Topic: Misc iPod Notes (Read 5177 times)

BlueGlow · « **on:** September 30, 2005, 11:19:21 am »

Great idea, this should help a lot of people.
Feel free to use any of the content from these posts I put together to help a friend:
How to use an iPod with MC 11 and
Reference Section

Scott Mayfield · « **Reply #1 on:** October 08, 2005, 03:06:01 pm »

I would appreciate a section on how to sync certain folders to the ipod etc. Also where do you chose whether to sync folders or do the downloads manually?
-S

pank2002 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 16, 2005, 04:33:22 am »

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by 'certain folders'. Either way what you probably want is a smartlist--an playlist updating manually.

Fx. let's create a smart list containing all files from the folder C:\my music\, containing the genre-tag 'rock' and is older than 1990. Cf. the 'Smartlist and Search - Rules and Modifiers'-article in the help file we can define the smart list as

g=rock , location="C:\my music" , [Date (year)]=<=1990

Now, we want to make sure this playlist is synchronize automatically wwhenever your iPod is connected.
First, go to Option (ctrl + o) and go to 'Handheld'. A plugin for the iPod should be installed; make sure it's selected from the top-drop-down-box. Click on the 'configure transfer option'-botton. Click on 'Auto-Sync Only these playlists' and select the playlist we have just created.

Either way, the absolutely best way to manage what songs are on your iPod is described in Larry's iPod Notes. For some reason it has been unstickied.

Ta-ta,
R.

Steve Most · « **Reply #3 on:** December 11, 2005, 04:13:01 pm »

>>>MC will detect the iPod and ask you if it should recognize it as a Handheld Player<<<<

I had asked MC to NOT recognize my iPod, now I want to have MC control the iPod instead of iTunes. How do I now get MC to recognise it?
Thanks,
Steve

JimH · « **Reply #4 on:** December 11, 2005, 04:17:28 pm »

In MC Options for Handhelds, try Redetect Devices.

lalittle · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2005, 07:18:17 pm »

Quote from: PeterS on September 20, 2005, 03:24:18 pm

We are going to begin with a single iPod device and move on to multiple device connectivity (Hi Larry!).

I was working on finishing the version 11 instructions when 11.1 went beta, so I held off in order to do an 11.1 version instead (or as well.) The notes on 11.1, however, stated that there were some significant changes to iPod support, so I am just waiting until it "settles" once again before creating the final document.

Do you think that 11.1 is pretty much "finished" as far as iPod support goes? I'll go ahead and get going on it if you don't think there are likely to be any changes that could effect my setup. I know that the setup works with 11.0, so I'm confident everything will work fine with 11.1, but I want to make sure that the menu/setup layout of 11.1 is finalized so the instructions will continue to be applicable.

Thanks,

Larry

SteveG · « **Reply #6 on:** December 19, 2005, 10:25:07 am »

Hello Larry,

Thanks for your attentiveness to this. Things are somewhat settled down, but may shift some yet. I would suggest waiting until after January 1 to begin to finalize it. Thanks again.

Steve

lukecro · « **Reply #7 on:** December 25, 2005, 01:15:01 am »

Hello,

These directions were perfect for me with the first builds of 11.1 -- made things much easier than with previous versions of MC, in terms of setting things up with MC....

But with the newest build -- 11.1.89 -- I suddenly can no longer see what data is on my ipod. For instance, I tried transfering some files over, but I got a message saying that my iPod was full. So, okay, that's fine, I'll just delete a bunch of tracks, right? Except that when I went to Drives & Devices/Ipod I could not see any tracks. Not under Albums, Playlsits, Artist, or Genre...

If I go to "Show List" I can see what's in line to be downloaded from my hard drive to the ipod, but the tracks that are actually on the ipod aren't listed there either... so where do I find 'em if not in any of these places?

