

December 3, 2007   0 Comments
bump bump bump... another one bites the dust. AOL's online video download service is officially dead. After a year of service, last night in the wee hours they pulled their custom video store in favor of Amazon's Unboxed service. The details are unknown, but you would figure AOL and Amazon would split the revenue.

To date, it appears only Amazon's Unboxed Service and iTunes have made money in the niche market. Apple has sold over 100m TV Shows and 2m movies.These numbers are good but are weak compared to DVD sales for the same movies or shows.

Labels: Amazon UnBoxed, iTunes

Quicktime 7.3 & iTunes 7.5

November 5, 2007   0 Comments
Yes people, we are that good! Just this morning we were telling you how QuickTime would be updated soon, and available through the Apple website, and last week were telling you iTunes 7.5 would be here soon as well. Well today the Apple fairies granted us both.

Quicktime 7.3 addresses several compatibility issues with iTunes. We are hoping this addresses our inability to play TV Shows on the Mini HTPC. In addition it provides an export option for iPhone Compatible-Web content. The QuickTime Web Plug-in for JavaScript has also been updated with 'numerous bug fixes'

iTunes 7.5, adds iPhone Support for countries other then the United States. There is additional support for iPod games. These releases also addresses those pesky 'Other Bugs and Security Fixes' which seem to plague every release.

iTunes weighs 41.3MB, while QuickTime 7.3 is 55.8 MB and are both available through the Apple website and Software Update. The Quicktime Update does require a restart, so be prepared for that one

Labels: iTunes, QuickTime

iTunes 7.5 ::Coming Soon::

November 2, 2007   0 Comments
All signs are pointing to another iTunes release in the next couple of weeks. iTunes 7.5 will be released to increase stability, introduce better duplicate management and report states. Other fixes include problems some users have had with iTunes Plus, the DRM free tracks, and support for UK/German iPhones debuting this month.

The duplicate management is something most of us have been waiting for since iTunes 1.0 was originally released. Currently iTunes only utilizes two fields (artist & track name) to identify duplicate songs, which means all your live albums and studio albums by the same artist gets tagged. Simply adding an additional field, such as album name would help with this immensely.

Hopefully this release will fix some of the video issues that some readers have been encountering as well.

Labels: iTunes, iTunes Plus

Internet Radio in FrontRow 2

October 29, 2007   0 Comments
One of the draw backs from FrontRow 2, remains the missing presence of Internet Radio. Back in February we discovered a simple trick to access Internet Radio in FrontRow, and we are pleased to report the trick still works.

iTunes has a great collection of Internet Radio stations, but FrontRow will only play the tracks that are locally stored on your HTPC. This also goes for MPEG Audio Streams out there. The trick is to add these tracks into iTunes so they can easily be accessed but Front Row. So, here's how you go about doing this.

• Select Your Internet Radio Stations:
  You may add iTunes Radio or MPEG Radio station. iTunes Radio stations are available by clicking the 'Radio' in the side menu. M3U or MPEG Radio stations can be found at Mike's Radio World or other similar sites.


• Add the Tracks to the Library
  Click and drag these radio stations to your iTunes Library icon. These will save the m3u reference file in your library as a local iTunes Track. Browsing your library you will see these tracks are now listed along side your other music.


• Isolate the Tracks:
  You don't need to perform this step, but it helps to located your tracks in FrontRow. Create a smart playlist based on the track kind being 'Playlist URL' or MPEG Audio Stream. These are the two common kinds for your radio stations. Besure to name the playlist 'Internet Radio' or something catchy.


• Play through FrontRow!
  Launch FrontRow, and located your newly created playlist. You will notice all the Internet Radio tracks you have added appear and can be accessed. Unfortunately they don't have all the pretty artwork, and if you do try and add artwork, it gets overwritten, when you play the live tracks.

We still wish that Radio would be an option in FrontRow. It seems like a simple and logical addition to building a complete HTPC application, especially with an extensive list of Internet Radio Stations already available in iTunes.

