Setting video type

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dacary
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Setting video type

Post by dacary »

It would be kinda nice if before encoding, we could set the mp4 meta-data tag "Video Kind" to either "Movie", as set a the moment, and "TV Show". This would allow iTunes to display the file in the correct section.

Loving the work you've do so far.
realityking
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Re: Setting video type

Post by realityking »

Actually it isn't set at all. iTunes just asumes that every video without 'Video kind' is a movie.
rhester
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Re: Setting video type

Post by rhester »

...and this is a tagging request, and we have made a conscious decision not to embed tagging capabilities in HandBrake. There are much better tools for that.

Rodney
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

Okay, as rhester and everyone else here has said a million times. let me be clear. HANDBRAKE IS NOT , OR WILL IT LIKELY EVER BE A META TAGGER! Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

I am seriously considering locking the next thread that has anything to do with requesting that HandBrake do any meta tagging.

We already have included support for sending HB's output directly to MetaX for you. That is where the line is drawn.
dacary
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dacary »

I hear what your saying but that kinda strange as your forcing any encoding process as a two step affair. I'm not talk about inserting all Meta Tag just the video kind.

I'd also like to point out that if you've had to "SAY A MILLION TIMES" then obvious a lot of people desire this feature, a very good reason to reconsider, you've got to listen to what people want otherwise what's the point.
rhester
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Re: Setting video type

Post by rhester »

dacary wrote:I hear what your saying but that kinda strange as your forcing any encoding process as a two step affair. I'm not talk about inserting all Meta Tag just the video kind.
It is a two-step process, by definition. You allow users to tag the video kind, then they are going to want to know why they can't specify the seasion number, for instance (it is, after all, on the same tab in iTunes). If you provide that, then they'll want to know why they can't encode the author. It goes on and on and on, which is precisely why encoders and taggers are never found together. If you can show me a counter example, I'd love to see it.
dacary wrote:I'd also like to point out that if you've had to "SAY A MILLION TIMES" then obvious a lot of people desire this feature, a very good reason to reconsider, you've got to listen to what people want otherwise what's the point.
Mass interest does not translate into high priority.

See http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/IsIsnt for details.

Rodney
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

dacary wrote:you've got to listen to what people want ...
Correction: Actually we don't. We try to, but we really don't have to.
dacary wrote:... otherwise what's the point.
Um, to encode dvd-like sources into an mpeg-4 type format. If it happens to work for you and other users at the same time, then great.
nightstrm
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Re: Setting video type

Post by nightstrm »

Wow... this thread highlights the reasons I never would want to become a freeware software developer. I can't imagine what this forum would be like if/when the DVD decryption stuff is removed (from the Mac version, since it is the only one with it) and then it becomes a THREE step process. :cry:

Oh well, I'll stay relegated to "test driver" status. 8)
jbrjake
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Re: Setting video type

Post by jbrjake »

dacary wrote:you've got to listen to what people want
[Censored] you we're not your slaves.
dacary
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dacary »

Bad attitude guys. Yeah it's freeware but shouldn't we always be striving to make the best software we can?
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

dacary wrote:Bad attitude guys. Yeah it's freeware but shouldn't we always be striving to make the best software we can?
Geez, since you put it that way I guess your right. Since "WE" are always striving to the make the best software we can when to you plan on submitting your patch ?
jbrjake
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Re: Setting video type

Post by jbrjake »

dacary wrote:shouldn't we always be striving to make the best software we can?
"Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial 'we'." -- Mark Twain
dacary
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dacary »

OK OK; this isn't getting us anywhere. I do feel I can say "WE", I've been a programmer myself for over 15 years now.

You ask for suggestions and I gave you one. It's your call whether you listen or not.

It doesn't seem that this project is fun for you guys anymore. I'll say no more on the matter.

Best Regards
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

dacary wrote:You ask for suggestions and I gave you one. It's your call whether you listen or not.
Right. But when we made our call, you continued to argue and push for it anyway. Thats when it started not getting us anywhere.
dacary wrote:It doesn't seem that this project is fun for you guys anymore.
Actually of course its fun for us. You don't think we do it because of all of the money we are making do you ? It only starts not being fun when users start demanding things from us that we are supposed to go and implement using our "free" time. If you've been a programmer for 15 years and want this feature, we are more than willing to look at a patch submission. If you don't have the time, then please do not assume that anyone here has any more free time than you. You should know that if you are what you say you are.
ronphlf
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Re: Setting video type

Post by ronphlf »

dynaflash wrote:Okay, as rhester and everyone else here has said a million times. let me be clear. HANDBRAKE IS NOT , OR WILL IT LIKELY EVER BE A META TAGGER! Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

I am seriously considering locking the next thread that has anything to do with requesting that HandBrake do any meta tagging.

