Replacement for iVI Pro Video Conversion

TidBITS Talk
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I wanted to start this discussion to have a little community help in finding Applications for the Mac to replace the Apps I have relied on for years, but will be going away with Mac OS 28. These typically are apps that I rely on for a specific use, and if I can find other applications that do the same thing that are Apple Silicon or Universal, I would love to hear from other people. They may also have work arounds that complete the same task.

My first piece of Software is from the old favorite SouthPoleSoftware. I think I remember them making Newton software in the past, but the one I use is iVI Pro Video Conversion software. I use this for one thing only, It will take a video file, such as a Movie, find it’s information online (Year, Director, Display screen image, etc) and put that data into the movie file and import it into AppleTV. Then I can use the Computers program on the AppleTV device and watch my movies. This software notified me today that it is unable to be validated online (the website is no longer active), but I would like to use it until I have to give it up and maybe replace it with something else.

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If I may distill your requirement to “take a movie file, get its metadata, watch it on AppleTV streaming box”, may I suggest Plex?

  • Install the free Plex media server on the Mac
  • Copy the video file to the Plex movie folder
  • Plex will probably support it as is. Plex will automatically look up metadata.
  • Install the free Plex app on the AppleTV
  • Use the Plex app to stream the movie from your Mac

You do not need a Plex Pass to stream from your server on your own local network.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Finding a native replacement for TurboTax

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If you want to ask for community help in finding replacement for an Intel-only app, please do it in specific thread for that app. A general thread for all Intel-only apps would become useless very quickly. I’ve renamed this one and broken the TurboTax discussion out into a different thread.

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I can see how the comments would get crowded.

I have tried Plex in the past but was less than thrilled with the interface and a bit too much tweaking needed. I will try it again. Does it actually change the file data to indicate the movie information, or just a soft link once you identify it?

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Plex doesn’t touch the file name; it maintains its own catalog. It is sort of like iTunes, except that it doesn’t rename files.

Plex needs to be able to identify the show files. It doesn’t use digital fingerprinting; it is going based on the file names. Thus, it has conventions for how to name TV show and movie files for best results. In my experience, it is more lenient than the published standards – it usually gets it right without assistance.