Importing videos into iTunes
My hobby is making home movies. In the past I was able to add these to my iTunes library and watch them on TV using my Apple TV. The latest iTunes version does not allow me to add to its library. Is there any way of getting around this deficiency? Dennis Lamb I’ve seen reports of a bug to this effect, but first let’s check that this isn’t due to iTunes’ rearranged interface. When you choose File > Add to Library in the menu bar and select an MP4 file, it looks as if nothing has happened, because the video doesn’t appear in My Movies. Select Movies from the media icons at the top-left corner of iTunes and you’ll see the tabs along the top now include a ‘Home Videos’ section. Click that and you’ll see that your video files appear there.
If you don’t see them, it should just be a question of reimporting them. This categorisation is intended to keep your iTunes Store purchases separate from your home movies, but the way iTunes organises your media works by looking at the metadata embedded in each file, you can change it if you want to.
To get your home videos in the My Movies tab, Hold ≈ and click one, select Get Info, click Options, and then change the media kind to ‘Movie’. You can’t have a video appear in both places though, because you can select just one category for its media kind. To list a film and a home-made parody of it together, say, you’ll need to use playlists.