An annoying aspect regarding the use of Mac's iTunes for managing videos is that it supports a small amount of formats when importing local movies in your iTunes library. One solution for this issue comes from VideoDrive, a program that enables you to convert movies from your local directories and import the results in your iTunes library.
Before using this utility, you will need to complete several steps. You will get access to detailed instructions on a website recommended by the program. It involves the download of a couple of components and the use of Mac's Terminal. If you're a beginner Mac user, it might take you up to 10-20 minutes to complete the work.
Once you finish the aforementioned steps, simply drag-and-drop your movies over VideoDrive's interface, choose the preferred output settings, and click the "Add Videos To iTunes" button. The utility provides you with options for optimizing the imported movies for playback on Apple devices (Apple TV, iPad, iPod or iPhone), for locating and updating video metadata, etc.
You might need to wait a while for the program to import large-sized movies in your iTunes library. But it's definitely worth the wait.
To conclude, even though it comes with a couple of tiresome flaws, VideoDrive helps you complete a task that not many tools can, especially without video quality loss.
v2.6 [Apr 5, 2012]
- Added support for HandBrake version 0.9.8.
- Added support for DVDmedia files (import methods 5 until 8 only).Bug Fixes
- A time-out issue could occur when copying very large video files to an external slow disk.
- Installing HandBrake on 32-bit systems failed on some configurations.
- Using import method 6 on 32-bit systems with HandBrake failed on some configurations when selecting the second and/or third generation AppleTV on the Devices tab of Preferences.
