Topic: IPOD SUPPORT CONTINUED (Read 28891 times)

LarryJoe · « **Reply #100 on:** May 14, 2003, 06:38:49 am »

Steve,

I am at work, but I am using the version of MC and the plugin that was out there on Sunday. Has this specific problem been reported bu others?

I am running XP Home, P4 3.0ghz, 512MB RDRAM.

Thanks.

livewire313 · « **Reply #101 on:** May 14, 2003, 07:49:14 am »

My question is on transfer speeds.

What kind of speeds should i be getting and what factors contribute to speed?

curently i am only seing about 1.2 MB/sec when transfering files to my ipod using firewire. is this normal? it seems slow.

dobon · « **Reply #102 on:** May 14, 2003, 10:08:08 am »

I get appr. 6 MB / sec with a 60GB 5400rpm laptop drive and P4m 1.8 Ghz.
Maybe a defrag would help speeding up your drive?

cct1 · « **Reply #103 on:** May 14, 2003, 10:14:03 am »

Quote

My question is on transfer speeds.

What kind of speeds should i be getting and what factors contribute to speed?

curently i am only seing about 1.2 MB/sec when transfering files to my ipod using firewire. is this normal? it seems slow.

I get 7 to 8 mb/s. MC9 is the fastest synching application I've tried (I haven't tried Xplay though).

naven_r_johnson · « **Reply #104 on:** May 14, 2003, 11:04:25 am »

I am interested in importing addresses, phone numbers, and etc. to my iPod. Is there a way to "enable iPod as a hard disk" without installing MMJB? The iPod User's Guide says to drag the vCard file to the iPod's Contacts folder - which i do not see listed in MC. Thanks for any help ..n

Kurt Young · « **Reply #105 on:** May 14, 2003, 11:34:44 am »

Quote

I am interested in importing addresses, phone numbers, and etc. to my iPod. Is there a way to "enable iPod as a hard disk" without installing MMJB? The iPod User's Guide says to drag the vCard file to the iPod's Contacts folder - which i do not see listed in MC. Thanks for any help ..n

If you haven't installed any of the software that comes with your iPod, Windows will automatically mount it as a removable drive. It is the included software and MMJB that disable your iPod appearing as a drive, not the iPod itself.

Go into Windows Explorer or My Computer. You should see your iPod there as a removable drive called "IPOD" -- Mine is my E: drive at home. Double-click it. You will see the "Contacts" folders and so on.

Contacts, calendars, and notes are not a part of MMJB, nor are they a part of MC9.

naven_r_johnson · « **Reply #106 on:** May 14, 2003, 12:20:31 pm »

Doh! Too obvious!

Thanks Kurt ..n

Kurt Young · « **Reply #107 on:** May 14, 2003, 12:33:01 pm »

Think nufin uvit.

SteveG · « **Reply #108 on:** May 14, 2003, 12:42:03 pm »

livewire313,

Quote

What kind of speeds should i be getting and what factors contribute to speed?

Speeds will be determined by hardware and the code that performs the transfer (i.e. the plugin). My expectation is that MC's transfer speeds will be as fast or faster than any other solution.

LarryJoe,

Your hardware is simliar to mine and I do not have this problem. No one else has reported it either. Can anyone else confirm what LarryJoe is seeing?

cct1,

In regards to AAC, no support in the near future... too $$$

Palazzo,

If MC crashes when you click on the iPod drive letter, the most likely problem is a corrupted database. To resolve this, please reformat your iPod (either from Windows or using iPod Updater) and then reconnect and richt click on the drive and select "Format". You mentioned reformatting in your post, but it was not clear that you have tried it with the new Plugin.

Brad,

I will cover your issues in the next post.

Steve

Palazzo · « **Reply #109 on:** May 14, 2003, 12:53:46 pm »

Quote

I have the crash problem with my not-new iPod, but I'm running XP and the newest plug-in hasn't fixed it.

I was having a problem that the songs where not showing on my iPod listing, just the playlists with nothing listed in them, although all was actually well on the actual pod.

I tried rebuilding and reformating, to no avail. Then I downloaded the new version and the newest plug-in. Now MC9 shows the iPod as being there, but crashes when I click on it to see the files, with a small error box which just contains the following as a message: h.

