Organizing Video Files with Mac OS X

My friends are always commenting on my ability at organization so I thought I'd share some of my strategies for organizing video files with Mac OS X. I have several hundred video files spread over several hard disks, CDs and DVDs, as well as over 100 purchased DVDs, and keeping track of all those files can be made easy with some free cataloging tools. In this article, I describe ways to organize video files using Mac OS X built-in software as well as some free programs you can download.

Finder

The most obvious way to start organizing your video files is with Finder folders. The only problem with traditional Finder folders is that you need to manually add items to the folders, and, therefore, need to know where your video files are located. This can be time consuming and difficult if you have hundreds of video files scattered all over your hard drives. Fortunately, Mac OS X has a feature that makes working with folders easier. A Smart folder stores links to files based on criteria you set for the Smart folder, so you can easily create a Smart folder that contains links to all your video files. Smart folders use "live updating" and, therefore, when you add new video files to your hard drive, links to those files are automatically added to the Smart folder.

iTunes

iTunes is perfect for storing certain types of video files, especially if you own an iPod. The latest version of iTunes helps you by providing automatic separate divisions for Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and iTunes U. Within each of most of Apple's categories, files are further divided according to information you assign to your files. For example, I have my movies divided into several genres such as Music Videos, Mac Videos, Old Videos, and Home Videos and they are all neatly organized in iTunes' Movies section according to these genres. In addition, iTunes divides subcategories by artist and album (or by show and season for TV shows) to make it even easier to find the exact video you're looking for and to keep all videos in iTunes well organized.

Two other features of iTunes can help you stay organized. First, you can create Smart playlists that contain links to files that meet specific criteria such as artist, type of file and date created. A second feature of iTunes that you might not be aware of is the ability to have more than one iTunes library. If your iTunes music and video collection is too large, you can store the files in separate libraries, perhaps one library for each iPod you own. You can also store your libraries on external hard drives so disk space is no longer a limitation for iTunes libraries.

iPhoto

iPhoto is not just for photos anymore - it can also be used for movies and, just like iTunes, iPhoto lets you create multiple libraries that can be stored on any hard drive. Once you've created a video library and imported your video files into the library, you can organize them is by adding keywords to the files and then creating Smart albums based on keyword criteria.

Free Video Cataloging Programs

Finder, iTunes and iPhoto are great for videos on your hard drives but they can't catalog your DVD collection. However, two good free programs can do this. fennel DVDManager and DVDtheque are similar and, interestingly, both are created by French developers. Both programs are universal binary and, therefore, can be used with PPC and Intel Macs. Either program can search the Internet for information on any DVD title and, if the title is found, you can add the information and a cover picture for the DVD to your catalog.

Disclaimer: All trademarks and products mentioned in this article are assumed to be the property of their owners and no infringement of rights is intended through mention of the products in this article.