iTunes: Change Video from Movies to TV Shows
Posted by David Kirk in Music
Most ripped videos will come into iTunes into the Movies category. This tutorial will show you how to change the category so it will appear correctly in your iPhone, iPod, or AppleTV. This technique works in all versions of iTunes including 8, 9, and 10.
Editors note: This technique continues to work for the most recent version of iTunes. I just updated the directions for iTunes 10.6.1.
No matter the original source, it seems that almost all videos are placed into the Movies category by iTunes. When trying to view the clips in an iTunes synced device, this is painful.
Luckily, the fix is pretty easy.
First you need to open the Get Info dialog box in iTunes. You can do this in multiple ways:
– Right-click (ctrl-click) on the file and select Get Info
– Select the file and click CMD+I
– Select the file and click Get Info from the File menu
From the dialog box that opens hit the Options tab. Under the Media Kind dropdown box, select TV Show
Click OK to finish.
In the above example, my MASH rip will now be listed under my TV Shows in my iPhone and AppleTV.
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October 25, 2008 at 10:17 am, thanks said:
thanks mate thats really helpful
November 19, 2008 at 2:12 am, TallCool1 said:
I don’t see a “Video Kind” selection in my iTunes 8.0.1.
December 26, 2008 at 5:16 pm, M1llerNo1 said:
go onto options instead of “video”… it should be about half way down
December 20, 2010 at 11:46 am, Jazzyy_bee said:
Thank mate!
March 13, 2011 at 11:04 pm, Ojonilionis said:
you rock, thanks!
December 03, 2008 at 6:37 pm, Steve said:
In iTunes 8 it is under the options tab and instead of “Video Kind” it is called “Media Kind”.
December 12, 2008 at 2:28 am, MrMan said:
Thanks! I was looking for it too. Now able to select multiple items, whereas before had to do it one at a time.
January 01, 2009 at 12:16 am, FREEDOM said:
thanks that helped alot
nvm to my previous post
May 07, 2009 at 12:39 pm, Michael said:
Brilliant! This was really bugging me. Thanks mate!
December 22, 2008 at 4:48 pm, Luke said:
When I try and add a video file e.g. avi it simply doesnt appear in itunes and therefore i cannot click on the get info part of the file as i cannot get it appearing in the library in the first place. Any ideas? Thanks
April 19, 2009 at 5:32 pm, blah said:
best to find an “ipod video converter”. there are tons free ones on the internet and they will convert different video file types to .mp4, which is the file type you need it in
December 23, 2008 at 2:41 pm, Chris said:
How do you do this on the latest itunes?? I followed the steps above and it doesn’t come up with the drop down menu box. please help!?? Chris
January 01, 2009 at 12:13 am, FREEDOM said:
I did that for all my videos in the movies section. after that i updated /installed the newest version of iTunes. now that video kind option is not available. what do i do?
or how do i downgrade my iTunes then?
January 25, 2009 at 9:43 pm, Nicola said:
To Luke, Itunes only accepts .Mp4 or .mov, not .avi you need to convert it * try Videora*
To Chris and Freedom,
As Someone ^ Up There Kindly Said,
1, Right-Click Info
2, Instead of Video, Click the Options Tab
3, Media Kind, Select from the Drop Down List TV Show
Hope That Helped
February 01, 2009 at 7:46 pm, Mat said:
hi all, I’m using a pc version of itunes, and my videos are loading as mp4′s but appearing in the music list. Get info shows them as video, but itunes only plays them as music.
Can’t seem to get this to work for me at all….can anyone help?
February 03, 2009 at 11:58 pm, redrum said:
thanks for clearing things up Nicola!
February 25, 2009 at 3:10 pm, Yano said:
thanks it really helped
March 12, 2009 at 3:52 am, Stevie Wonder said:
Man you are a lifesaver!!!
April 05, 2009 at 6:37 pm, AJ said:
ty so much saved me a lot of time
April 17, 2009 at 8:31 am, sara said:
YOU ARE AMAZING! GOT MA STUFF ORGANISED SO QUICK! & THANKS SO MUCH TO NICOLA FOR THE UPDATED itunes version WAY TOO. =)
July 24, 2009 at 7:49 am, Name said:
This Didn’t work on my version. ( winXP, iTunes 8.0.2.20 )
I had to find this same option under: ( yes i know this has been posted before )
Get info>Option>Media Kind.
I thought only Microsoft moved things around to confuse users.
August 04, 2009 at 7:48 pm, Anonymous said:
Thanx
ive been trying for ages to do this!
this has really helped!!
August 26, 2009 at 4:27 pm, Anonymous said:
Thank you. That works perfectly for a Mac, but it’s not much different for a PC. Instead, you simply hit the “options” button when the pop-up appears & click the media type drop-down menu to change it to “TV Show”. Thank you, again!
January 07, 2010 at 10:16 pm, Anonymous said:
THANKYOU.
I will use to se my The Owl collection to TV Shows and change some Music Videos too.
February 10, 2010 at 11:41 am, Anonymous said:
in 9.0.3 for XP Pro, I selected several TV shows in my movies and did this.. they disappeared from movies and nothings in my TV shows still… where did they go?
March 12, 2010 at 4:07 am, Anonymous said:
This was really helpful for me. Thanks pal
May 18, 2010 at 3:20 am, K311y said:
but in my computer, when i clicked on get info and went to video, it didn’t have video kind, options, or media kind. it just shows season number, episode ID etc.
