Q: I have added some TV shows to my iPod. They are listed as TV Shows and when the iPod is connected to iTunes there is a folder called TV Shows where they appear. However, when I disconnect the iPod and look in the Video menu there is no TV Show folder in there, only Movies and Music Videos.
I have created a Smart playlist for them but I would prefer it if there was a TV Show folder like there is Movies and Music videos. Is there anyway of creating these main folders on your iPod? I hope you know what I mean and any help would be great.
– Matt
A: The most common cause of this problem is that the TV Shows have not been properly tagged. In order for a TV Show to appear on the iPod as a TV Show, the Video Kind tag must be set to “TV Show” and it must have a “Show Name” filled in. This problem commonly occurs when ripping your own TV Shows, since any new video files added to iTunes come in with a video kind of “Movie” by default.
For a TV Show, the actual track name refers to the episode title of the individual show (ie, “Trash of the Titans”), whereas the Show Name field refers to the name of the TV Series itself (ie, “The Simpsons”). Since the iPod indexes TV Shows based on their Show name, episodes with a blank show name are not available on the iPod. Further, if there are NO TV episodes with the show name filled in, the iPod will simply omit the “TV Shows” menu option from under the “Videos” menu, since there’s nothing to display in it (as far as the iPod is concerned).