And this after I changed from Xplay because it stopped letting me shuffle my playlists. Where is the instability here? None of my other hardware is behaving so cranky. Is the iPod just a piece of badly-designed unpredictable...

Ermmm...I'd like to be able to synch my iPod again one of these days - should I be using some other support method?

JimH · « **Reply #110 on:** May 14, 2003, 01:10:03 pm »

Are you using the latest version of MC and of the plug-in? Try updating both.

SteveG · « **Reply #111 on:** May 14, 2003, 01:39:27 pm »

Brad,

Quote

The conversion process would just hang. I would have to force quit MC and manually skip those albums. Any input here?

If it works most of the time but not on some files, I need to figure out what is peculiar about those certain files. If you could email one that fails, that would be great (steve @ jriver.com)

Quote

2) The directions for the iPod/MC setup and synching that are pointed to in the help file are a great help! So much so, that you may want to consider actually including them with the MC distribution.

Good suggestion. Updated help is being prepared.

Quote

3) With the newer version(s) of MC & the handheld plugin, does the iPod still need to be named "IPOD"? Why the need for that in the first place?

You do not have to name your iPod "IPOD". If you want to name it something else, you can, you just need to notify MC what you have named it under Tools->Plug-in Manager->Handheld->PortableDrive->Configure. The reason for this is that we need a way to identify the iPod from any number of removable devices that may or may not be attached to your system.

Quote

The error dialog was unsettling. My only guess is that there are filename problems of some kind. What are the circumstances under which this dialog appears?

In regards to file size, if you try to synch too many files, this should not create a problem, we should just stop transferring when the allowable space is exhasted. The error dialog appears whenever there is a failure in the file transfer. The code for the transfer is pretty simple and uses generic windows function calls so if there is a failure it is most likely a path problem.

Quote

5) The error dialog about file synch problems showed the full path of the songs that had problems, but spilled very wide on my screen. If I knew how to do screen shots, I'd show you what I meant. It might be better if this dialog was more like the "Import Media..." status dialog in MC. It could show how many songs were queued for transfer, how many were successful, the average transfer speed, and a details button to list the songs and/or problems.

Good suggestion. I will improve this.

Quote

6) The modifier "FullAlbums" in the smart list doesn't appear to work as I expected it to. I expected it to include every track on an album that otherwise satisfies the rules, but it doesn't. As an example, I know my library contains all the tracks from "Abbey Road", but the smartlist only includes tracks 1-6, 8-9, 11-13, 15, & 17. If the album were actually incomplete, it shouldn't be there, but since it is, I would have thought all the tracks would be included.

I think you should be using the modifer "Complete Album" to get this to work. Try posting this one in a separate thread.

Quote

7) What kinds of transfer speeds are normal? I averaged around 7.1-7.2 MB/sec. What made me happy is that the Adaptec 4300 FireWire card I bought worked great to transfer and to power the iPod.

Normal is relative. It depends on your hardware.

Quote

Does the iPod need to be enabled as an external FireWire drive to work with MC?

The iPod must appear on your system as a removable drive.

Quote

9) What's with the blank playlist? On the iPod, I can see all the Artist, Genre, and Album info from the iPod DB. There's also the single smartlist I used to synch in the "Playlist" area. However, there's a blank line listed as the first playlist.... I know other folks have seen this, but I never saw why it existed.

It should not be there. I can not create it. Do you see it even after a reformat? If so, any suggestions on how to get it to appear?

Quote

10) If MC9 is already running, and the iPod is connected to the machine, it doesn't appear in the Handhelds part of the tree. I have to relaunch MC. Is it possible to auto-recognize that the iPod has been attached?

You do not need to relaunch MC, just collapse and reexpand the CD,DVD, and Handhelds branch to force a refresh.

SteveG · « **Reply #112 on:** May 14, 2003, 01:58:35 pm »

Palazzo,

In case you did not see the response in the thread above......

If MC crashes when you click on the iPod drive letter, the most likely problem is a corrupted database. To resolve this, please reformat your iPod (either from Windows or using iPod Updater) and then reconnect and right click on the drive and select "Format". You mentioned reformatting in your post, but it was not clear that you have tried it with the new Plugin.

Palazzo · « **Reply #113 on:** May 14, 2003, 03:24:22 pm »

OK, thanks, that's sorted the crashing problem.

But I still had my original problem - I was still not getting the tracks showing up on the iPod, so I poked around and found the 'Show all files/Show queued files' toggle and that it was set to show only queued.

