Metadata Hootenanny

The QuickTime movie metadata editor

What Does It Do? It allows you to edit and search the metadata that can be stored in QuickTime movies (mov files), including chapters. Quicktime files support a large number of metadata options, but the QuickTime Player doesn't provide an easy way of accessing them. Metadata Hootenanny does.

Why Would I Ever Want To Have Metadata in My Movies? If you find that you have lots and lots of movie files and you want to keep track of which one is which, metadata is for you. For example, if you just watched a great TV show on your iPhone, and you want to find some more shows in your collection by the same writer or director, metadata is for you.

What Kind of Metadata Are We Talking About Here?

Tags: all the "annotations" that Quicktime uses (Album, Artist, Author, Comment, etc), including many that are not accessible in QuickTime Player, and including language-specific tags (the user sees tag info in his/her own language, after you have added it). Arbitrary custom categories can be used as well, but they are limited to four characters long and starting with '©', e.g. "©IOU." You can type a © in MacOS with option-g.
Properties: movie track formats, sizes, lengths, durations, offsets, languages, and many more. External tracks can be added to the movie simply by dragging the files into this view.
Chapter Tracks: pop-up bookmark-like chapters compatible with QuickTime Player and iLife apps, including language-specific chapters.
Interactive Sprites: DVD-like menus that are completely contained and natively supported within the QuickTime file structure.

That Doesn't Sound Easy Enough. What Else Does It Do To Make Things Easier? Several web-pages containing movies' chapters or other metadata including cover art, like IMDB, can be added automatically with a simple drag and drop from your browser (see pictures below).

Chapter times can be copied off of a DVD and added directly to the movie file, with just a few clicks. Chapters from text, ogm, or other mov files can also be copied over.

Extra tracks can be set to be automatically added to the movie when you open it, if the movie has only 1 track to begin with. If your video, audio, and chapters are created individually, then just open the video file and this setting will combine all files in the same folder.

Subtitle files like SRT and SUB are applied to movies of any file format using Perian, even mov and mp4 files that Perian won't touch otherwise.

AutoVolume option: adjusts volume on the fly so all scenes are the same volume, so you can still hear the quiet dialog in today's modern ultra-loud movies.

What if I like QuickTime metadata but I only run Windows? Metadata Hootenanny is strictly Mac OS X only. If you are a Windows programmer who is just looking for a short-cut through the convoluted world of the QuickTime C API, email me and I will help you adapt the relevant code I have written.

Click Here to download Metadata Hootenanny 2.1

Click here to download the older version 1.0.1, if you are having trouble with the latest version on your older computer.
source code (xcode project)

Please email me with any bugs you find and I will fix them tout suite. You can also receive prompt technical support for Metadata Hootenanny by visiting the 3ivx forums.

I do accept donations. If you feel that you would like to say thanks by sending me a few dollars, click the Donate button below.

Illustrations:

Opening files by drag-and-drop

Adding metadata by drag-and-drop

After the above drag-and-drop, the metadata is added, including the cover image. Editing large text strings is a breeze, with enlarged text boxes.

Adding chapters by drag-and-drop

Adding chapters by drag-and-drop with text. When multiple movies' chapters are all displayed on the same page, you can select only the chapters you want to add, and drag that selection to the table-view.

Editing track properties. Here, two language tracks have been given accurate language settings. They are now swappable on the fly in QuickTime Player (non-Pro too) and Metadata Hootenanny. The user's OS-wide language setting will determine which track is enabled by default when the movie file is opened from now on.