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[galaxyblur]

Hello everyone....

I'm an experienced Media Center user, and I've got a birthday coming up (!).  I think I'm gonna finally get an iPod for myself, but I'm not sure which model to get.

What size?  Is the iPod Photo worth the extra bucks?  How many songs from your library do you sync?

I have about 12,000 + songs w/ cover art (~50gb).  Do you guys sync your whole library, or just your favorites, or do you use another method?

Any problems syncing w/ Media Center?  I still want to use it, I like it more than iTunes...

I also use an iMac at work, can I sync w/ both?  Do I have to sync at work, or can iTunes read directly from the iPod w/o copying files?  Is that even a good idea?

Sorry for the abundance of questions, but I'm sure you all know, it's a major purchase!  Thanks in advance.

[lOth]

What size?  Is the iPod Photo worth the extra bucks?  How many songs from your library do you sync?

Given the size of your library you have two options: either you want to synchronize it all, in which case you should go for the 60gb iPod photo, or you decide to synchronize only your favorites, in which case the mini (one of the new 6gb ones maybe?) would be a better option.

I personally have a 40gb photo iPod and an MC library about the size of yours. Although I wish I had a 60gb to fit it all, I followed Larry Little's guide (http://www.jrmediacenter.com/Larry_Little_iPod_Management_MC.html) and managing the sub-list of songs that should go on the iPod is now a breeze (especially compared to iTunes with which you'd have to uncheck one by one all the songs you don't want on the iPod). But the easiest way in my case would certainly be to have a 60gb iPod and synchronize the whole library.

Any problems syncing w/ Media Center?  I still want to use it, I like it more than iTunes...

MC is definitely better in many respects and there's no going back to iTunes once you've tried it. However, there still are a few things that iTunes does and MC can't (for now):

_ MC can't transfer photo and music cover art to the iPod (that's a big one)
_ MC can't auto-mount the iPod (if your iPod is plugged in but not mounted you have to unplug it and plug it back for MC to see it) and can't auto-eject after sync (although it can auto-eject when MC closes)
_ MC doesn't recognize different iPods as different devices
_ file upload to the iPod is a bit slower with MC than with iTunes (at least that's what it seems like to me)

I can't list everything MC does better than iTunes, that would be too long. Just a few things:

_ it can convert from many formats when syncing to the iPod (iTunes is limited to MP3, aac and apple lossless)
_ MC can play songs from the iPod (iTunes can't)
_ MC can transfer back songs from the iPod to a PC (iTunes can't)
_ much better smartlist system

I also use an iMac at work, can I sync w/ both?  Do I have to sync at work, or can iTunes read directly from the iPod w/o copying files?  Is that even a good idea?

Your iPod needs to be "initialized" by MC to work with it but afterwards iTunes will still see your player and be able to communicate with it. As I mentioned above, iTunes can't play songs from the iPod. In addition, and this is more important in your case, I might be wrong but I think that once an iPod is formated in FAT to work with a PC you can't read from it using iTunes on a Mac. Even if you can, iTunes won't let you copy songs from the iPod to the iMac and won't even let you play songs from the iPod. My advice would be to look for another program for mac that would let you do this since you can already forget about iTunes.

[galaxyblur]

wow, thanks for all the great info.  I looked over that tutorial a little bit, I'm sure I'll understand it better once I get the iPod.

Another question, I'm currently using MC10...should I upgrade to 11?  When is the final version due out?

[BlueGlow]

Originally, I had about 20GB of music and bought a 30GB iPod. Life was great when I could sync my entire library to the iPod. I highly recommend it if you think your library will stay under 60GB. Your life will be infinitely simpler.

Once your library is bigger than your portable your time will be spent managing your playlists to figure out what to keep on your iPod. My library exploded when I subscribed to emusic, and then later dug out a couple of big boxes of my old CD's. I'm currently running about 250GB and I still have many CD's to rip. But I've found that 20GB is plenty of space for about 3,000 high quality songs and that's enough variety for just about any situation. I use the remaining 10GB as portable HD space.

If I were buying today, I would get the photo 60GB. If price mattered, I would get the photo 30GB.
Next upgrade may be a 60GB and a light flash player for working out.

You may also want to consider add-ons in your budget. I recommend a new set of earbuds, a car kit,  and a set of portable speakers. Prices vary widely, but $300-$500 is a good starting point. I have the Altec Lansing travel speakers and I use them all the time at home and when I travel. My car has a nice convenient setup so I just dock and drive. The iPod is greatly enhanced by getting a complete set of add-ons so you can listen where ever you are.

Do you live near an Apple store? It's worth a trip to hold the different models and see a great collection of add-ons. Have fun picking your pod.

[galaxyblur]

thanks man, good stuff.

i have an aux jack on the front of my cd deck in my car, can i just use that (stereo out from the iPod)?  Anyone use another method, i.e. special iPod-ready players?  Should I buy the Belkin car dock?  I've seen my friend use a regular cell-phone holder, seems to work ok...

[risingdamp]

The other guys have covered this one well so I'll keep this brief:

- I have 60GB photo and I love it.  Just buy the best one you can afford!

- Use MC (v11.232 or later) not iTunes for the reasons stated by 10th.

- I have a pioneer head unit in my car and they just brought out a cool device that allows you to connect your iPOD in place of the CD changer.  Do a google search for "Pioneer CD-IB100 ipod".  Even if you don't have a pioneer do the search to get an idea of what's possible.  RCA connection is possible but make sure your connections on your head unit are inputs and not outputs. 

Enjoy.

[BlueGlow]

Upgrade to 11, it's cheap and it's faster, smarter, etc.

As rising damp said, you can use the aux jack as long as it's an in. I use a Belkin pod holder to attach to the dash and a Belkin power converter to charge/dock and amplify to the line out. Inexpensive and sounds great. I may get the $150 CD changer connection later but it hasn't been an issue so far.

[Simple]

...  I have an aux jack on the front of my cd deck in my car, can i just use that (stereo out from the iPod)?...

Yes. That's what I do for about 3 years now. Just plug and play.

[dmarcus48]

My 2 cents.

I started out with a gen 3 15 gig ipod, which i had for two days, got a 30 gig one.  Just upgraded to a 60 gig photo.  I tend to encode my songs at a high rate (alt preset fast extreme) so I don't get the advertised number of songs.  My 60 gig has about 8000 songs (which is plenty) and i've got about 10 gig free. 

Used mc9, mc10 for about two years, just upgraded to mc11.  Unfortunately mc doesn't show the photo art, which is a biggie for me.  You wouldn't think it would be but it is (just anal i guess).  So unfortunately i'm using itunes for now and WAITING for mc photo ipod support.

MC has a much better smartlist function then itunes (which is a pain).