Music videos play audio only

By Jesse Hollington @jhollington ● Friday, November 12, 2010

Q: Recently my computer crashed and we had to wipe it and in the process I lost all my songs and videos. I used Sharepod to transfer all my songs and videos onto my iTunes on my “new” computer, but now my videos wont play on my first-generation iPod touch. They play in iTunes just fine, but they are not in the music video tab and when I sync them onto my iPod touch they dont appear in the Video app but rather in the Music app and when I click to watch one its just a still image with the music playing. Any help?

- Anonymous

A: In certain cases it is possible for imported videos to be incorrectly flagged in iTunes as simply “Music” tracks rather than “Music Video” tracks, which could result in the behaviour you’re experiencing.

You can check this by selecting one of your music videos in iTunes and examining the track properties by choosing File, Get Info from the iTunes menu. In the file information dialog box, choose the “Options” tab and confirm that the “Media Kind” field is set to “Music Video.”

You can also adjust this setting for multiple tracks at once simply by selecting all tracks that you want to update before opening the Get Info screen.

You should also ensure that your sync settings for your iPod touch within iTunes are set to include Music Videos by selecting the appropriate option on the “Music” sync settings screen.