We already have included support for sending HB's output directly to MetaX for you. That is where the line is drawn.
Man alive, the more I read into this forum, the more I am amazed at the p i s s y-assed-poor attitude that exists here. A bunch of prima-donnas!

The concept of HandBrake is great, but without meta-tags, it's incomplete. Imagine .MP3s without metadata....they are useless.

We are not asking that it be exclusively a meta-tagger, but without the meta-data, HandBrake is just a piece of the puzzle and incomplete, and if your in the process of creating a mp4, why not include this vital piece of the pie?

I think it's a testament to the success of this product that so many people are asking for something that is required by most of the viewers out there (apple tv, iPod, et. al.) to work properly.

I have yet to find out the answer despite searching for 25 minutes so far....... (ACTUALLY, I just found it.......sounds logical to me).

Overall, I agree with your reasons, however, I am always mystified as to why people can't be nicer, polite, and just help people. You've got to understand that if you put your stuff out there, and it's as good as HandBrake, people are going to use it, and newbies and other non-technical types are going to ask "stupid" questions. This attitude doesn't have anything to do with being registered as a French domain?
jbrjake
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Re: Setting video type

Post by jbrjake »

ronphlf wrote:
dynaflash wrote:Okay, as rhester and everyone else here has said a million times. let me be clear. HANDBRAKE IS NOT , OR WILL IT LIKELY EVER BE A META TAGGER! Whew, glad I got that off my chest.

I am seriously considering locking the next thread that has anything to do with requesting that HandBrake do any meta tagging.

We already have included support for sending HB's output directly to MetaX for you. That is where the line is drawn.
Man alive, the more I read into this forum, the more I am amazed at the p i s s y-assed-poor attitude that exists here. A bunch of prima-donnas!
Yes, some of the users are terrible, aren't they?
The concept of HandBrake is great, but without meta-tags, it's incomplete. Imagine .MP3s without metadata....they are useless.
Millions of people seem to think HandBrake's output is plenty useful, or they wouldn't keep using it.
We are not asking that it be exclusively a meta-tagger, but without the meta-data, HandBrake is just a piece of the puzzle and incomplete, and if your in the process of creating a mp4, why not include this vital piece of the pie?
Because other apps that do it exclusively can do it better, it's not vital despite what you claim, and you have a very simplistic notion of "the process of creating a mp4" since doing tagging right would mean incorporating and learning the API of a library HandBrake doesn't currently utilize.
I think it's a testament to the success of this product
It's not a product.
that so many people are asking for something that is required by most of the viewers out there (apple tv, iPod, et. al.) to work properly.
This is simply not true. HandBrake's output works properly on all those devices. You are overblowing your complaint to ridiculous proportions and that makes it impossible to take it seriously.
I am always mystified as to why people can't be nicer, polite, and just help people.
To accuse Joe Crain, who has shepherded the MacGui through the darkest periods of its existence, of not being a nice polite person who helps people...is simply absurd. You know not of whence you speak. You are embarrassing yourself, sir. I have interacted with this man on a daily basis for well over 18 months, and he is without a doubt the epitome of those virtues. If you have a problem with me or Cav or any of the other more hot-headed devs or mods, that's one thing, but to lodge this complaint underneath a quote from Joe is crazy.

If you didn't want to do something--in your spare time, for free--and people refused to respect that and kept demanding that you do it, like you were their slave and your own desires meant absolutely nothing to them...would you honestly respond any differently?
You've got to understand that if you put your stuff out there, and it's as good as HandBrake, people are going to use it, and newbies and other non-technical types are going to ask "stupid" questions.
Stupidity is absolutely not an excuse for refusing to search before posting, which is what the original poster in this thread did. See, that's impolite. Because when people come here, they agree to abide by this place's rules. That includes searching before posting. Not that it should require an explicit rule -- it is after all a fundamental part of netiquette.
This attitude doesn't have anything to do with being registered as a French domain?
None. At. All.
rhester
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Re: Setting video type

Post by rhester »

I normally wouldn't take the time to respond, but this bears witness to the very reason I tend to ignore most requests these days.