So now I'm happy. Thanks, and sorry if I was getting a little grouchy back there.

dobon · « **Reply #114 on:** May 14, 2003, 08:51:27 pm »

I got error saying I had duplicate files on my iPod and the upload would not work. The problem seemed to be that some of the queued files were read only. It works after I changed that.

dobon · « **Reply #115 on:** May 14, 2003, 09:35:10 pm »

Our new 500$ iPods have a limited life expectancy due to the non-exchangeable battery which is bound to decay with time and use.
Anybody have any idea of how long its supposed to work and what can be done to slow the loss of battery capacity?

Endymion · « **Reply #116 on:** May 14, 2003, 10:53:47 pm »

I'm trying to synchronize all my MC files which are in APE format with my IPOD. I've set the options to force conversion to VBR MP3. I can get the synchronization to run but the process off decoding/reencoding the files will take days based on the progress I saw last night. The time frame is not a problem as long as I can stop the sync and remove the IPOD whenever I want to use it; however, when I try this the next time that it resynchronizes it decodes/encodes/downloads the same files over again instead of files that haven't been transferred yet.

I assume this is due to the APE files having a different extension than the mp3 files on the IPOD and thus the synchronization isn't aware that the files are already on the IPOD. Is this correct and is there a way to avoid this problem?

Thanks,
John

bspachman · « **Reply #117 on:** May 14, 2003, 11:34:38 pm »

Quote

If it works most of the time but not on some files, I need to figure out what is peculiar about those certain files. If you could email one that fails, that would be great (steve @ jriver.com)

I'll try to bundle one up for you. I'll have to try to create a separate APE track that fails since I don't want to be sending the entire APE/APL collection of the tracks that give me trouble...

Quote

You do not have to name your iPod "IPOD". If you want to name it something else, you can, you just need to notify MC what you have named it under Tools->Plug-in Manager->Handheld->PortableDrive->Configure. The reason for this is that we need a way to identify the iPod from any number of removable devices that may or may not be attached to your system.

Right. Makes sense. The help file probably needs to be updated to reflect this. As an aside, it would be great if all these setting-types things were located in one place (don't know if it's possible...)

Quote

In regards to file size, if you try to synch too many files, this should not create a problem, we should just stop transferring when the allowable space is exhasted. The error dialog appears whenever there is a failure in the file transfer. The code for the transfer is pretty simple and uses generic windows function calls so if there is a failure it is most likely a path problem.

I think I'm worried that MC isn't leaving enough space for the iPod database when transferring files. The files would all transfer, but the DB would never get written, leaving the iPod in the curious state where it's full, but can't access anything.

I'm not sure what you mean by a "path problem". MC9 can play the files I'm transferring, so it knows where they are. Are there path name length limitations in Windows? Maybe I'm butting up against something like that (I am, after all, merely a simple Mac user).

Quote

I think you should be using the modifer "Complete Album" to get this to work. Try posting this one in a separate thread.

Will do. I didn't see the option for "Compete Album" until after I posted. Unfortunately, it seems to have the same problems for me as the "Full Album" modifier.

Quote

The iPod must appear on your system as a removable drive.

I understand. However, does that mean I need to check the "Enable Disk Mode" toggle in the iPod software from Apple? Again, clarification is needed...

Quote

It should not be there. I can not create it. Do you see it even after a reformat? If so, any suggestions on how to get it to appear?

I'll see if I can duplicate this after I solve the crashing problem. The only thought I had was that the smartlist I am synching from is in a playlist group, so maybe the hierarchy has something to do with it?

Quote

You do not need to relaunch MC, just collapse and reexpand the CD,DVD, and Handhelds branch to force a refresh.

Cool. After I solve my crashing problem, I'll give it a try!

Keep up the fabulous work!

Best,
Brad

SteveG · « **Reply #118 on:** May 15, 2003, 06:07:23 am »

Palazzo,

Glad things are working. FYI, the Show All files/Show Queued files toggle is modified in the next version to always revert to "Show all" on the program close which should help with this confusion. Thanks also for the mea culpa on the grouchiness.

Dobon,

I am not sure on the battery life, we here can only dream of the $500 iPod

John,

I am in the process of adding in intelligence to MC so that it will be aware not to reconvert songs that are on Portables.

