Manage and Play Videos in iTunes

Manage and Play Videos in iTunes

Coolness, thy name is iTunes. Now you can play QuickTime videos in iTunes. They can be QuickTime videos that you made or professional videos that you've downloaded from the iTunes Music Store.

Download videos from iTunes Music Store

The iTunes music store includes video with some songs or albums. Some albums also may include a Digital Bookleta PDF document that contains extra photos, music credits, and song lists. Look for a booklet icon or a video camera icon (shown below) next to song names in the Music Store. When you buy a song or album that includes either of these two extras, they're downloaded to iTunes along with the music you purchase.

These icons appear in your iTunes window after you've downloaded your music, as shown below. Double-click the video file to play it. The video plays in the bottom-left pane of the iTunes window (unless you set a different preference, explained on the next page). Click once on the video and it opens in a separate window, as shown at the top of the next page. Click the Full Screen button (circled below) to show the movie full screen.

When you open a video in a separate window, you have access to the Play controls so you can place the playhead anywhere in the movie or scrub back and forth through your favorite scenes.

Control-click on the video's window to open a contextual menu from which you can change the movie size .

If you want to grab the video you downloaded from iTunes Music Store and copy it to another computer or onto a disc, you'll find it buried deep within your Home Folder's Music folder.

Import your own QuickTime videos

If you have a QuickTime movie that you exported from iMovie or that was imported into iPhoto from your digital camera, store them in iTunes and play them whenever you want, without having to search your hard disk for them. You can drag a QuickTime file from any location on your computer to the iTunes window to put it in the Library.

Create a video Smart Playlist

So videos will be easy to find, create a Smart Playlist whose condition says that "Kind contains QuickTime Movie" (shown to the right).

Set a default for video playback

When you select a video in the song list and click the Play button (or when you double-click a song to play it), it might play "in the main window" (the small video pane in the bottom-left corner of the window, as shown on the previous page), "in a separate window" (as shown above), or in "full screen" mode.

If you burn a disc of a playlist that contains video, the videos are burned to the disc as audio files only.

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To set a default for how a video plays, open iTunes preferences, then click the "Advanced" button in the toolbar. Checkmark the "Play videos" option. From the pop-up menu, choose the way you want iTunes to initially show a video, then click OK .

The Source Pane

This is where you select the music collection that you want to display in the Detail window. Icons for the following types of sources can be found in the Source pane.

If you want to delete a playlist in the Source pane, select it, then from the Edit menu choose "Clear."

Or Control-click on a playlist, then choose "Clear" from the menu that pops up.

Or select a playlist, then press the Delete key on your keyboard.

Library : This is your entire collection of iTunes music. Click the "Library" icon in the Source pane to view all the songs in iTunes. When you drag a song file from the Library to a playlist (as explained on page 69), the song remains in the Library and creates a directory that tells iTunes which songs are attached to various collections. You can put the same song in as many playlists as you want without bloating your computer with extra copies of large music files.

Party Shuffle : This is an automated playlist that selects a designated number of songs and plays them for you, constantly refreshing the playlist with selections based on your Party Shuffle settings. See page 92 for details.

Radio : Listen to streaming Internet radio stations . Learn how on page 72.

Music Store : Click this icon to connect directly to the iTunes Music Store. This is where you find, preview, purchase, and download songs or audiobooks. It's packed with powerful features. Learn more starting on page 74.

Purchased Music : This playlist keeps track of the music you've purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

CD icon : If you have a CD inserted in your CD drive, its icon shows in the Source pane. Click it to see a list of songs on the CD . To eject a CD , click the Eject symbol to the right of the CD icon.

iPod : If you connect an iPod, its icon appears in the Source pane. Select it to see the songs and playlists you've copied to it. See pages 120127 for more iPod information.

Shared playlists : If you've set iTunes to "Look for shared music," and if it finds a Shared playlist on your local network, a new icon appears in the Source panea stack of documents with a music note on top. In the example shown above-left, "Quicksilver Music" is a shared music Library on a computer named Quicksilver. A click on the disclosure triangle reveals all the playlists in that Library. Learn how to share your playlists with others on your network on page 94.

Smart playlists : These automated playlists have a gear symbol on them. Some were created by Apple for you, but you can create your own to automatically collect music in a playlist that meets your preset conditions. See page 71.

Playlists : Ordinary playlists have a note symbol on them. Learn more about playlists on pages 6971.