In the main window you can edit all the TV show and episode information e.g. air date, seasons No. TV network, actors, directors, description, cover etc. To load a new episode drag a file from the Finder window onto the episode list (27) in the main window. Then enter the TV show information in the fields 1 to 5, edit the episode information in the fields 7 to 25 and drag an image to the cover area (18). Press "Tag files“ (34) and all information and the cover will be stored in your episode files.
Series Information
In the first 5 fields, you can edit the information of your TV show. This information is common for all episodes in the episode list.
1. Title
Enter the title of your TV show here. This field in not optional and must be set to tag your episodes. Otherwise the status LEDs (28) in the list view keep the red color.
2. Season
Enter here the number of the season, your episode files all belong to. You can edit only episodes of one seasons at once. This field in not optional and must be set to tag your episodes.
3. Episodes
This field shows the actual number of episodes in the episode list. You can't edit this field direclty. Use the [+]- and [-]-Button (29/30) beyond the episode list to increase or decrease the number of episodes. Delete surplus episodes at the end of the list if any. Otherwise your tagged files have the wrong number of episodes.
4. Genre
Enter the genre of your TV show here. In the combo box are listed all iTunes genres for TV shows. If you use other genre names, iTunes can't show a correct icon for this genre.
5. TV Network
Enter here the name of the TV network your TV show had been aired first.
Episode Information
In the fields 6 to 25 you can enter episode specific information for each episode in the episode list. If you want to set the same information for more than one episode, select the episodes you want in the episode list by holding down the "shift"- or "cmd"-key while selecting them. If you change e.g. the content rating field, this change will be done for all selected episodes. If you select more than one episode you will see the string "Multiple Values". This means, that the selected episodes have different information in the same field.
6. Title
Enter here the title of the episode. This field is not optional and must be set to tag your episodes. A red LED (28) indicates, wether all mandatory fields (TV show-/episode title (1/6) and season (2)) are set.
7. Episode No.
This field shows the actual episode number of the selected episode in the episode list. This field is informational and can't be edited directly. To change the episode number of your file, drag the row of your file in the episode list to the correct list view position. You find the episode number in the first column (26) of the episode list also.
8. Episode ID
iTunes needs a unique episode ID to sort and arrange all episodes of more than one TV show seasons. This field is informational only. It consists of the string "SxxExx" where xx ist the number of the season and episode, e.g. "S02E05" for season 2 and epiosde 5.
9. HD Video
If your movie has SD 480p, HD 720p or HD 1024p resolution you should set this combobox respectively. If this information is not stored in your file, MetaTV selects this option according to the horizontal resolution of your movie automatically.
10. Rating
Select the content rating here. TVDB offers MPAA ratings of the US television only. If you have not selected USA in the country settings in the preferences, this information is not set automatically. But you can choose an option so that MetaTV tries to adept the MPAA ratings to your country specific ratings.
11. Release Date
Set the first air date of the episode here.
12. Chapters
MetaTV generates chapters for your episodes automatically. You can choose between a fixed number or a fixed duration of the chapters. You can define the number of chapters or the duration in minutes in edit field (25). If your file contains already some chapters, MetaTV selects the option "no chapters" automatically in order not to delete existing chapters. Otherwise the option "n chapters" is chosen.
13. Actors
Enter here a comma separated list of actor names.
14. Directors
Enter here a comma separated list of director names.
15. Writers
Enter here a comma separated list of screen writer names.
16. Short Description
Enter the short description of the episode here. This field is limited to 255 characters. Characters beyond 255 are shown in red color. When saving the short description to the file, the red characters are truncated.
17. Long Description
Enter the full description of the story here.
18. Cover and Drag & Drop Area
When you seleced one or more episode files for editing, this drop area accepts picture files as cover, e.g. .jpeg or .png. Another way to set a new cover picture is to drag a picture from an application, e.g. Safari, to MetaTV by pressing and holding down the mouse button and drop the picture on the cover area. Double click the cover to open it in the zoom window. You can also drag the cover to your desktop or use cut & paste on the cover window.