Labels: FrontRow, Internet Radio, iTunes, Tips and Tricks

NBC/Apple End Negotiations

October 25, 2007   0 Comments
NBC and Apple have decided to end their negotiations regarding the studio's television programming. As we reported last month, NBC has pulled all their Television shows from iTunes, despite their early success with iTunes. The fued is over iTunes pricing, where television shows appear at $1.99.

On December 1st, Apple's contract with NBC expires, and at that point all NBC shows including shows from SciFi, USA, and Bravo will be pulled from the iTunes Music Store. NBC sent a breach of contract letter on October 9, but no legal action will follow. NBC has already worked out deals with Amazon to distribute their shows through their Amazon Unboxed service, packed with DRM.

Reactions from the fans seemed to be mixed. Several want the two to work out the details and renew the contract, others are boycotting NBC, while others simply suggest using torrents to get their shows. If you can't live without your NBC content we recommend getting a mac tv capture device, and record for your personal library.

Labels: Apple, iTunes, iTunes Store, NBC, TV Shows

iTunes 7.4.2 attacks ringtones again

September 17, 2007   0 Comments
Apple continues to try and patch the ringtone work arounds with 7.4.2:


Download Details"

Version 7.4.2 weighs in at 38.3MB available at the support site and via Software Update.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.4.1 breaks Ringtones hack

September 8, 2007   0 Comments
Days after Apple released 7.4.0, and less then 24 hours after a ringtone hack was discovered, 7.4.1 appears. The update claims to include support for the new Nanos and other iPods released on Wednesday, but the only 'feature' that we were able to discover is that any custom ring tones using the .m4r hack have been disabled and are no longer synced.

I give it a week before another hacker discovers a way around this. Weighing in at 38.3 MB you can download 7.4.1 from the Apple Website or through your software update.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.4? sometime today...

September 5, 2007   0 Comments
With Apple's Special Event this morning, they have announced the addition of Ring Tones to iTunes. This will prompt a new version of iTunes that will be released later today.

Apple has also introduced new iPod Shuffles, Nano's with Video, iPod Classics, and iPod Touch (iPhone style!)

Stay Tuned for more updates from the Special Event...

Labels: Apple, Event, iTunes, Software Update

BeaTunes is your iTunes Managment

August 9, 2007   0 Comments
With over 100 Gigs of Music, I have found that managing your iTunes Library increasingly difficult. iTunes treats artist capitalizations differently then FrontRow, Genres are completely in a muck, and forget about trying to put a good mix together! Just when hope is lost BeaTunes 1.2 comes to the rescue.

iTunes Library Management is a pet-peeve of mine. I can find myself spending several hours a week, looking at tracks, updating meta-data, but still end up with over 100 Genres, and countless duplicate tracks, multiple spellings in FrontRow. Really iTunes should know that 'Pink Floyd', and 'pink floyd' are one in the same! BeaTunes has really helped with cutting down my time spent on file management.



This unique application, analyzes all the tracks in your iTunes Library, and uses a unique meta data editing tool so you can regain control of your Libraries. Its thorough inspection of your tracks can determine the temp, language, and can even determine genres. BeaTunes also includes full-screen album charts. Got songs that are missing artists or titles? Utilizing the the acoustic fingerprint provided my MusicIP's MusicDNS service, these tracks are quickly identified.

One of the most amazing features is the BPM analysis. If your a runner or like to workout, you don't want Eric Clapton's Unplugged version of Layla, you want the original! By adding the BPM for all your tracks, you can build play lists based on this information, filtering out the slow Barry White, and keeping the Fat Boy Slim.

If your interested in BeaTunes, a 2-Week trial of the software is available for download, but after that you'll have to pay the $24.95 like the rest of us.

Labels: iTunes, Software

iTunes 7.3.2 brings stability...

August 2, 2007   0 Comments
... to the galaxy, well perhaps just the iTunes Jukebox. Apple released 7.3.2 for Windows and Mac today addressing some bugs and to 'improve stability and performance'. The last few releases 7.3.1 and 7.3 brought new features such as the iPhone sync and streaming Photos to your AppleTV. We'll have to do some investigating to see what pops up in 7.3.2.

