Applying .nfo files to mp4?
Ian McCall
metadata. Let us also assume I have also just been given .nfo files
(Windows Media Center-originating metadata) for each of those files.
And finally, let it be assumed that I'd like to apply the metadata in
the .nfo and put them as tags inside the mp4 file itself.
Given that all the above is true, and with the final caveat that
although I know I could hack up a perl script involving Atomic Parsely
etc. I'm lasy and would just like this taken care of already, is there
an app that can do this for me? It's a one-off bulk task so I don't
really mind if Mac, Windows or Linux. Anything to just get this out of
the way.
Cheers,
Ian
glawrie
> Let us assume I have hundreds of mp4 ffiles to which I need to apply
> metadata. Let us also assume I have also just been given .nfo files
> (Windows Media Center-originating metadata) for each of those files.
I'm not familiar with the use of nfo files to store metadata - I've
just been and had a look at some examples in other unison groups, and
where they apply to music files it seems the contain information about:
* The recording name, artist, year of release, and tracklisting;
* The original source of the music (e.g. CD), the method used to turn
it into a music file, and its format;
* Some specific comments about the recording.
The first of these can be obtained easily from a variety of sources. A
good source is the MusicBrainz web site, for example. MusicBrainz also
has various easy to use tools to look up this information for any track
and can then write this information to the files for you (storing the
information in ID2.x tags). I like the app "Picard" (available for a
variety of platforms) that will even scan tracks, look up the music
found, and usually can find the information about the track based on
this information alone - very helpful when music files have been
wrongly tagged… And all available without charge. Magical!
I'm not sure about the value of the second type of information - some
of this can be determined automatically by music playing software (e.g.
music file format, sampling frequency etc.). It is quite common for
'recording' software to tag the files created with information about
the ID / version of the recording software used.
The third type is more problematic - if the information in the nfo
files contains useful 'comments' about the tracks, you'll have to find
a way to read these files, look for the comments (I don't think these
files are formally structured, so no idea how you'll do it) and copy
the comments into the appropriate tag. Based on the few example flies
I've had a look at just now, the comments in the main appear to be
mostly non-useful, so this may not be an issue.
Links:
MusicBrainz web site - http://musicbrainz.org/
MusicBrainz software - http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard
Ian McCall
> On 2011-07-17 16:54:45 +0000, Ian McCall said:
>
>> Let us assume I have hundreds of mp4 ffiles to which I need to apply >
>> metadata. Let us also assume I have also just been given .nfo files >
>> (Windows Media Center-originating metadata) for each of those files.
>
> I'm not familiar with the use of nfo files to store metadata - I've just
> been and had a look at some examples in other unison groups, and where
> they apply to music files it seems the contain information about:
>
> * The recording name, artist, year of release, and tracklisting;
> * The original source of the music (e.g. CD), the method used to turn it
> into a music file, and its format;
> * Some specific comments about the recording.
Thanks, but I should have been more explicit. They're mp4 video files,
specifically TV episodes of 26 seasons of the same TV series.
Cheers,
Ian
Chris Ridd
MetaX has a useful looking AppleScript dictionary. Could you concoct a
ruby/perl script that parsed each .nfo file and used MetaX to write the
information to the file? Ruby can send Apple Events directly, or you
can call osascript from it I suppose.
There's a draft of Matt Neuberg's book on Ruby and AppleScript here
(linked to from his site)
<http://www.apeth.com/rbappscript/00intro.html>
--
Chris
Ian McCall
> MetaX has a useful looking AppleScript dictionary. Could you concoct a
> ruby/perl script that parsed each .nfo file and used MetaX to write the
> information to the file? Ruby can send Apple Events directly, or you
> can call osascript from it I suppose.
Yep - I think that's what I'm going to have to end up doing. Had a look
at the .nfo files - they're (poorly structured) XML files, so I can
right something that just parses them - if I've done that I may as well
just pass them to Atomic Parsely directly, since that's all that MetaX
does (good app and I use it, but if I'm scripting then I may as well
bypass UIs).
Cheers,
Ian
Chris Ridd
I thought MetaX used an updated version of Atomic Parsley? But any
excuse to avoid AppleScript ;-)
--
Chris
Ian McCall
It does - I've written Perl before to it and just gone straight to the
binary inside the .app directory.
Cheers,
Ian
Chris Ridd
Ooh, I thought it was compiled into the binary. Handy!
--
Chris