I tried choosing the "Initialize ipod" and "reubuild database" options and I tried rebooting a couple of times... but no luck. (Actually, since initializing the ipod erases all the files, I suppose I've kinda confused the issue there and will have to do further tests.... but after I first tried Initializing MC said that my ipod was still full.... but then after a reboot it did ackowledge that my ipod was empty and it did let me start uploading, although at that point the upload was kinda slow.) I'm going to have to reinstall iTunes to gain access to the files, from the look of it...

Any ideas why this build is doing this to me?

Admittedly, there are some more tests I need to run regarding all of this... I have a few different ipods here between my roommate and I, and we both use this PC... but I haven't had a chance to check this error with anything other than my Mini so far (which has the newest firmware and was working with previous MC builds) so I don't know if my error is specific to the one device. Also, I have done a clean install of MC for a few builds, so maybe there's a conflict there...

If this is the incorrect thread for this or if the topic is being discussed elsewhere already or I'm missing some direction please tell me...

Thank you.

lalittle · « **Reply #8 on:** December 30, 2005, 07:03:41 pm »

lukecro,

I'm no expert on 11.1, but it sounds like something is amiss -- i.e. that MC "should" have showed you the files, but that something had gone wrong. My suggestion would not be to use iTunes, but instead to start over from scratch by "restoring" your iPod with the "iPod Updater" from apple (it doesn't take all that long, and your songs are all gone anyway.) After this, initialize your iPod with MC, and try synching or copying some files over.

Let us know what happens.

Larry

lukecro · « **Reply #9 on:** December 31, 2005, 08:04:19 pm »

Thanks.

Yeah, seems to be working now with the ipods I've tried so far.

Between my two roommates and myself we've got mini ipods, a video ipod, an ipod shuffle, and a creative nomad (zen xtra) all plugging in to my computer and using MC now and again (everyone is always jacking in to my computer because I have the most music). So it seems like sometimes MC and/or my PC gets a bit confused by all the devices. Usually rebooting my PC will clear up the problem, but MC was being a bit more stubborn this last time -- might have been the MC beta build, but maybe not. I've uninstalled the drives/software/jukebox for the zen, reinstalled itunes (but turned off it's autolaunch and let MC keep control of all file types and the ipods), re-applied the ipod updater to my personal ipod, initialized it on MC again, and now everything is terrific -- for my ipod mini and my roommates ipod mini, anyway. The roomate with the Video ipod is out of town, so I'll give that another try when she gets back. I don't trust the Zen Creative software, driver, or the device itself, so I'm going try and keep that off my PC for the time being.

Anyway, if this problem begins to occur again, I'll post an update here. thanks again.

lalittle · « **Reply #10 on:** December 31, 2005, 10:38:03 pm »

Just out of curiosity, what do you use iTunes for?

Thanks,

Larry

lukecro · « **Reply #11 on:** January 01, 2006, 09:12:02 pm »

Honestly, I don't use iTunes for much of anything: Except to name the iPods after they've had a firmware update.

(Also, if someone outside of my household comes over and wants to download some music, and they're not an MC user, I don't want to mess their hardware up or wipe out their current files by having to initialize their ipod on MC, so I just use iTunes for that. Although I haven't tried doing this sort of thing with 11.1, so I don't know if MC can now interact with an ipod without those possible problems or not now. Of course, I always try to pitch MC to people who haven't seen it before, but for many basic computer users I guess anything other than iTunes and Windows Media Player looks scary. Which is fine: it's only the RealPlayer crap that I'm really vehemently against.)

Do you reccomend keeping iTunes off of the system completely?

lalittle · « **Reply #12 on:** January 01, 2006, 11:52:04 pm »

Quote from: lukecro on January 01, 2006, 09:12:02 pm

Honestly, I don't use iTunes for much of anything: Except to name the iPods after they've had a firmware update.

Can't you just rename it in Windows Explorer?

Quote

Also, if someone outside of my household comes over and wants to download some music, and they're not an MC user, I don't want to mess their hardware up or wipe out their current files by having to initialize their ipod on MC, so I just use iTunes for that.

