Edit metadata?

[w1n78]

i'm capturing home videos from a camcorder using iMovie 11. the end product is an mp4 file (m4v on mac). is there a way to edit the metadata without having to re-encode the file? does the metadata on videos work the same way as id3 tags in mp3 files? coz i'm able to edit id3 and not have to re-create the mp3 file. though i'm on a mac, i do have windows running virtually so i can use software on any platform

[Baldrick]

Try Mp3tag. I think it support mp4 also.

[FJRGuy]

While mp3tag does do m4v tag editing, it is designed primarily for music tag editing... which it does very well IMHO based on my hour of playing with it, but it leaves a little to be desired on the movie side of things.

I found Simplemoviex which looks like it may be good at editing movie metadata, but it's for mac and I don't have a Mac new enough to run it.

Anyone have any recommendations for windows software for this?

[fvisagie]

I've had some success with AtomicParsley. From its user's guide:

AtomicParsley is a command line program for reading & writing iTune-style metadata in mpeg4 files (m4a, m4b, m4p, m4v & mp4) whether iTMS drm protected or not. AtomicParsley can set most user accessible tags, and some that iTunes doesn't let you change. Of particular note are the Mac OS X only image modification preferences that allow artwork to be modified prior to embedding. Artwork can be converted to jpeg, file size limited, reduced & squared through setting command line preferences.

Currently, AtomicParsley lets you set these type of iTunes-style tags in MPEG-4 files:

artist lyrics category TVEpisodeNum
title album artist artwork TVSeasonNum
album composer compilation podcast flag
genre copyright advisory podcast feed url
tracknumber grouping stik podcast episode GUID url
disknumber bpm/tempo TVNetwork purchase date
comment description TVShowName encoder tool
year keyword TVEpisode play gapless

3GPP & 3GPP2 files (.3gp & .3g2) have a different set of metadata tags available called assets:

title author performer genre
album * year copyright description
rating keyword classification location

* album asset is only available on 3gp6 and later branded files.

All mpeg-4 based files support 'uuid' user-defined extensions atoms & ISO copyright notices:

tagtime url information
ANY user-defined atom with text ANY user-defined atom with embedded file
ISO-copyright [at movie and/or track level(s)]

I've used it on Windows and as far as I know it's available for Mac too.

[Budman1]

MetaX works very well, even obtaining cover art on-line and has a Windows version now. It is not freeware
but it is very inexpensive and can be checked out from the developer here http://www.danhinsley.com/. If
you are attempting to add MetaData to an MP4 (M4V) captured from Haupauge and run into problems,
let me know. It's simple to fix.