Spatial Media Metadata Injector tool on M1 Mac

Having just upgraded to a 2021 MacBook Pro (M1 Max) from my 2017 (Intel) model, there were always going to be the odd bit of software that there were issues running. The Spatial Media Metadata Injector app, used to inject Metadata into 360 videos so that the controls work when uploaded to YouTube was one of those. The app is available here:

https://github.com/google/spatial-media/releases

As this app hasn’t been updated since 2016, it’s not going to be a universal app, but even under rosetta, it closes immediately on launch.

As this is a python app, it can be launched via python from the command line: 

1. Install python if you don’t already have it, the easiest way to do this is to install it via homebrew with the command:

brew install python

If you’ve installed the apple silicon version of homebrew, then you’ll get the apple silicon version of python.

2. Download the source use from the above url and unzip it.  

3. Move the unzipped folder to somewhere permanent, I used:

/Users/peter/Projects/Python/spatial-media-2.1

4. Test the app with the following command (Modify path as required):

python /Users/peter/Projects/Python/spatial-media-2.1/spatialmedia/gui.py

Et Voila, the app launches.

However it would be nice to not have to use the terminal to run this every time, so use the shortcuts app to create a shortcut to run the command with a single action: ‘Run Shell Script’, into which you can paste the command that you tested.

You can then add the shortcut to the ‘Menu Bar’ folder in the shortcuts app. When you have at least one shortcut in there, an icon will appear in the menu bar through which you can run the shortcut.