As always, get it through your software update or Apple's downloads page. Macintosh version weigh 33.8 MB.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.3.1 and Quicktime 7.2

July 11, 2007   0 Comments
7.3 we hardly knew yee.
Apple is addressing some issues with iTunes accessing the iTunes Library. Apparently thats the scoop right now for 7.3.1. Nothing too informative from Apple. My money is it has some extra iphone support or feature. We'll keep you updated, but until then get it through your Software Update or iTunes website at 34.0 MB (intel)

Quicktime 7.2, on the other hand resolves some bugs & security issues, as well as full screen viewing.

The fullscreen viewing is key, for those of us that didn't want to purchase the professional version. This was always there but we were only teased with it disabled in the menus. And if you got QuickTime Pro, you will need your QuickTime Pro key. It will disable functions in earlier versions. Get it through your Software Update or iTunes website at 53.0 MB (intel)

Labels: iTunes, QuickTime, Software Update

Control iTunes via iPhone

July 9, 2007   0 Comments
With my iPhone in hand I wanted to find a way to control my HTPC via my iPhone. Not that my current remote solution wasn't working, but it is just nice to have options.

Tonberry is still in concept form, but it aims to be the best media controller for the iPhone. Utilizing some stunning CSS, Toneberry looks perfect on the iPhone. The easy to use buttons allows you to control your media. Navigate your library, complete with mini-album art. Unfortunately a take home personal demo isn't available, but you can play with it here.

I then found Telekinisis. This app is Google Code project. Using your computers web hosting abilities, Telekinesis's main function is more of a total system remote for your Mac. It does have a great Apple Remote inspired iTunes controller.

Check them both out, and let us know what you think!

Labels: iTunes, Remote

iTunes 7.3 is here...

June 29, 2007   0 Comments
Title pretty much says it all. Available through software update and though the website.

The software update provides us with a hint of the new iTunes additions:


Update:After a quick download and review of 7.3, iPhone updates appear to be the only new features. Specifically an iPhone Help and Preferences have appeared. The Help provides links to the iPhone User's Guide, Safety Information, and Software License Agreement, all of which are not up on Apple's site yet. (links placed for future). The iPhone Help also includes 'About iPhone', and Service and Support (dead link)

Another update is in the iTunes Preferences. A new tab for the iPhone appears, but no real options are present. Probably because you need the iPhone. But the new panel reads "The following iPhones are backed up on this computer:" We'll probably get a better look at the Sync Pane once iPhones are in the wild.

The last update, is the ability to share your Photos with multiple AppleTV. Prior to this you would have to sync your photos. With iTunes sharing your photos, you can now access them through your AppleTV like you would through a Mac with FrontRow.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iPhone prompts iTunes v7.3

June 27, 2007   0 Comments
For the most part we've tried to stay away from the iPhone media circus, but this news relates to all iTunes users. With the iPhone being released this Friday at AT&T and AppleStores, iTunes will reach version 7.3. This is according to the Apple iPhone specs page. 7.3 is not available through software update yet, but expect to see it within the next 48 hours.

iTunes was just recently updated to version 7.2, introducing iTunes Plus, while the update prior 7.1 added AppleTV support. Stay tuned for a complete review of 7.3 when it is available. You never know what other features Apple may slip in.

Labels: iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.2 include AppleTV Export...

June 1, 2007   0 Comments
Apple slipped ina new feature in their latest release. On the surface iTunes 7.2 and declare itself necessary for iTunes Plus, but with the latest release you can now convert your Movie files to AppleTV.

Previously only available in EyeTV and QuickTime Pro, AppleTV owners now have a quick way of getting the best native compression for their AppleTV. The converting process takes about the same time as QuickTime, and is no match for Turbo.264's conversion.

This feature should of been available in 7.1 with the addition of the AppleTV support, but its still nice to have it now.