Brad,

Thanks for offering to send the files, I will watch for them.

In regards to the space requirement for the DB, can someone with a large capacity iPod give me a ballpark size on the DB when full with files so I can be sure to allocate enough space while leaving the maximum amount of space for file storage? I will modify the plugin to be sure enough space is allowed.

I do not think the "Enable Disk Mode" needs to be selected, however if I deselect it, it always ends up being selected again by default.

bspachman · « **Reply #119 on:** May 15, 2003, 06:42:47 am »

Quote

Our new 500$ iPods have a limited life expectancy due to the non-exchangeable battery which is bound to decay with time and use.
Anybody have any idea of how long its supposed to work and what can be done to slow the loss of battery capacity?

I can't help you with your actual questions, but I stumbled on a possibility of battery replacement (which eased my mind when purchasing). Check out:

http://www.ipodlounge.com/faqs_more.php?id=101_0_10_0_C

for an FAQ about replacing the battery in an iPod.

Best,
Brad

dobon · « **Reply #120 on:** May 15, 2003, 07:53:26 am »

Thankyou Brad

I am relieved that there may be non-original replacement batteries available and quote: " ...the battery comes with one flathead screwdriver and full installation instructions. This would allow a user with an out-of-warranty iPod to replace their own battery."

Looking at my new version iPod , I can not figure out any way to open it though without destroying it or severely disfiguring it. There are certainly no visible screws.

bspachman · « **Reply #121 on:** May 15, 2003, 08:01:12 am »

Quote

In regards to the space requirement for the DB, can someone with a large capacity iPod give me a ballpark size on the DB when full with files so I can be sure to allocate enough space while leaving the maximum amount of space for file storage? I will modify the plugin to be sure enough space is allowed.

OK, I've solved my crashing problem with another reformat of the iPod. MC no longer crashes when selecting the drive letter in the tree. A sync of my entire library of MP3s on the 30GB iPod (which failed due to space contraints) yielded:

as reported by the Windows 2000 Explorer.

Some further updates on my issues:

1) I can't find the "blank" playlist anymore. I guess it was an artifact of a corrupt DB on the iPod.

2) I'm figuring out the "complete/full" album issues in a separate thread since that's more of a smartlist thing than an iPod thing.

3) With a working DB, the refreshing of the tree view in MC works great!

4) A new problem arose... I kept getting transfer errors with various files as I've been working through my synch issues. I went through and examined those files. The common denominator with all of them is that they contained a semicolon ";" in their filenames. I know Windows can handle semicolons, but apparently it messes up something with the iPod.

All the filenames in question were created with MC's "Convert Format" function, if that's of any help.

Does anyone know the substitution rules for punctuation when renaming files from the library information? How does MC handle the various invalid characters?

Best,
Brad

dobon · « **Reply #122 on:** May 15, 2003, 08:06:17 am »

Quote

Dobon, I am not sure on the battery life, we here can only dream of the $500 iPod

Steve. You should not complain. In this country I actually paid the eq. of 550$ for the 400$ 15GB iPod. The 500$ 30GB version would cost me 700$, and that is from the Apple webstore. Retailers are even more expensive.

bspachman · « **Reply #123 on:** May 15, 2003, 08:08:08 am »

Quote

OK, I've solved my crashing problem with another reformat of the iPod. MC no longer crashes when selecting the drive letter in the tree. A sync of my entire library of MP3s on the 30GB iPod (which failed due to space contraints) yielded:

iTunesBackup=4,620KB
iTunesDB=5,388KB
iPod capacity=29,897,998,336bytes (27.8GB)

as reported by the Windows 2000 Explorer.

I hate to followup on my own post so quickly, but there does appear to be a problem when the capacity is reached. After my last post, I removed the iPod from the system and discovered that although the disk is full, I have 0 songs available.

So...take the above numbers with a grain of salt, since it appears they are from and incomplete/corrupt DB on my iPod.

I know that when I use a smartlist to limit the synch to 26000MB in MC, everything works. I just haven't spent the time to hit the upper limit.

Thanks,
Brad

Endymion · « **Reply #124 on:** May 15, 2003, 08:12:08 am »

Quote

I am in the process of adding in intelligence to MC so that it will be aware not to reconvert songs that are on Portables.

Awesome Steve, thanks for the great plug-in.

