Phillippe:
Yipes! So it won't do each song at a time, deleting the temp files as it goes? That is a problem. I checked, and I did indeed run out of disk space. Unfortunately, your suggestion doesn't work for me - my original files are already mp3's. I just want to convert them to a lower bitrate. I use highest quality VBR for my main system, but want lower quality VBR for the IPod.
Looks like I have a problem. I have a 20 gig IPod that I want to fill with music. I want to compress my mp3's more than I do when listening to them on my main system. How do I do it? I have 13 gig free on my hard drive, but it looks like I'd need 100 meg or so free, if I want to add 20 gig of mp3's.
Jim - no, MusicMatch was doing conversion on the fly. I was transoding my highest quality VBR mp3's to 128bps CBR mp3's. I didn't save the 128bps ones anywhere else but on my IPod, and it did it that fast the first time I copied everything up. I have no idea how/why it was so fast, but it was. Actually, you should be able to reproduce this - you guys have an IPod there, right? It ships with everything you need to use it with MM. I suppose you know all this...
Regarding your other suggestions - I'd rather not set up a seperate library. I just want to transcode all the mp3's I have. You said that I can use any encoder - can you tell me where to find one, or where I can find docs on this? If there's another mp3 encoder I can use that is faster than LAME, and doesn't have the limitation of leaving all its temp files around, then that sounds like it would solve my issues.
Other than that, how can I do this? Is there anyone that can fill a 20gig IPod with MP3's and do transcoding? I don't mind if it's a little bit of a pain - I don't do this every day. I just don't see how I can use MC at all for this - there's no way I'd have enough free space. I guess can go back to MM - that worked. The thing I like about using MC for it, other than that I'm using MC for all my other music, is that it supports copying using an "exclude" smartlist. I have a bit more music than can fit on the IPod. Specifying what I want by saying "everything but", is definately the way to go for me.
And, yes - Jim - I am the same Dave T as the IR program guy. Thanks for the interest!
- Dave