June 20, 2010 at 2:54 pm, jimmyselix said:
Go to the Options tab.
June 20, 2010 at 4:07 am, LH said:
it worked thanks!, but i selected multiple files and they were put under one big album, now how can i deselece this or put them separate?
June 20, 2010 at 2:53 pm, jimmyselix said:
you will need to go into the Get Info and then Video tab.
Change the Show to your liking and it will Group by Show. You can also add season number and episode number / title here too.
July 08, 2010 at 9:21 pm, Granttt said:
How do you put the episodes in order when you have them in the same show:)?
July 08, 2010 at 10:54 pm, jimmyselix said:
there are a few ways and depends on what device your viewing them.
the first way is to use the season and episode fields in the Get Info > Video tab. This will sort them in order of season and then episdoe. Also will do the same on an iPad or iPhone/iPod too.
Or you can insert the ep number in the title as another way to sort.
peace
June 26, 2010 at 12:47 am, Austin James said:
Thank you so much this was starting to bug me
June 26, 2010 at 5:59 am, Jacqueline dang said:
What if the Info is all greyyed out?
July 08, 2010 at 10:52 pm, jimmyselix said:
check to see if the file is 1) in use by an application at the moment besides itunes or 2) the file is not set to be Read-Only (right-click on file – properties, general tab and at bottom).
hope that helps!
July 25, 2010 at 3:17 pm, toriaa said:
this didn’t work. there is no video kind on my itunes
November 04, 2010 at 4:05 am, Kenjai said:
Not sure if you’ve figured it out yet, but you might have to look in the options window, after right clicking on the show, and hitting “Get Info”
August 20, 2010 at 2:45 pm, Oliver said:
there is one problem with that. you can set “media kind” and all other info such as season number, description, etc., and all that info is preserved if you delete the file out of iTunes and then import it back in… except for media kind. try it for your self.
media kind info is not preserved if you delete and re-import, but all other tags are. not sure why. I have searched all over the web for a solution and can’t find one. the funny thing is, if I purchase a TV show from iTunes, then change the media kind to Movie, then delete it and re-import it, it goes right back to TV Show. somehow there is a way to pre-embed the media kind into the file, but by simply changing it in the info window, media kind is not saved.
October 14, 2010 at 11:37 pm, Dawsonj said:
it is a pain you have to use atomic parsley or mp4tags to set that in the video itself then it will import as a tv show and stay that way
every sync manager like tune ranger gets confused
all your tv shows and music videos you did yourself end up back in movies at the other end arghh
mp4 tags will fix it though
mp4tags -i tvshow movie.mp4
August 29, 2010 at 4:47 pm, Dan said:
how do you split up movies into parts?
September 25, 2010 at 5:48 pm, Harry Clarke said:
The new version of itunes (this is true for windows), there is a tab called options where the selection is listed instead of video.
October 01, 2010 at 8:59 am, Pedrodowd said:
hi guys
is anyone else finding it takes ages for itunes to make the change. It took about an hour for three episodes of dexter! I have macbook pro 17 i5 with 4 g ram so shouldn’t be the hardware causing this lag!
October 07, 2010 at 7:31 pm, Yerachmiel Paquette said:
Thanks…I was hoping somebody could tell me this. I use it to download music videos from YouTube and classify them properly. Before this was a real pain.
October 23, 2010 at 9:45 pm, Shastasams said:
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! I was beating my brains trying to figure this problem out. It works perfectly! Thank you again!
October 28, 2010 at 2:06 pm, toma said:
thanx this is what I needed really thanx tooo much ..
November 07, 2010 at 9:24 pm, EP said:
THANK YOU! you are an unsung hero!
November 08, 2010 at 1:23 am, Addison said:
KICK ASS MAN U ROCK
January 23, 2011 at 5:40 pm, Anne-So said:
OMG DUDE THANK YOU ! i’ve been trying to sort this out for a freaking long time x)
January 25, 2011 at 3:19 pm, jogordo said:
VERY helpful, indeed. thanks!!!
February 24, 2011 at 5:07 am, Geoff said:
Add the video to itunes. Right click, Get info. The “Name” field should be the episode name. The “Artist” field should be the show name. The “Show” field should be the show name. On the Options tab set the video type to TV Show. It will sort and group by show.
March 25, 2011 at 5:55 am, Pheonix said:
thnx a ton dude..helped a lot…………………u rock
April 02, 2011 at 12:50 pm, Chetcutijustine said:
thank you sooo much
August 22, 2011 at 1:06 am, Nick said:
Thanks heaps!!!! That was really helpful!
September 26, 2011 at 4:19 pm, Tony said:
Thanks so much! Finally I resolve that issue!…. U guys R great!
October 20, 2011 at 1:16 pm, dezandseth said:
(enter angels singing here) Thanks for this. Easy and right on!
April 18, 2012 at 5:41 pm, PiperKent said:
THANK YOU!! This actually made my day.
April 28, 2012 at 5:09 am, Kayla said:
This doesn’t work on the newest form of iTunes, as there is no box to chose whether it’s a movie or a TV show under the Video tab in the Get Info box.
April 30, 2012 at 12:22 am, David Kirk said:
@Kayla – Thanks for catching this. In the latest version of iTunes they have moved this option. I have updated the article to show the correct steps now.
May 02, 2012 at 11:04 pm, Miguel said:
what if u have mutil ones and u want to out it in one tv show file?