John

retrospek · « **Reply #125 on:** May 15, 2003, 09:06:33 am »

Steve - I just want to thank you for a great Plug-in. I've only just taken delivery of an iPOD - and it's working great with MC straight out of the box..

Thanks,

Mark

paulj · « **Reply #126 on:** May 15, 2003, 09:25:17 am »

Quote

In regards to AAC, no support in the near future... too $$$

Steve

What about the possibility of modifying the existing plugin to at least allow existing mp4 files to be uploaded to the iPod.

So we could use Nero or something to encode them and have MC manage the tags and iPod database updates. It doesn't matter if the tags aren't in stored in the MP4's, the same as WAV's aren't.... right?

SteveG · « **Reply #127 on:** May 15, 2003, 10:32:30 am »

Everyone,

There is a new Plugin available (v 9.0.19). It includes an improved file upload error dialogue with useful error codes and a modification to allow more space for writing the iTunesDB if the maximum space of the iPod is exceeded. (thanks Brad)

PaulJ,

We do not have the ability to read(or write) the AAC tags, this is where the $$$ comes in. So even if you encode the files with something else, we cannot get the info.

Mark,

Thanks, that is always nice to hear.

Brad,

Thanks again for the suggestions, they are now included.

Dobon,

Quote

You should not complain...

.. but I do anyway

coxkevin · « **Reply #128 on:** May 15, 2003, 02:35:27 pm »

Quote

John,

I am in the process of adding in intelligence to MC so that it will be aware not to reconvert songs that are on Portables.

Hi Steve!!!

I'm hoping this applies to MP3 files that are downsampled as well.

Am I right?

Cheers,
Kevin

dbattan · « **Reply #129 on:** May 15, 2003, 03:38:15 pm »

I removes MMJB today and downloaded MC. I hooked up my new 30G pod and it asked me to format it. I did this. I never got an autosynch message and cold never figure out how to synch, so I mass copied all files from my library to the pod.

It seemed to be transferring and sent maybe half my files (1800 files or so) and indicated finished but my pod ran our of batteries. I plugges the pod in and none of the songs show up in the pod.

Can someone help? Were my files transferred (as MC seemed to indicate) and they just do not show up in the pod database?

Or did the transfer fail?

Anything else I need to do to use MC with new pod?

How do you autosynch?

ANy help appreciated....

ashawley · « **Reply #130 on:** May 15, 2003, 04:05:16 pm »

dbattan:

Chances are that when your iPod died during upload it resulted in a corrupted iPod database.

You'll need to do another reformat. You can do that right in MC9 by right-clicking the iPod in CDs, DVDs & Handlhelds and selecting format.

As far as syncing, to get this to work, right click the iPod (from the same place as listed above) and select Synchronize. You sync w/playlists or better yet smartlists that you make, so make sure you have those made first. Or if you're library is less than the capacity of your iPod you can just sync w/the Auto Smartlist "All Music".

Adam

JimH · « **Reply #131 on:** May 15, 2003, 04:14:44 pm »

Adam,
If you haven't bought a new iPod, would you e-mail me? jimh @ jriver.com .

We owe you.

Jim

mindracing · « **Reply #132 on:** May 15, 2003, 10:27:15 pm »

Quote

I am interested in importing addresses, phone numbers, and etc. to my iPod. Is there a way to "enable iPod as a hard disk" without installing MMJB? The iPod User's Guide says to drag the vCard file to the iPod's Contacts folder - which i do not see listed in MC. Thanks for any help ..n

Get a copy of iPODsync. I have been using this for some time now and would recommend it. http://iccnet.50megs.com/Products/iPodSync/index.htm

LarryJoe · « **Reply #133 on:** May 16, 2003, 04:41:05 am »

Quote

Old song cut out problem back with a vegence on new Ipod. If you recall, there was a problem a bunch of plugins back where ~35% of the songs transfered with MC9 would cut out with about 5-10 seconds left to play. I ended up switching back to Ephpod temporarily until the issue was resolved. This was on my "old" 20 gigger.

Now with the new 15GB the problem is back. This is not the apple bug of poorly encoded songs skipping to the next track. This is again where a lot of the songs (seems the longer ones) stop playing with 10 seconds to go and then play silence for the last 10 seconds. I wiped the ipod clean (format from Ipod updater) and loaded up Ephpod then transferred my library and all is fine. Everything plays perfectly.