Labels: AppleTV, iTunes, Software Update

iTunes 7.2 is here... with iTunes Plus

May 29, 2007   0 Comments
Version 7.2 is out and available through your system update and as a download from the Apple iTunes Website as well. The big addition to this update is iTunes Plus.

With iTunes 7.2, preview and purchase iTunes Plus music—new higher-quality, DRM-free music downloads from participating music labels. These are similar to the EMI DRM-Free music previously available at $1.29.

Other then these tracks there is no DRM-Free music in iTunes, and can expect the full launch to take place later. Sources point to Wednesday as the day.

Digging a little deeper the help menu provides a little more information about upgrading your previously purchased tracks. This is great for those people that spent bank on there iTunes music and swapped to another player later on.

Labels: DRM, iTunes, iTunes Plus, iTunes Store, Software Update

Worlds Largest iTunes Library!

April 21, 2007   0 Comments Many of you FrontRow users out there often boast about how large their mp3 / media collection is. Well Will Friedwald claims to have the largest iTunes Collection. Glenn Wolsey has a great interview with him over at his site.

So how large is it? Well it is about 300GB larger then the largest I have heard of. At 849GB Will can listen to his iTunes collection for 809 days without hearing the same track again. He has even dubbed it The Matrix. Oh yea... it all music.

He maintains 2 seperate libraries. One for the main collection 'the matrix' and the other the 'annex' (200-300gb) which is slowly being added to the matrix. If you were to combine the libraries you'd be looking at over 1.2TB!

The iTunes Library: 'The Matrix'

• 849 GB
  
• 172k Tracks
  
• 2,935 Artists
  
• 11x561 Albums
  
• DB File 282 MB
  
• XML File 259 MB

It would be interesting to see where iTunes's breaking point is. The library is loaded into RAM so, a 8 Core MacPro with some RAM would probably have no issue with his collection, but the single processor G5 tends to take 4 min to get info on a track.

Labels: iTunes

Complete My Album in iTunes

March 29, 2007   0 Comments
iTMs Thursday is here. Last week we got some exclusive Sony TV Shows, this week we get a feature called Complete My Album. Based on the previous tracks you have purchased through the iTunes Store, you may now purchase the rest of the album at a discounted price.

Prior to this any album purchases would of resulted in purchasing a song twice. Witha 99¢ credit towards each song, albums are looking a lot more attractive. But before you go out and look to take advantage of this from years of single track purchases, do it before June 27, as Apples grace period will end. After this grace period expires you will have 180 days to purchase the full album after purchasing a single track.

Happy iTMs Hunting...

Labels: iTunes, iTunes Store

iTunes 7.1.1

March 16, 2007   0 Comments
That didn't take long. After reports of corrupt Libraries and stability issues with 7.1, Apple has released another update to iTunes. This version come in at 28MB and is available through your software update.

Labels: iTunes

iTunes & QuickTime Updates

March 5, 2007   0 Comments Just in time for AppleTV's to start heading out to stores and residences, Apple has released iTunes 7.1, and Quicktime 7.1.5. Through software update they came in at 44.2 MB and 27.5 MB respectively, and QuickTime Requires a restart. Here is the relevant info.

iTunes gets a host of new options... Apple's love affair with CoverFlow continues. The fullscreen view is simply beautiful. I wouldn't be surprised to see a version of this implemented in FrontRow in the future. In the preference panes we now see an AppleTV preference and more parental preferences. Specifically rating listings fro Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zeland, United Kingdom and The United States.

There is also a new sorting order pane in the Track Info display. I'm not sure if this is designed to resolve FrontRow's random sorting order for TV Shows, but I'll update you when I find out!



Here are the specifics from Apple.

Labels: iTunes, QuickTime

iTunes Script Fun...

January 16, 2007   6 Comments
Managing your iTunes tracks can be truely frustrating. While changing a group of track to the same genre is easy in iTunes, changing multiple files to the same Video Type take forever. What about the various times you've moved your library, or accidentally deleted a file through the finder, and now you have a missing track. How do you hunt all of those down?

