quicktime metadata

[cbm]

Hello,

I'm a newish user of filemaker and could use some help. I'm building a database to track video assets (mainly quicktime) using the pbcore metadata standard. This standard had some metadata fields that are embedded within the quicktime files (mostly tied to the technical attributes of the files - eg. filesize, aspect ratio, frame rate, frame size, etc.). I know that there must be a way to automate this process but am having trouble figuring it out.

Ideally, a user would add a file to a container (reference versus the file itself) and a script would run that would fill in these metadata fields.

I'm not sure how to proceed.

I've figured out how to get the file location using the GetAsText( container ) calculation. I'm not sure if the calculation function will allow me to get the additional metadata.

I've seen scripts like itunes to FMP that will import data using xml and xsl files. This doesn't seem to quite match my needs because users will be entering files one by one.

I've also looked at quicktime applescripts at http://www.apple.com/applescript/quicktime/ but am not sure how to make them work with filemaker.

Does anyone have an example script/database to get at some of the quicktime metadata using a filemaker container field?

thanks for any guidance,

Cecelia

Edited April 11, 2007 by Guest

[Fenton]

Their "Info for Front Movie" could fairly easily be modified to set FileMaker fields, instead of just producing a dialog as it is now. It would need a little rewriting, to address the file of the movie directly, and also to end the Quicktime tell block sooner, then set the FileMaker fields. I don't know that it gets all the info you want however.

It would be run in a Perform AppleScript script step, after going to a layout with the fields on it (simplest). This would be part of the Insert script, so it would be user-transparent.

As far as the file path, the Mac syntax path can be calculated from the FileMaker syntax path, which is returned by GetAsTex().

I'm afraid I don't have time right now to do this, as I've got to run. I'll be back later.

[cbm]

Thanks so much for the response.

I'm having trouble figuring out where the information lives in Quicktime. There is some information that I can see when I look at movie properties in Quicktime (seems to be technical information). Then there seems to be some user added metadata fields (annotations) like Album, Artist, Author, Comment, etc. I'm most interested for now in the technical information (movie properties). I know the metadata is in the files from tools like metadata hootenanny (love the name) and CatDV.

The list of fields that I'm working to automate are below. I think that if I just had a template for how to get the data from a few fields in quicktime, then I could figure the others out.

Thanks again,

Cecelia

PBCore -----> Quicktime Field

------

Format Digital --------> MovieImportGetMIMETypeList

(eg. video/quicktime or image)

Standard -----> ??

(eg. quicktime, mpeg video)

Encoding -----> ??

(eg. mpeg 1, mpeg4)

FileSize (in bytes) -----> File Size (movie info)

I've seen posts on this, seems problematic

Duration ----> Duration (movie info)

Sampling Rate -----> scSoundSampleRateType

(eg. 32 kHz)

BitDepth -----> ??

(eg. 8bit, 16bit)

Colors -----> ??

(e.g color, grayscale)

Aspect Ratio -----> ??

(e.g. 4:3)

Frame Rate --------> FPS and playing FPS (movie info)

(e.g. 24 fps)

Frame Size -----> ??

(eg 1280x720)

Data Rate --------> Data Rate (movie info)

(1.2 metabits per second)

Tracks -----> ??

(eg. 2 video tracks, 1 audio track)

Channel Configuration -----> ??

(eg. 2 track stereo)

[cbm]

WOW, that's awesome. Thanks so much. It really helps to have a sample database like this. I can't thank you enough!

Cecelia

[cbm]

I've had fun playing with this database/script set. Its odd .. it works with some of the quicktime files (m4v and mp3)that I've tried. In other cases, it causes my system to hang and then I will eventually get an error message back saying there was a problem with quicktime (mp4 files). I downloaded a few files from the Prelinger Archives - http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger (Drop and Roll and A is for Atom) to test things out -)

I guess this works with apple oriented movie files.

Its interesting .. it causes problems when I run the quicktime scripts from here (e.g. track info) - http://www.apple.com/applescript/quicktime/. Metadata Hootenany seems to be able to grab metadata from the files.

[Fenton]

I deleted the earlier file. It seems that my line to get the count of frames of every track was a bit daft; the 1st track was the video, other tracks were audio or other, which maybe don't have frames. In any case, trying to get all the frames of every track was hanging Quicktime Player (bad) on some movies. So now it's just counting the frames of the 1st track, then dividing by the duration in seconds (from the metadata, not from Quicktime), to get the frames/sec.

I did not see a simple "frames per sec" in either the metadata or in Quicktime's AppleScript dictionary. All I could see to do would be to get the duration in seconds and the frame count, and calculate.

Bear in mind that I don't know much about movies, nor have many movies to test this on. You really should look at Quicktime Player's AppleScript dictionary yourself, and run the mdls metadata.scpt, to see what metadata is available. I don't know what some items mean, like: kMDItemVideoBitRate = 265.12

Also, if a step is problematic, it can be safely bypassed with a "try" block. Perhaps the whole darn block of tests. Better than getting stuck I guess. But I didn't do that; I want to see errors first.

Movie_Metadata.zip

[cbm]

Thanks for the updated file. I'll definitely take a look at the Quicktime dictionary. I didn't know how to start to get filemaker and quicktime to talk to each other so this really helps a lot.

Thanks again for all your help! Seemed to work when I threw some of the files I was having trouble with earlier at it.

[Franco]

try www.powersolutions.it PSmediaplayer plugin

by

franco