You mean they use your system to download files to their iPods? That probably makes sense -- you're correct that they'd have to "initialize" their iPod for use with MC, so if they aren't using MC themselves, this would cause problems.

Quote

it's only the RealPlayer crap that I'm really vehemently against.

Actually, I find iTunes just as bad as RealPlayer these days -- both of them can be real invasive. iTunes can REALLY screw things up if you're not careful to disable certain things.

Quote

Do you reccomend keeping iTunes off of the system completely?

I would say "yes" if it wasn't for the need to transfer songs to OTHER people's iPods. If this wasn't any issue, I would recommend against iTunes completely.

Larry

lukecro · « **Reply #13 on:** January 02, 2006, 07:54:40 pm »

Thanks for the feedback, Larry. I'll give some thought to pulling iTunes off my system, as I agree it can be invasive -- not as bad as RealPlayer and QuickTime, since it does give you the option of turning off most of its really invasive qualities, but it's a close second.... keeping various iTune and iPod processes running in the background from the look of my current processes list...

Quote from: lalittle on January 01, 2006, 11:52:04 pm

Can't you just rename it in Windows Explorer?

After the last firmware upgrade on my iPod Mini, I believe I was having a problem renaming the iPod using windows explorer. I can't remember exactly what went wrong, but if I remember correctly I either wasn't able to rename it with Windows at all or else MC didn't recognize the name after I renamed it with windows (I think it was the latter) ... something like that. It was a minor pain, and may clearred itself up after a reboot or another firmware reinstall, but I didn't put it through a lot of tests: After reinstalling iTunes the iTunes program immediately asked me if I wanted to name the iPod, and after I did, MC recognized the name and everything seemed right in the world.

lalittle · « **Reply #14 on:** January 03, 2006, 04:57:30 am »

Quote from: lukecro on January 02, 2006, 07:54:40 pm

I agree it can be invasive -- not as bad as RealPlayer and QuickTime

You may be correct about RealPlayer (I try to avoid RP these days), but iTunes in by definition MORE invasive that Quicktime given that iTunes USES the Quicktime engine. In other words, Quicktime is a small "subset" of iTunes.

Larry

sgordon · « **Reply #15 on:** January 03, 2006, 09:25:51 pm »

Does media center support apples AAC codec? Where can I get it or is it not included in the trial version?

MMOZ · « **Reply #16 on:** January 22, 2006, 07:40:25 pm »

First of all, thanks very much for the simple instructions for new guys like me.

I now have MC recognizing my iPod, and I have successfully transferred a few albums & songs to iPod using the directions you provided. However, when I then properly disconnect my iPod from my PC, I can't find the albums & songs on my iPod. They are definitely showing up under the "Drives & Devices" in MC, but I can't find them under "Music" or any of the other directories in my iPod.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Mark

JimH · « **Reply #17 on:** January 22, 2006, 08:01:10 pm »

Are you using the latest build of MC11.1? You can copy your system info from MC Help and paste it here.

MMOZ · « **Reply #18 on:** January 22, 2006, 08:53:26 pm »

Here's the info from MC Help - I just downloaded MC last week:

Media Center Registered 11.0.316 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 11\

Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 3150 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1046 MB

Thanks,
Mark

JimH · « **Reply #19 on:** January 22, 2006, 08:57:38 pm »

Please get a copy of MC11.1 from the downloads page. Both 11.0 and 11.1 are listed there, but 11.1 is much better for iPod support.

MMOZ · « **Reply #20 on:** January 23, 2006, 10:24:57 pm »

Thanks so much for your help. I think everything is working properly now (knock on wood). Cheers!

Podder · « **Reply #21 on:** January 25, 2006, 07:35:43 pm »

Not sure if I'm asking this on the correct thread, but.........I currently use MC v. 10 and may upgrade to 11.1 specifically to make things more ipod-friendly. Once I download the 11.0/11.1 how do I get my music library from MC 10 over to the new build? Is this done automatically?
Also, videos that are now stored in itunes, can they be dragged over to MC11.1?
Thanks.