Enter Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes. This intensive collection of iTunes specific AppleScripts is a great resouces for organizing and taming your iTunes Library. Here are some of the most popular scripts according to the site:

• Make Bookmarkable: Change file type to make selected AACs bookmarkable files!
• Find Album Artwork with Google: iTunes has quite the collection of CD Art, but they don't have it all. Try this Google Search for the rest of your tracks missing artwork.
• Super Remove Dead Tracks: Remove missing (!) tracks from entire Library. This includes the hiding, deleted and ghosts of tracks that are MIA.
• Import iPod Audio Files: Simply grab those tracks off your iPod and suck them back into your local library.
• Corral iTunes Dupes: Collect duplicate iTunes tracks into a discrete playlist--fast!
• Join Together: Join selected tracks' files as one; optionally create an enhanced AAC audio file with chapter pointers.
• CDDB Safari Kit: Search for info and get track names from CDDB web site using Safari
• Remove Duplicate Tracks From Playlist: Removes duplicate tracks from the selected playlist.
• Google Lyric Search: Search for lyric sites with Google using info from the current or selected track.

Labels: iTunes, Tips and Tricks

FrontRow Tips: Update (already)

February 26, 2006   0 Comments A day after I publish my first tip sheet on FrontRow, I find out that Lostify is not the only GUI interface for AtomicParsley. In fact there are several for the Macintosh and Windows platform. Since we are dealing with FrontRow, I'm only going to review the OS-X Applications.

Here we go!

AtomicParsley
This application that started it all. It was almost a year ago when AtomicParsley first showed up. It has improved its tagging abilities and its opensource code has brought about many interfaces on both PC and Mac platforms. Now, AtomicParsley was not designed with a user interface and it strictly a command line tagging tool. So if you don't mind getting dirty in code its a great utility. Downsides is its non-exisiting batch capabilities and GUI. It is however the only utility to be able to overwrite the original document, so you don't have temp files everywhere and potential duplicates in iTunes.

ID Infiltr8
This application was designed on AtonicParsley's MP3 ID3 tagging abilities. Infiltrate' batch process is great if you want to change individual tags (like track number, song name, etc.) for multiple files. The downside is that you may have to enter common information (such as artist, album) for each. For this reason I would probably recommend iTunes for editing the ID tags, for the common tags. Lastly IDInfiltr8 is designed to work on OS-X 10.4+




vID Infiltr8
Brought to you from the fine makers of IDInfiltr8 comes vID Infiltr8 (the v stands for video). This tagger is the compliment to IDInfilitr8; concentrating on the tagging of video files. Once again this tagger allows for the batch editing of individual files. Common tags will be have to be entered manually, as it doesn't carry common tags from file to file. Another feature missing in other taggers is the artwork. Yes video can have artwork (even though FrontRow ignores it) This application is now my favorite when it comes to tagging files. Its easy to use and I like that I can skip between files, modify their tags, before the actually tagging process begins. This application is also designed for Mac OS X 10.4 +.




Lostify
My previous favorite tagger, is awesome. It gives you all the options available for a video file, including the artist and album fields which are important for Music Videos. The lock cell feature is perfect for carrying common data from one file to the other. The downside, while being able to do a batch of files and carry common data, Losity embeds the files one at a time, which can make tagging files a long process. The latest version of Losity 3.2 is up-to-date with the latest built of AtomicPasley, and it eliminated the Overwrite option which was flakey at best in previous version. Another advantage of Lostify is that it will work with Panther(OS-X 10.3.9) however FrontRow will not, so the advantage is trivial on a FrontRow Tips page.




Parsley Is Atomicly Delicious
The Best GUI interface goes to this application. The no-nonsense clean PAD is great for modifying individual video files. Selecting the video type bring up the relevant tags for that file, so your not inundated with fields. Streamline to only include present relevant tags, PAD's only drawbacks is its inability to do batches. The overwrite original option didn't work for me, but this seems to be a draw back for all the applications.

Labels: FrontRow, iTunes, Software, Tips and Tricks