Any ideas? Anyone else got this problem with the new ipods and MC9?

Thanks as usual.

LJ

Steve - just wanted to let you know that the latest build of MC9 (9.0.174) with the latest plugin (9.0.19) solved my issues. Not sure if this fixed my problem or restoring the ipod with updater 2.0, then going to Ephpod and then back to MC9 had something to do with it, but I'm happy.

Thanks

Joe

SteveG · « **Reply #134 on:** May 16, 2003, 06:32:19 am »

Joe,

Thanks for letting me know all is well.

Adam,

Thanks for your reply above.

Kevin,

I think so. Can you clarify what you mean?

sirshambling · « **Reply #135 on:** May 16, 2003, 06:37:26 am »

First field trial with my Ipod since I started using MC9 - and it wasn't a happy experience.

All the 50+ tracks I tried to listen to got cut short, every single one of them. Some with a only a few seconds to go, but others only lasted 30 seconds or so. This happened whether or not I used a smartlist, playlist, genre, album or artist, or simply browsed to find a particular song. There was no period of silence just an abrupt ending.

Back at the PC I tried listening to a couple of the worst offenders via MC9 and they worked fine. Downloaded a couple to the desktop and listened to them as well and that was fine also. So I think the files on the Ipod are OK - and I didn't get any error messages during synchro.

I'm running an old style 20GB Ipod, firmware 1.2.6 and the PC has WinXP Home, SP1 on it. Mc9 is build 174 with the latest Ipod plug in. All the tracks were MP3s at 128 re-encoded by MC9 normalized at 100%.

Can anybody shed any light on this? Or offer any help? TIA.

John

ashawley · « **Reply #136 on:** May 16, 2003, 08:05:41 am »

sirshambling:

I've never seen MC9 do this. The only time I've seen this happen is with folks that are having problems with firewire cards. But from the sounds of it, you've been using your's w/o any problems for a while, I'm assuming with some other uploading tool. Am I correct on this?

Are you sure that a song that is cut short on the iPod plays fine when you download that song off of the iPod and play it in MC9? That would be very strange indeed.....

Jim: I emailed you (I think), Outlook and Hotmail wouldn't accept your email addresse due to the spaces.

Adam

SteveG · « **Reply #137 on:** May 16, 2003, 08:16:04 am »

John,

LarryJoe above had a similar problem (minus the ability to send the file back to the PC and have it play correctly which is unexplainable). It went away for him after a reformat. Please try the following:

1) Right click on the iPod drive letter and select "Format". Try again and see if you still have the problem.

2) If the problem persists, please run iPod Updater and reformat and then do step one.

Steve

sirshambling · « **Reply #138 on:** May 16, 2003, 08:30:00 am »

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly guys.

>I've never seen MC9 do this. The only time I've seen >this happen is with folks that are having problems with >firewire cards. But from the sounds of it, you've been >using your's w/o any problems for a while, I'm >assuming with some other uploading tool. Am I >correct on this?

Yes I've been using MMJB and Ephpod without anything like this happening.

>Are you sure that a song that is cut short on the iPod >plays fine when you download that song off of the >iPod and play it in MC9? That would be very strange >indeed.....

Yes quite sure. I attached the Ipod to the PC, went to MC9 and found the Ipod, which showed all the files OK, r/clicked on 3 "bad" ones in turn, and chose "play" and listened to them right throuugh without any trouble at all. Chose 3 more, r/clicked on them and loaded them to my desktop and played them right through OK via MC9.

Very strange!

I'll try the format solution Steve and see how we go.

John

SteveG · « **Reply #139 on:** May 17, 2003, 05:44:45 pm »

Kimbocreation,

To transfer the Playlists, either drag and drop them on the iPod drive letter, or better yet, right click on the iPod drive letter, select "Synchronize" and the put checks next to the Playlists you want to synchronize.

Steve

coxkevin · « **Reply #140 on:** May 18, 2003, 10:46:56 am »

Quote

Kevin,

I think so. Can you clarify what you mean?

Hi Steve!

Several MC users record our albums as high quality MP3 files (300 bps) for multiple uses. I'm driving my whole house stereo via MC using a connection between my PC's audio out and stereo's audio in. This is great for home, but drives issues with the iPod. My choice is either to have all the songs transcode down to 160 bps everytime I sync (which takes forever), or to download them at 300 bps with limits the number of songs I can hold on the iPod.

