Three Video iPod Problems
Posted November 1st, 2005 @ 07:51pm by Erik J. Barzeski
My first day as a video iPod owner and I've got problems. I've spent about as much time investigating them as I can, and I've solved a few. Here, then, are the unresolved issues:
Problem One: Why Not?
For whatever reason, a few of the photos I have in iPhoto (JPEGs) won't synchronize to the iPod. There's nothing wrong with the files - I've checked them in every way imaginable, reverted them to the original, and done more troubleshooting. Nothing works. I think the problem may have to do with images that are automatically rotated by my camera, but that just seems too stupid to be worth checking out.
More below…
Problem Two: WHY NOT?
I have no idea why "some of the songs and videos" cannot be played. At first, this dialog mentioned one video specifically. After removing that video and two others like it (all three of which played fine within iTunes and QuickTime Player), the warning became generic (see below). My 3G iPod never complained or had trouble playing any of my songs.
This is a video iPod - it's supposed to play "songs and videos." Yet, for whatever reason, it thinks it cannot play certain songs or movies. Best yet, iTunes doesn't know enough to tell me why it cannot play certain "songs and videos."
Problem Three: Music Videos
I've converted some .mov files on my computer to .m4v files so that I can play them on the iPod in the iPod's most native format. Some of the files happen to be music videos. I own a Shania Twain DVD or two, for example, and made my own videos from them. (I also "borrowed" quite a few music videos from iTunes when they were easily pilfered from the temp dir.)
How in the world, then, can I get the iPod to recognize my music videos as music videos? I've compared the ID3 tags - they look similar. The only video in my iPod's "Music Videos" section is the one music video I bought from the iTunes Music Store… in an attempt to find a difference.
Derrr, see first comment. I tried changing the genre, but not anything in the "Options" tab.
Donate Life
Posted 01 Nov 2005 at 9:27pm #
I believe if you Get Info on the movie in your iTunes library, you can set the video kind in the Options tab. Hope this helps.
Posted 01 Nov 2005 at 10:07pm #
I've seen problem two before on other iPods. Usually it happens when I have a stream in my iTunes Library, which for obvious reasons cannot be synced to the iPod. But I don't know if there are other reasons it can happen.
Posted 01 Nov 2005 at 10:43pm #
I had the same problem with some of my MP3 files after upgrading to a new PowerBook. Get Info on the photo. Look at the Where information on the Summary tab. In my case the Where (location property if you are using AppleScript) showed a path pointing to a mail message with a mail message extension. iTunes couldn't copy it to the iPod because it knows the iPod can't deal with mail message format. I'm not sure how the iTunes library got so munged, but about a dozen of my tracks were corrupted when the music library was imported.
Another 50 entries had their location completely wiped out so when you played the tune you had to point iTunes at it with an Open File browser. This trick doesn't work when the location property points to a valid file that's not a recognized media type, though.
I spend the better part of Saturday afternoon un-munging my library. Tried to do an AppleScript to do this automatically, and found one that would identify all the 'dead' tracks so i could do the re-find automatically. But the only solution to the problem where the location property pointed to a mail file was to go delete the track and re-add it. (AppleScript doesn't let you edit the location property.)
Posted 01 Nov 2005 at 11:37pm #
Sadly being a Windows user, I haven't experienced precisely the same issues with my video iPod, but I had something similar with the generic "cannot play songs/videos" message. My issue arose from the program I used to encode the video file; some that I had encoded using VLC refused to work, even though Quicktime recognized them as being valid MP4s, and played them.
My question is: why are you converting the files to M4Vs? That's just Apple's DRM'd MP4 format, and, going out on a limb, it might be a source of some issues..?
Posted 02 Nov 2005 at 1:49am #
Yoel: Actually, when it comes to creating files, M4V just seems to be a file extension that signifies an iPod compatible movie when created by QuickTime. The movie file is in AAC+H.264 but doesn't seem to be DRMed in any way at all - the iTunes "Kind" column reads simply "MPEG-4 video file" without "protected" anywhere, and Getting Info on it shows no records of iTMS accounts. I also think it's ridiculous that the video files you export yourself should be DRMed, so this is just logical.
(Note that I haven't been able to actually buy a "protected" video yet so I have nothing to compare to.)
Posted 02 Nov 2005 at 3:28am #
I had some MP3s I couldn't copy to the iPod back in the day. The solution was to go to Advanced -> Encode as ___ and reencode them. I forget was exactly the common thread was between the bad MP3s, but it was something like being MPEG 1 layer 2 or something.
