iTunes Extras Template

This project provides a convenient way to generate custom iTunes Extras for your Movies. The template looks very similar to the new (online) iTunes Extras however with some drawbacks:

• Chapters do not work. It would be possible to show chapters in the extras but since iTunes 12 starting a chapter will start the main movie from the beginning.
• There is no connection to the iTunes Store. There is no Related tab.

Prerequisites

The iTunes Extras template uses Node.js for its compilation mechanism. You need to have a Node.js instance on your system in order to successfully compile the extras. To install the required packages navigate into the root folder of the project with a Terminal and run npm install.

Tutorial: Creating iTunes Extras

Step 1: Tagging the Movie

1. Firstly you might want to create your movie file (in mp4/m4v format). The movie file should be tagged as usual including the movie title, artist, description etc.

2. Add the content ID tag to the movie and assign it a unique 9 digit number. Normally a random 9 digit number will be sufficient.

3. Add the XID tag to the movie. The XID has to be formatted in the following way:

   TEST:uuid:<UUID>
   

   where <UUID> is a valid UUID. You can generate a UUID using the uuidgen command line app.

The content ID and XID are used to link the iTunes Extras to the movie file.

Step 2: Tagging your Extras

Open the data.json file and edit it as follows:

• Add the movie's metadata to the "meta" part of the file. This may include the movie's "title", "artist", "description", "longDescription", "genre", "releaseDate", "year", "studio" and "sort-name".
• Change the "XID" to the XID you previously assigned to the movie file.
• Change the "movieID" to the movie's content ID.
• Change the "extrasID" to a different 9 digit number (this is the content ID of the iTunes Extras).
• Optionally you may adapt the "extrasVersion" and/or "extrasBuildNumber" to a value of your liking.

Step 3: Adding Features (Extras)

Features (extras) are probably the reason for you creating a custom iTunes Extras. First create *.m4v files and a preview image for each of your features. The *.m4v files may contain chapter markers however the chapters can only be selected while playing a feature. The preview images should be in *.png format. It is unneccesary to tag the extras (name, artist artwork etc.) since those tags will not appear in iTunes.

Add your features to the assets/videos folder and the preview images to the assets/images folder. The filenames should be URL friendly, that is not contain spaces, umlauts or other special characters. The order of the features in the folder does not matter. The filenames of a feature and its preview image may be different (however it is recommended to use the same filename).

Step 4: Tagging Features

Now your features will be included in the iTunes Extras but there is no way yet to start a feature. In order for the features to appear in the Features section you have to add an entry like the following to the "features" array in the data.json file:

"title": "A Title",
"description": "A (short) Description",
"src": "feature01.m4v",
"imageName": "feature01.png",
"duration": "43:03"

The value for "src" is the filename of the feature (in the assets/videos folder) and the value for the "imageName" is the filename of the corresponding preview image in the assets/images folder.

The order of the items in the "features" array in data.json determines the order of the features in the iTunes Extras.

Step 5: Finishing Touches

Your iTunes Extras should now work, however they might not look that pretty. To improve the experience you can add the following:

• Add a PNG formatted file iTunesArtwork to the assets folder. Note that the file does not have a file extension (it should however be in PNG format).
• Add a background.png image to assets/images. This image will be used as a background image for your iTunes Extras.
• Add a background.m4a audio file to assets/audio. This audio will be used as background audio for your extras. The audio will be played in a loop.

Step 6: Compiling the Extras

To create a iTunes Extras file from the data you provided just run the compile.sh script. This will create an iTunes Extras.ite file that you can import into iTunes. It is recommended to import the actual movie before the iTunes Extras.