I'm hoping that when you say that you are "in the process of adding in intelligence to MC so that it will be aware not to reconvert songs that are on Portables," this will take care of always transcoding MP3 files to lower bitrates as well.

Another useful useful feature would be to allow the user be able to normalize against the replay gain instead of/or as an alternative option to normalizing against the song peaks. This would compensate for the winiPods not implementing the soundcheck software to normalize volume from one song to antoher. Any possibility of adding this capability?

Cheers,
Kevin

sirshambling · « **Reply #141 on:** May 18, 2003, 11:33:38 am »

After several hours of effort I've identified the problenm as a corrupted MC9 install. Checking it with the 3D visuals and Task Manager, MC9 was "freezing/spiking" every half second or so - which obviously affected the synch of files to the Ipod.

After an uninstall and reinstall (and a false start or two) everything now seems to be fine.

Field test 2 with the Ipod tomorrow - high hopes!

Once again thanks for your time/help.

John

SteveG · « **Reply #142 on:** May 19, 2003, 06:01:18 am »

John,

Thanks for the update, please let me know if you still need help (or that things are going well

)

Kevin,

The plan is to have MC check the files it is about to transfer against the files on the iPod. In the event that the file is already present on the iPod and "Conversion" is enabled, the file would be skipped to save time.

Normalizing against replay gain is on the to do list, but is a pretty major change and will have to wait a little.

Steve

SteveG · « **Reply #143 on:** May 19, 2003, 11:19:10 am »

Brad,

The next build of MC will resolve the problem of transferring files with ";" in the filename.

Steve

bspachman · « **Reply #144 on:** May 19, 2003, 10:29:47 pm »

Quote

The next build of MC will resolve the problem of transferring files with ";" in the filename.

Sweet!

One less thing to worry about when naming/tagging things!

Things are working great for me with the 9.0.19 version and filling up all 30GB of iPod space. I used some other thread's suggestions about transferring complete albums and managed to get 485 full albums onto the iPod. It left me about 50MB of space...with over 6800 tracks at my fingertips!

I've taken my conversion problems off-thread--hopefully you received email from me yesterday.

Best,
Brad

SteveG · « **Reply #145 on:** May 20, 2003, 05:43:36 am »

Brad,

FYI, the ";" fix did not make the last build. It will be in soon (at the same time I add the space reporting for synch).

Steve

BigA · « **Reply #146 on:** May 20, 2003, 09:10:06 am »

I decided to give Media Center a try. Everything looked great, I had formated my iPod and uploaded all my songs. The problem is when I try to edit some of the song tags on my iPod. For some reason sometimes when I rename a tag, say "album" or "title", it won't save the changes. The change I made would just revert back to the old tag, or go blank if it was blank before. I have a new iPod (ver. 3) if that makes any difference. Any ideas?

Alex

SteveG · « **Reply #147 on:** May 20, 2003, 10:44:33 am »

Alex,

How are you doing the "Rename"? I right click on the field I want to rename, select "Rename",make my changes and click on another field. This causes the changes to be saved. As far as I can tell everthing is working as expected. Can you confirm how you are renaming?

Steve

JorgeGVB · « **Reply #148 on:** May 21, 2003, 04:55:42 am »

I just bought an iPod and used MC to upload the songs. It also took me awhile to get by the "Do Not Disconnect" message on my iPod while being connected to my computer. I guess I just didn't get it at first, so I wasted some time trying to figure it all out. However, once you figure it out what is going on, it is pretty simple then.

MC with the iPod plug-in worked great once I realized I needed to use format the iPod feature within MC. I was rather amazed at how fast the songs transferred over to the iPod.

I did stumble across something that may be a bug while going through the process. Before formatting the iPod through MC, I tried to transfer some songs to the iPod. However, once I got my act together and got it right, I noticed the songs I had tried to transfer earlier, when I was doing it wrong, would not transfer. Just to get around the issue, I transferred the songs to my laptop and then transferred them to iPod. They loaded fine that way.

BigA · « **Reply #149 on:** May 21, 2003, 05:24:04 am »

I guess my question is, can you modify tag information for songs that already on the iPod, because thats where I am having trouble. I can edit the tag info just fine in "media library" view or "my computer" view just not when I am viewing the songs on the iPod.

Alex

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