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Lateralus · Sep 17, 2006, 05:38 PM

Hey,

My 80GB Video should be arriving next week and I'm in the process of converting my video library to iPod friendly format. But I was wanting to know what I was in for as far as actually getting that video onto the iPod.

Does video intended for the iPod have to be kept in iTunes? Because I currently have my hundreds of videos rather well categorized into folders on their own hard drive and would rather not link them to iTunes in any way.

Can I just drag and drop them to the iPod? That way I could maintain the folder and sub folder layout I have created.
Thanks.

icruise · Sep 17, 2006, 05:40 PM

You can maintain your folder layout and still have them in iTunes. Just make sure you have "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" unchecked in the Advanced pane of the iTunes prefs.

Lateralus · Sep 17, 2006, 06:11 PM

But will iTunes maintain the categories/folders when it puts them on the iPod?

I'd still rather keep them from iTunes entirely though...

icruise · Sep 17, 2006, 06:19 PM

Well, the iPod has no folder/file organization system that is visible to the user, so there is no way that it could maintain that. You will want to give your movies tags, just like your music.

I don't see why you want to keep them out of iTunes. Having them there allows you to use things like smart playlists and so forth, and I don't think it's possible to keep them out of iTunes anyway.

imitchellg5 · Sep 17, 2006, 06:40 PM

Have you tried using the app iPod disk? It is for taking music off of your iPod, but it should ( in theory) work the other way around.

Lateralus · Sep 17, 2006, 06:56 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

Well, the iPod has no folder/file organization system that is visible to the user, so there is no way that it could maintain that. You will want to give your movies tags, just like your music.

I don't see why you want to keep them out of iTunes. Having them there allows you to use things like smart playlists and so forth, and I don't think it's possible to keep them out of iTunes anyway.

If iTunes would organize videos by tags once they were in the Library, I would probably add them. But the fact that it doesn't is going to keep me from doing so.

And again, I have my videos on a separate hard drive because I have so many. Which is half the reason I would like to keep it away from iTunes, whose Library resides in a different drive.

icruise · Sep 17, 2006, 07:03 PM

I have 2391 TV shows (mostly ripped by me) and 171 movies in my iTunes library. They are spread across 2 external drives, and I have no problems. Also remember that iTunes 7 segregates items in your library by content, so you won't have videos showing up with your music. And yes, it DOES organize by tags once you add them. I just don't see what the problem is.

jlit · Sep 17, 2006, 07:04 PM

Just to let you know, itunes doesn't care which drive your movies are stored on. Itunes is more of a reference to your files, so if you make the change earlier mentioned in your preferences, when you add them to itunes you will only be making their existance known. Itunes won't move the files, nor will it save anything else to that location.

Once in your library, you'll be able to reorganize the files in folders to your liking, making it easier to navigate on your ipod.

Lateralus · Sep 17, 2006, 07:20 PM

Originally Posted by Icruise

I have 2391 TV shows (mostly ripped by me) and 171 movies in my iTunes library. They are spread across 2 external drives, and I have no problems. Also remember that iTunes 7 segregates items in your library by content, so you won't have videos showing up with your music. And yes, it DOES organize by tags once you add them. I just don't see what the problem is.

I've added the entire series of The Office - UK to my iTunes Library. It sticks them all generically in a folder called 'Movies' in the iTunes Music folder. No matter what I do to the tags in iTunes, it doesn't organize them at all.

icruise · Sep 17, 2006, 07:25 PM

That is why you turn off the preference that I mentioned above. That way, when you add movies, it will just keep them where they already are on your hard disk.

Lateralus · Sep 17, 2006, 07:32 PM

But turning off that preference also turns it off for music as well, which I don't want it turned off for.

icruise · Sep 17, 2006, 07:35 PM

Aha, then just hold down the Option key when dragging something to your library and it will do the *opposite* of whatever the option you have set. That way, you have it set the way you want in the preferences, but still add things that are only "linked" to their original locations.

Josh Reid · Sep 18, 2006, 11:07 AM

Good tip with the option key, icruise. Thanks.

parsec_kadets · Sep 18, 2006, 01:57 PM

Great tip with the option key. This is exactly what I was looking for since I have the same setup as Lateralus. I actually like iTunes copying my music for me, but store my video on an external FW drive. Now I just need to figure out if the resolution I've been using can be played by the iPod. It comes on Friday, so I'll have just enough time to experiment, convert whatever needs to be converted, and copy it to the iPod before my flight next Tuesday.

Lateralus · Sep 18, 2006, 06:36 PM

I'm hoping iSquint gets updated to with 640x480 support soon because QuickTime is stupidly slow at converting larger AVI movies to iPod format.

lavar78 · Sep 18, 2006, 06:56 PM

Viddy Up (the erstwhile Podner) has already been updated for 640x480 support, but it's not free like iSquint.

Lateralus · Sep 18, 2006, 07:01 PM

Originally Posted by lavar78

Viddy Up (the erstwhile Podner) has already been updated for 640x480 support, but it's not free like iSquint.

Indeed.

I just may buy it too. $10 aint that bad.

The pro version of iSquint, 'VisualHub' is $23.

lavar78 · Sep 18, 2006, 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Indeed.

I just may buy it too. $10 aint that bad.

It's very nice in my experience. Of course, I don't have a video iPod (until Wednesday), so all I've done is convert movies for iTunes.