19. Redo
If you cropped a rectangular image out of the cover using the "Crop"-dialogue (20), you can restore the original cover image by this redo button.
20. Crop
This function enables you to crop a cover image to a rectangular form, how it is normally used for TV shows in iTunes. If you press the "Crop"-button, the crop dialogue opens up. You can drag the rectangular area up and down over the cover image with the mouse. The selected area is in normal color and the cropped part is shadowed. Use the "Crop"-button to make your cover rectangular or press "Cancel" to make no changes to your actual cover.
21. Delete Cover
This small button clears the actual selected cover.
22. Cover Size
Displays the cover size in pixels.
23. Explicit Rating
Use this element to mark the movie content as explicit or clean.
24. Edit IDs
Opens a seperate window with some extra information (35-37).
25. Chapter count
Depending on the selection of the chapter generation (12) you can determine the count of chapters to generate or the duration per chapter in minutes.
Episode List View
In the episode list view, you manage the episodes of one season and TV show. You can cut, copy and paste episodes or rearrange them by dragging and dropping them from one row to another.
26-28. Episode List
This list view contains three columns. The first column (26) shows the episode No. which is represented by each row. The second column (27) shows the actual title of the episode and the name of the assigned video file. If there is no file assigned, you see "No Title" and no file name. In the last column (28) you find status LEDs, showing four different colors: grey means, that there is no file assigned yet to the episode. You can't edit any information without an assigned file. A red color says, that you assigned a file, but the mandatory fields TV show title (1), season No. (2) and episode title (6) are not set. The yellow light means, that an episode can be tagged. Finally the green status LED says, that the episode file was successfully tagged.
You can drop video files onto the list. If "Analyse Filenames“ in the preferences is not selected, the sequence of your files in the Finder window is used for inserting. The episodes are inserted starting from the row you dropped the files onto. At the beginning of a new season, you always select the first row. To add some files later on you can put them at a specific episode No. (row).
If you want to rearrange some episodes in the list view, select one ore more episodes (hold down "cmd"-key while selecting more than one row) and drag the episodes to a new position, while holding down the mouse button. You see a thin line between the rows while dragging the episodes.
You can also copy the information to a new episode via drag & drop. Select an episode (row) and press the "alt"-key while dragging the episode to another row. The selected target row is highlighted while dragging. To copy one episode, you must drag the selected row to a destination row with a file assigned. The information is copied to the destination episode, but the assigned file name of the destination row is not touched.
29-31. Insert, Delete and Clear
At the lower left corner of the episode list view you find three rectangular buttons (29-31). The first [+]-button (29) is to add episodes (rows) to the list view. The episodes are added always at the end of the list. Add as many rows as the season has episodes. You see the current number of episodes in field (3). To delete one ore more episodes use the [-]-button (30). Select the episodes you want to delete before. Use the [x]-button (31) to clear all episode information and assigned file names of the current selected episodes.
32. Select All
This button selects all episodes in the list view. You can also use the common key sequence "cmd-A" for this.
33. Sort episodes
By pressing this button, you can sort the files in the episode list. If the filename contains a episode number (e.g. SxxExx), the files are arranged by that number. Otherwise MetaTV tries to sort the episodes according the the episode title. To do that, the episode title must be contained in the filename and the correct TV shor and season must be selected in the search drawer.
34. Tag Files
Press this button to tag all files in the episode list with the information and cover image. The status led (26) turn from yellow to green. If you activated the option „Use iTunes kompatible filenames“ the episode files are renamed.
ID-Window
35. X-ID
The x-ID is a special field, that you can use for your own purposes, e.g. special sorting.
36. TV show-ID
The TB show-ID identifies the TV show and is stored in the artist-ID.
37. Season-ID
The season-ID identifies the season of the TV show. This ID is stored in the playlist-iD.
38. Genre-ID
The genre-ID identifies the iTunes-genre.
39. Content-ID
The Content-ID is a iTunes specific number for a media content, e.g. a episode of a tv show.
40. Comment
You can add a arbitrary comment here.