Posted 02 Nov 2005 at 8:04am #
Yoel, as Jesper says, I'm only converting copies, and obviously mine don't have any DRM in them. I'm just using QuickTime Player's export to iPod feature (from QT 7.0.3). It even correctly handles wide-screen aspect ratio videos.
I'll try to find some "dead" tracks - that may be the cause. I'll report back.
Update: All of my songs are "non-dead." So they should be fine.
Posted 02 Nov 2005 at 10:18pm #
iTunes and Quicktime can play some songs that the iPod cannot. Specifically, I had problems with MPEG-2 audio files. (These files also failed to be previewable in the Finder.)
Posted 04 Nov 2005 at 7:41am #
yer itunes can play .mp2 and .mid but the ipod cannot play either of these
Posted 04 Nov 2005 at 9:17pm #
hey can i hear someone about ipod nano
Posted 01 Feb 2006 at 2:59am #
I made that same exact error, not knowing to go into options to change what type of video I was importing (in my case, a music video as well). I googled and all hope seemed lost until I came across your post. Thanks!
Posted 12 Feb 2006 at 7:23am #
I have the same problem. But it started suddendly!
It just doesnt recognise them anymore... they not copyrighted or have any protectioin on it.
Before the problem was with one or two files now is with almost all the video files!
Dunno what to do
Posted 15 May 2006 at 3:43pm #
another problemi have with my video ipod is that if i have songs from one artist that have an album entry, and other songs from the same artist with nothing in the album field, then when i search through my muic via the 'artists'tab, i am only shown the ongs from that artist that i have entered an album name into. this sounds like something that should be a simple setting, but i havnt found anyhting as of yet
Posted 24 Sep 2006 at 1:20pm #
In iTunes 7, go into the movie area. You may find your quicktime audio files there. on each one that's not imported to the iPod, (on a Mac) hit Control while clicking to bring up a context-sensitive menu. Select "Convert Selection for iPod." You will then see under playlists on the right "Converting songs..." Unfortunately, you can't do this for more than one file at a time.
Posted 18 Oct 2006 at 5:18pm #
I got a bunch of music videos that wouldn't play so I converted them like itunes said to do and they play now, but no sound comes out, any ideas on what to do?
Posted 22 Nov 2006 at 7:19am #
yeh same probs here olivia. i think there was a recall with that tho.
Posted 20 Dec 2006 at 11:42am #
I just bought a new Ipod video, tried to convert some videos I got and played them on my ipod. The videos came out as expected but there was no sound. Can someone help me with this? Thanks in advance.
Posted 24 Jan 2007 at 2:44am #
yeah me too i cannot find any site that helps me with this but all mpeg files i convert DO NOT PLAY SOUND! and it's starting to bug me. haha heeeeelllllp
Posted 16 Feb 2007 at 2:39pm #
Same problem here.. brand new video ipod won't play any kind of video.
I can't import any kind of QT file into itunes either.
I drag and drop and nothing happens. This should be a bigger story.
get the word out to digg, technorati etc....
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 5:04pm #
😯
When I first bought my iPod, I could download videos and play them. Ever since I copied files from the hidden folders, and my computer had to reboot, my iPod will not play videos. I also use a sync cable, not the original apple one, so maybe that is the problem.
Posted 16 May 2007 at 10:54am #
hi i bought my son an ipod video 30gb it was don alright then one went to use it and screen was blank then i thought it might need charging so i put it to my laptop and theres a sad face on it but it wont charge or do anthing could you please help me and tell me wats wrong as my son is guted and loves usin his ipod cheers michelle
Posted 22 May 2007 at 5:22pm #
I bought videos direct from iTunes and now some of them don't play, just the audio comes through like it's a song. Why?
Posted 26 May 2007 at 12:01pm #
I've got a new video iPod with the same problems as #1 & #2. This is on a Windows Vista machine that actually will blue screen sometimes if I drag and drop an mp4 into the videos section of iTunes. Nice 😕
Posted 03 Sep 2007 at 4:20pm #
hello there....i had the same problem as u were. did u happen to sort it out? why is it when i convert the videos it came out ok but theres no sound? pls help me thanks in advance
Posted 05 Sep 2007 at 3:41pm #
Hi,
For all these days i am using my IPOD.
Suddenly now i found that my IPOD is not getting ON.
Computer is not recognizing it. One i try to charge it, is giving a white screen with out any image in it.
Anyone please help me to solve this.
Posted 19 Apr 2008 at 1:42pm #
Alright I Opened itunes put my movies in my movie folder and then went to the "get info" tab I set quite a bit of my videos to "music video" and now I can find it! I don't have a music video category under my ipod which means I can't organize it. But in my Ipod they are all under the music video section. I just need to know how to look at my music video section. Please HELP!