Hi Steve!!!
I've been playing quite a bit with synchronizing and the new conversion feature and have the following to report:
Methodology:
Restored the iPod usings Apple 1.2.6 Updater.
Formatted the iPod from inside Media Center.
Created a Smartlist that had a single artist for a small sample size.
Synchronized with
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Autosync unchecked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads checked, normalization set to 90%, conversion to 160, high speed. (For reference, all my MP3s are ripped at 320.)
Resynched with no changes.
Added second artist. Resynched.
Added third artist. Resynched.
Deleted second artist. Resynched.
Left clicked on iPod drive in Media Center, selected the second artist's songs and deleted them.
Right clicked in iPod drive in Media Center and formatted the iPod (to try and return the iPod to a known state). Resynched.
Right clicked in iPod drive in Media Center and formatted the iPod. Resynched with:
- Delete files not in list checked
- Update tags checked
- Autosync unchecked
- Options: force file conversions during uploads unchecked
Observations:
First sync worked flawlessly (converted to music 160 and normalized).
Second sync worked as well. It was great that Media Center recognized that the files didn't need to be reconverted as this saved a lot of time. I was surprised, however, that it took about 5 seconds to verify that each song was on the iPod and didn't need to be converted. Is there anything you can do to speed up this process?
Third sync broke down. Media Center falsely determined that the songs from the second artist did not need to be converted and uploaded them at their original quality of 320 and without normalization.
Fourth sync performed exactly as the third sync did. Media Center falsely determined that the songs from the third artist did not need to be converted and uploaded them at their original quality of 320 and without normalization. At this point the iPod had the original artist converted, normalized, and uploaded correctly, while the second and third artists were uploaded at the original quality.
Fifth sync did not delete any of the songs from the second artist. The iPod was left in the same state it was after the fourth sync.
Deleting the songs directly from the iPod didn't work correctly. The Artists, Genres, and Playlists were all updated correctly, but the second artist's albums were still left in the iPod's Albums list.
Formatting the iPod from inside Media Center appeared to work fine as all the songs, albums, artists, genres, and playlists were cleared from the iPod. However, when I resynched the sixth time, I immediately got a dialog that said "Failed to normalize".
Seventh worked for all the songs that weren't tied to the original three artists. For those artists I got a "File Error Information" dialog box that said "The following is a list of file that failed to transfer with an error code." I assume the error code is the "- 2" that is after each filename in the list. When I went to look at those files on my hard drive, THEY WERE GONE! I can assure you they were there originally. This is bad, bad, ju ju!
This is entirely reproducible on my PC / iPod combo.
By the way, any idea when I'll be able to normalize against replay gain? Is there a simple man explanation as to why this so difficult to do since you can normalize against ?
One more thing. I've been playing a lot with the "Full Albums" smartlist modifier and the "completealbums" keyword. From what I can determine, it looks like for a given playlist that the "Full Albums" modifier should identify all the albums that correspond to the given playlist and then return all the songs that are on those albums regardless of whether the albums are missing any tracks or not. The "completealbums==1" keyword also identifies all the albums that correspond to a given playlist, but differs from "Full Albums" by returning only the subset of tracks from the original playlist that belong to a complete album (i.e. albums that are not missing any tracks). Do I have this figured out correctly? If not, then can you explain the difference?
I'll be out of town until Tuesday so I won't be able to do any follow up testing until then. But I promise to bang some more if you can get rid of these bugs!
Cheers,
Kevin
Second generation winiPod (20GB) v1.2.6
Media Center Registered 9.0.179 -- C:\Program Files\Media Center\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 697 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 392 MB, Free - 168 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)
Ripping / Drive E: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Drive I: Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer CD Type:Auto Read speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: Yes Soundfile: chord.wav
Burning / Drive I: HP CD-Writer+ 9300 Addr: 3:0:0 Speed:10 MaxSpeed:10 Use MJ Engine:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: No / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None
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Topic: IPOD SUPPORT (Read 45710 times)