"PlaycCount is..." Smart Folder

January 3, 2006 9:08 PM

Is there any way in OS X Tiger to create a Smart Folder of movies (mostly .avi) with the condition "Play Count Is...", as in iTunes? I'd like to make an "unseen movies" folder. This is very easy to do in iTunes, but I don't seem to see such an option in the Finder.

Alternatively (even better, in fact), is there some sort of free/cheap iTunes like interface for organizing videos? I don't have a 5G iPod, so the "Movies" tab of iTunes isn't really useful here. I use VLC as a player, FWIW.

posted by rossination to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I'm pretty certain that there's no way for the OS iteself to count how many times you've played a file... the only way iTunes knows you've played a file is because a playcount is written to iTunes' XML file....
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:19 PM on January 3, 2006

Oh, crap -- I hadn't thought of that. OK, then, I guess now I'm just looking for some sort of sorting/organizing interface. Or maybe general organization suggestions.
posted by rossination at 9:21 PM on January 3, 2006

Why not use iTunes? It won't import the .avis, but if you have QuickTime Pro or some other similar utility, you can save a .mov "reference movie" that iTunes will import and play just fine.
posted by kindall at 11:47 PM on January 3, 2006

You can do a smart folder using "last opened" as a criterion; does that get you what you want? Note that it looks like you have to double click the movie rather than open it from within VLC to have the last opened flag modified.
posted by kimota at 3:53 AM on January 4, 2006

This might be more complicated that what you're looking for, but it should work.

All files have "Spotlight Comments" in Tiger that are accessible from Automator or an Applescript. It seems like you could build a little Automator application that you could drop your movie file on which would increment the Spotlight Comment by one and then pass the file on to VLC for regular consumption.

I'm not sure how you'd go about displaying the Spotlight comment in the Finder, though.
posted by bshort at 8:08 AM on January 4, 2006