mp4-video-helpers Files

I have written a couple of utility programs in tck/tk to fill a need or at least a wish that I had. I would like to contribute them somehwere, somehow in the hopes that someone else might find them useful.

mp4tags-tk: Such an original name. I wrote it because I wanted to add tags to my video collection so that I could easily look through them and know what the video/movie is about then select the one I wished to watch. All of the programs I saw are slanted towards music videos and the like with fields like album, album artist, and the like. Using the Handbrake setup as a guide and mp4info, I set up fields to correspond to movie information, Title, Actors, Directors, Plot, etc. and got it working pretty well. Now the code in pretty ugly. I am nowhere near a comprtent programmer in tcl-tk. But I was able to scour the internet and find examples and tutorials enough to cobble together this bit of software. So, anyone who downloads this program will be able easily add tags to their mp4 or m4v videos that make sense. All I can say is that it works for me.

Movie-Selector: Once I got my movies (mostly ) tagged I fed them to Kodi, but found out that Kodi does not read local tags but scrapes internet sites such as IMDB for cover art and movie info. That can be a hit or miss situation as there are many different movies in different genres with the same title. If the title does not have enough information the results can be comical. Plex is the same way. And you really have to set up your directories in an exacting manner to get anything useful on television shows. I do not really care to have a beautiful display when I am browsing movies. I just want to know the info. So I wrote another program that I can use to browse my video collection read the information, then click, click, and my selection pops up in SMPlayer. Of course the program can be easily improved, such as scaling, and maybe someone can find a way to have directories displayed in a different color from regular files. I assumed a display of 1920 by 1080 because that is what I have. If someone has a different resolution the program can be modified to suit. I set the fonts big enough that I can read them with my fading eyes from my seat on the couch.

Installtion: If you are reading this you probably have unpacked the programs already. Just copy them to an execution directory in your path. I use /usr/local/bin myself.

Dependencies: You need tcl/tk of course. I wrote it using an 8.6 environment but it will probably work under 8.4. You will also need the mp4v2-utils.At least that is the name in Debian Stretch. The utilities used are mp4info and mp4tags (naturally). mp4tag-tk will not run on windows as it uses the sed command utility to present the mp4info in a video/movie format instead of a musical album/cd format. I am sure it can be modified to run under windows by removing that prettifying kludge.

License: The programs are released under the standard tcl/tk license. A copy is included at the end of each program.

Guarantees: None. Nothing is implied or given in way, form, or, fashion. The programs are free to use and modify and redistribute according to the terms of the tcl/tk license. I do hope someone finds the programs useful.

Glenn

The below contact information is good as of July of 2018. Constructive criticism is welcome. Flames are also welcome, even a firestorm of protest as I am standing at hell's gate and hell is frozen over.

Glenn Thigpen: thomas.g.thigpen@gmail.com

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