Let's start out with a suggestion that in the future you don't hijack a thread that has been dead for six months.
ronphlf wrote:Man alive, the more I read into this forum, the more I am amazed at the p i s s y-assed-poor attitude that exists here. A bunch of prima-donnas!
Your presence here is optional.
ronphlf wrote:The concept of HandBrake is great, but without meta-tags, it's incomplete. Imagine .MP3s without metadata....they are useless.
Oddly enough, every untagged video I have plays back just fine in any player I throw at it. And just for the record, MP3 tags first appeared years after MP3 encoders were available. I should know. I used to use the very first Frauhofer CLI encoder for nearly a year.
ronphlf wrote:We are not asking that it be exclusively a meta-tagger, but without the meta-data, HandBrake is just a piece of the puzzle and incomplete, and if your in the process of creating a mp4, why not include this vital piece of the pie?
Why not go ahead and incorporate iPod syncing, since that is a part of the process many people follow? How about integrating a video player, as well? That's important and would be convenient, yes? Maybe we should include CD audio ripping/conversion as well? Where do you draw the line?

HandBrake is an encoder. It's not a tagger, it's not a player, it's not a deprotector, it's not a copier, and it's not any one of a dozen things people have tried to get it to become over the years. It is popular because it does exactly one thing and it does it very, very well. Other encoders have tried to be all things to all people. Where are they now?

Incidentally, I welcome names of any H.264 encoder out there that does built-in tagging.
ronphlf wrote:I think it's a testament to the success of this product that so many people are asking for something that is required by most of the viewers out there (apple tv, iPod, et. al.) to work properly.
Now here's where things get ironic. What is one of the primary functions of iTunes? Tagging. Why is that important? Because it also feeds the Apple TV, iPod, et. al. It is, in fact, a "vital piece of the pie". Guess what it doesn't do? DVD encoding. See how HandBrake is a complimentary tool to the one already used by millions of Apple owners?

Rodney
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

Lol. I am still trying to get over
ronphlf wrote: p i s s y-assed-poor
and wondering what significance there is to spacing out the letters in the " p i s s y" part ... and am still not sure if I should be offended ... or not. :)
ronphlf
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Re: Setting video type

Post by ronphlf »

dynaflash wrote:Lol. I am still trying to get over
ronphlf wrote: p i s s y-assed-poor
and wondering what significance there is to spacing out the letters in the " p i s s y" part ... and am still not sure if I should be offended ... or not. :)

The Auto Censor caught it!
dynaflash
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Re: Setting video type

Post by dynaflash »

ronphlf wrote:
dynaflash wrote:Lol. I am still trying to get over
ronphlf wrote: p i s s y-assed-poor
and wondering what significance there is to spacing out the letters in the " p i s s y" part ... and am still not sure if I should be offended ... or not. :)

The Auto Censor caught it!
Aaaah. Good answer :) ... never thought of that.
hawthorn
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Re: Setting video type

Post by hawthorn »

I was going to add a polite me-too about the usefulness of a basic Video Kind setting for Handbrake. Then I read the thread.

When I execute "AtomicParsley myrippedshow.m4v -t" the output says:
Atom "©too" contains: HandBrake svn1797 2008093001
How in the world did that get in there? It's almost as if some kind of Metatagger had operated! :lol:

Handbrake would be genuinely more useful to media librarians if it let you set the video type of the output file right away. Everything else can wait for MetaX and its brethren, but Video Type controls where iTunes places your file.

On the other hand, HandBrake would be more true to its "not a metatagger" credo if it didn't, you know, add metatags.

Thanks again for a great product.
rhester
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Re: Setting video type

Post by rhester »

But seriously...you resurrected a three-month-old thread for this?
hawthorn wrote:I was going to add a polite me-too about the usefulness of a basic Video Kind setting for Handbrake. Then I read the thread.
Which makes it much more of a mystery why you replied, particularly only on your fourth post.
hawthorn wrote:When I execute "AtomicParsley myrippedshow.m4v -t" the output says:
Atom "©too" contains: HandBrake svn1797 2008093001
How in the world did that get in there? It's almost as if some kind of Metatagger had operated! :lol:
I presume you would rather we leave it to users to add the encoding tool data? Since we depend on this sort of information for support, I feel a whole lot better about being able to identify what version created it.

Comparing adding an ISO tool atom used for support to generic metatagging requests just boggles the mind.
hawthorn wrote:Handbrake would be genuinely more useful to media librarians if it let you set the video type of the output file right away. Everything else can wait for MetaX and its brethren, but Video Type controls where iTunes places your file.
And therein lies the point. HandBrake is not an iTunes encoding tool or a metatagger. It's just a transcoder.

