support XMP sidecars for non-image files?

[ramblinwreck]

[running PM 4.6.5 on OSX 10.6.4]

Hi,

Can PM be configured to support metadata (adding, editing) via XMP sidecars to files that it doesn't recognize as image files?

My specific interest is being able to keyword/caption .MTS (video) files - it seems there's really no good solution out there for these files. Although my specific interest is for video files, seems this could be useful in a wider sense - i.e. support for file metadata (via sidecars) for any file type unrecognized by PM - perhaps any kind of media file that a still or video camera might produce (audio, video, photo).

I understand that PM is primarily a photo application (and the desire for it to remain as such to continue to excel at what it does), so I understand if this is outside the scope of what PM is designed to do, but I thought I'd ask if there is a way to do this. I've found that PM will rename my MTS files using the same variable string ({dats}_{tims}) I use for my photos, so it would be really neat if I could use PM to add some basic metadata to each file.

To be clear, I am NOT trying to get PM...
- to play my video files
- to _embed_ metadata into my video files

Thanks,
Chris

[Kirk Baker]

Chris,

[running PM 4.6.5 on OSX 10.6.4]
Can PM be configured to support metadata (adding, editing) via XMP sidecars to files that it doesn't recognize as image files?

My specific interest is being able to keyword/caption .MTS (video) files - it seems there's really no good solution out there for these files. Although my specific interest is for video files, seems this could be useful in a wider sense - i.e. support for file metadata (via sidecars) for any file type unrecognized by PM - perhaps any kind of media file that a still or video camera might produce (audio, video, photo).

I understand that PM is primarily a photo application (and the desire for it to remain as such to continue to excel at what it does), so I understand if this is outside the scope of what PM is designed to do, but I thought I'd ask if there is a way to do this. I've found that PM will rename my MTS files using the same variable string ({dats}_{tims}) I use for my photos, so it would be really neat if I could use PM to add some basic metadata to each file.

To be clear, I am NOT trying to get PM...
- to play my video files
- to _embed_ metadata into my video files

There is currently no way to do that directly, but if you were to place a RAW file next to the MTS video file with the same base name as the MTS file then you could caption the RAW file and a XMP file will be created with the same base name.

HTH,

-Kirk

[ramblinwreck]

Thanks for the reply Kirk. I'll play with this (maybe with some scripting) and see if I can make it work for me.