Q: I really have been impressed with iTunes 7. Separating content by having distinct libraries was long overdue. However, I feel like they didn’t finish the job: iTunes still merges Music Videos and songs together. I don’t like Music Videos showing up on my iPod when going through my songs, and I especially don’t like them in the new Cover Art view in iTunes. I see them as separate entities, and wish there was a Music Videos library in iTunes. Am I missing something, or is there a way to do this?
– Niles
A: Unfortunately, there’s no way to elegantly give iTunes features like this, without Apple doing it for us. However, we can continue to do the workarounds we’ve recommended for similar questions at Ask iLounge: use Smart Playlists. This works especially well here since the new iTunes 7 sub-libraries (Music, Audiobooks, etc.) appear in smart playlist conditions the same way Playlists do.
First make a smart playlist that contains all your Music Videos using this logic:
Then, make another which uses the contents of your “Music” library (automatically weeding out Audiobooks, TV Shows, Podcasts, etc.), but explicitly removes those found in the new “Music Videos” playlist:
Name these appropriately, add a prefix so they stay together, and enjoy your new audio-only song list. We too wish that Apple had chosen to provide a new library for music video content – and perhaps Digital Booklets – rounding out the entire collection of possible iTunes media types, but this is an acceptable compromise until your feedback convinces Apple to make the change.