Access to "iTunes" tags

[SyL]

It seems that I can not read all the metadata of a movie file, especially "director", "actors", ... which are visible in iTunes so written in the file.
How can it be ?

[Phil Harvey]

If you can send me a sample I'll take a look.  You can email it to me: philharvey66 at gmail.com

- Phil

[SyL]

You will find below the iTunes 11 screenshots with information about actors, director, producers, scenarist, etc.
The others screenshots show all the metadata picked up by ExifTool including the synopsis of the movie in the LongDescription Tag and in the ShortDescription Tag but actors, director, etc are missing.
All the metadata information was written by the application iFlicks which looks up in themoviedb.org
Do not pay attention to the lenght of the movie, it's just a little video used for the test (so I don't need to re-encode a long one).

[SyL]

I send you a email with the object "Missing iTunes Metadata".
I've attached a 7,9 Mo .zip with the screenshots and a video sample with all metadata included.
I've linked it to this post as well.

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks for the sample.  This information is available and may be extracted in its original XML form using ExifTool:

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> exiftool -data -u -b "Kill Bill  Volume 1 (2003).m4v"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>cast</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Uma Thurman</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Vivica A. Fox</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Kazuki Kitamura</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Chia Hui Liu</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Sonny Chiba</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>David Carradine</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Akaji Maro</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Michael Madsen</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Daryl Hannah</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Julie Dreyfus</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Chiaki Kuriyama</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Jun Kunimura</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Michael Parks</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Ambrosia Kelley</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Lucy Liu</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>directors</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Quentin Tarantino</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>producers</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Johanna Ray</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Lawrence Bender</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Koko Maeda</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>screenwriters</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Quentin Tarantino</string>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>name</key>
<string>Uma Thurman</string>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>

I will look into decoding this is a more user-friendly form, but this will take some work.

- Phil

[SyL]

Maybe I can convert xml to a string with a shell script or an Applescript ?

My Automator workflow as a service allows me actually with a right-click on any movie in the Finder to display the synopsis of the movie.
It is quite useful !

I use ExifTool and Automator to batch rename and resize my photos as well : better sorted and size optimized like this in the Finder than within iPhoto !
It is done immediately after importing from a camera or an iPhone with a Folder Action.

Maybe it would be good to have a place here or somewhere else to post this kind of workflows to share with everybody ?
And more extensively, any kind of little app or pieces of code using ExifTool ?

[Phil Harvey]

If you want, you can use the Developers section of the forum to post scripts or apps that use ExifTool.

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

ExifTool 9.16 is now available, and decodes the following new tags from your file:

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> exiftool -xml:all "Kill Bill  Volume 1 (2003).m4v"
Cast Name                       : Uma Thurman, Vivica A. Fox, Kazuki Kitamura, Chia Hui Liu, Sonny Chiba, David Carradine, Akaji Maro, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfus, Chiaki Kuriyama, Jun Kunimura, Michael Parks, Ambrosia Kelley, Lucy Liu
Directors Name                  : Quentin Tarantino
Producers Name                  : Johanna Ray, Lawrence Bender, Koko Maeda
Screenwriters Name              : Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, and for the sample.

- Phil

[SyL]

Awsome ! ExifTool rocks ! Many thanks, Phil.
Just to give the information here as well, the data are available with the following tags :

Code Select Expand

...-CastName -ProducersName -DirectorsName -ScreenwritersName...

[Phil Harvey]

Syl,

I hope this doesn't cause you problems, but I plan to change the names of these tags in the next release.  With ExifTool 9.17 they will be accessed through these names:

exiftool -cast -producers -directors -screenwriters ...

- Phil