Given that iTunes itself allows you to set the video type, either individually or in batches, I fail to see the utility. I also fail to see the point of setting an atom used only by iTunes when iTunes itself is an effective tagger. You are quite literally asking us to reinvent the wheel, and I can't for the life of me see how this would improve workflow for a "media librarian" working with iTunes.
hawthorn wrote:On the other hand, HandBrake would be more true to its "not a metatagger" credo if it didn't, you know, add metatags.
If this is what you think motivates people to do what you want, I'd recommend a book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-I ... 671027034/

It's also worth noting that this thread was started in January of 2008, long before iTunes actually supported video type tagging. The request made little sense then (as it is firmly in the purview of taggers, as far as I am concerned) and makes absolutely none now (given you are asking for a feature you already have by definition.

So, is it OK if we get back to actually adding features to HandBrake that a half-dozen other tools haven't already implemented?

Rodney
hawthorn
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Re: Setting video type

Post by hawthorn »

rhester wrote:But seriously...you resurrected a three-month-old thread for this?
No, I did what we are supposed to do when we have a feature suggestion or request: See if the feature has already been suggested/requested, and add your voice to that thread rather than starting a duplicate one.
rhester wrote:...Which makes it much more of a mystery why you replied, particularly only on your fourth post.
Only because the feature would be quite useful to people who actually use HB in a serious workflow. I don't understand the post count thing, sorry - this isn't a chatroom for me.
rhester wrote:I presume you would rather we leave it to users to add the encoding tool data? Since we depend on this sort of information for support, I feel a whole lot better about being able to identify what version created it.
I'm just pointing out that when a metatag is useful enough (in this case, to help you with support) there's no problem making an exception to the "HB is not a metatagger" principle. Video Kind is equally simple and useful - only to us.

Anyway, I get it - you're not going to do it. No time for arguing. Thanks again for a great product.
rhester
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Re: Setting video type

Post by rhester »

hawthorn wrote:
rhester wrote:But seriously...you resurrected a three-month-old thread for this?
No, I did what we are supposed to do when we have a feature suggestion or request: See if the feature has already been suggested/requested, and add your voice to that thread rather than starting a duplicate one.
You chose to add your voice to a thread that, by my count, has four developers stating a total of eight times that this isn't going to happen, and twice pointing out that open source != democracy. I really don't understand what the point was.
hawthorn wrote:
rhester wrote:...Which makes it much more of a mystery why you replied, particularly only on your fourth post.
Only because the feature would be quite useful to people who actually use HB in a serious workflow. I don't understand the post count thing, sorry - this isn't a chatroom for me.
Requests from people with a deep understanding of the tool and who have "given back" to the community with assistance to other users, detailed and helpful bug reports, and best of all, source code are taken rather seriously in most cases. Requests from people who haven't been around very long and haven't really made much of a contribution to the community are prioritized accordingly.

Now, in fairness, your first three posts were two attempts to assist other users and one valid bug report/suggestion. Those were of value and appreciated.
hawthorn wrote:
rhester wrote:I presume you would rather we leave it to users to add the encoding tool data? Since we depend on this sort of information for support, I feel a whole lot better about being able to identify what version created it.
I'm just pointing out that when a metatag is useful enough (in this case, to help you with support) there's no problem making an exception to the "HB is not a metatagger" principle. Video Kind is equally simple and useful - only to us.
The tool tag is not intended as an "end-user" tag for reasons that should be immediately obvious. That's precisely why iTunes allows you to view it but not alter it. The video kind tag, on the other hand, is intended to be user-settable, and is such in iTunes. Again, this doesn't seem a hard concept to grasp.

There's really only two possible workflows I can see here. You a) rip with HandBrake, b) tag with something like MetaX, and c) import into iTunes and do no further tagging (at which point you should recognize that MetaX is your tagging layer and bug them accordingly), or you a) rip with HandBrake, b) import into iTunes, and c) tag with iTunes, at which point the functionality you are requesting is already present and extremely simple to use.

I want to reiterate this one more time just so we're clear: If you haven't noticed, recent releases of iTunes *DO* allow you to change the Video Kind, either individually or in batches. This was not true at the time this thread was started, which is why it exists at all.
hawthorn wrote:Anyway, I get it - you're not going to do it. No time for arguing. Thanks again for a great product.
Well, you're right about that on both counts. I appreciate that you like HandBrake, but I'd like to reiterate what jbrjake said much earlier in the thread - HandBrake is not a "product". It's an open-source tool with all the advantages and disadvantages you'd expect from such a thing.

Since this has now been discussed to a completely unworthy degree, and I think the HandBrake developers have made their point that HandBrake will not ever be a tagging tool (for user-modifiable tags, just to settle that debate), I don't think further expansion on this thread adds any value at all and it will therefore be locked.

Rodney
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