JimH · « **Reply #22 on:** January 25, 2006, 08:06:23 pm »

MC10.0 to 11.1 should be an automatic part of the upgrade. Back up your MC10 library first.

MC11.1's support for videos isn't finished. Some people have had some success -- try a search here for more information.

aryb · « **Reply #23 on:** February 19, 2006, 10:24:30 am »

In MC10 ipod support there was a thread with a link to a document that described how to create a play list that would use a custom field to store a true false on whether or not the file was already on your ipod. I can find the thread but the link is now dead. I set it up once and it worked great but that was some time ago and I can't recreate it.

Can anyone help?

lalittle · « **Reply #24 on:** February 19, 2006, 04:52:12 pm »

Quote from: aryb on February 19, 2006, 10:24:30 am

In MC10 ipod support there was a thread with a link to a document that described how to create a play list that would use a custom field to store a true false on wheather or not the file was already on your ipod. I can find the thread but the link is now dead. I set it up once and it worked great but that was some time ago and I can't recreate it.

Is this the one you're thinking of:

http://www.jrmediacenter.com/Larry_Little_iPod_Management_MC.html

This was located in this thread: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=22729.0

I started updating the document for 11.0, but 11.1 had changes in it's iPod support, so I held off, after which a lot of other stuff came up that took me away from this. I'm now updating the document for 11.1 (several changes have already been made to the doc), but lately I've also been trying to iron out some wrinkles I'm having with 11.1, so the process got interrupted again.

It's important to note that the setup DOES WORK in 11.1, there are simply some changes in the menu layout such that the instructions linked above do not quite "line up" with the menus of 11.1. For example, with MC11, the new location for adding a new library field is "Tools/Options/Library" RATHER THAN on the "Tree and View" page as it was with version 10. The "Add" button is now in the upper right corner of this window rather than in the lower left.

Note also that I've made a few changes to the general setup that make it a bit simpler without changing the functionality. These changes have already been included in the new document, which has not yet been posted.

I'll see if I can finally finish the new document this weekend (3 day weekend) and get it posted. I appologize (again) that it's taken me so long, but I'm really going to try to get to it this weekend. In the meantime, you can utilize the old instructions if you want (with the "library field" change noted above.) You can always "re-do" the setup once I post the new document to get the latest changes, but the "overall" functionality will generally be the same.

Larry

aryb · « **Reply #25 on:** February 19, 2006, 08:30:04 pm »

Absolutly fantastic. You've saved me a trip to the emergency room. I was about to put my head through the monitor.
I will work with this but look forward to the next version!
Thanks again.

lalittle · « **Reply #26 on:** February 20, 2006, 06:57:30 am »

Just to reiterate, there are a few other changes to the menu structure (i.e. it's not just the "Library Field" change noted above that's different.) Due to the differences between menus in 10 vs. 11, you'll probably have to study the instructions a bit in order to figure out the specific steps. If it's still confusing, don't worry -- the updated document (which I'm working on at this very moment) will include the EXACT instructions and will match the current menu structure of 11.1.

Larry

lalittle · « **Reply #27 on:** February 26, 2006, 06:31:19 am »

I just finished the full draft of the iPod document updated for MC11.1. I'm going to have somebody read and follow the instructions tomorrow just to make sure that it's "understandable" and that there are no mistakes or areas of confusion that I might be missing, but I'm pretty confident that it's essentially done at this point.

I'd guess that it should be posted some time tomorrow night.

Larry

lalittle · « **Reply #28 on:** February 27, 2006, 05:12:06 am »

The new version of my iPod Setup Guide is finished and posted in a thread called "Larry's iPod Setup Guide -- NEW for Media Center 11.1."

Here is the link to this other thread where you'll find links to the new document:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=32263.0

Larry

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Author Topic: Misc iPod Notes (Read 5177 times)