I have a 4 GB iPod. I created a playlist made of MP3, APE and WAV files in Media Center. Then I tried to sync the playlist to the iPod. In the device options I have set Mode to "Convert audio if necessary", as I don't need to convert MP3 files. Media Center gives an error because the total file of the uncompressed files exceeds 4 GB, then it stops. It won't sync files exceeding 4 GB in size, even if they are not compressed yet.
In the previous sync, as I didn't know how Media Center works, I converted the files to MP3 using Media Center in advance, then I created a new MC library, made exclusively of those MP3 files, and used that library for syncinc the iPod. Now the files are (more or less) the same. I am just using a more conventional way to sync the iPod. The files, when compressed, are less than 4 GB in size.
I had to set Mode to "Always convert audio". I started sync again but now Media Center tries to convert every file, including MP3s that are already compressed. So the sync process started with a forecast of 20 hours remaining. After a few tracks the forecast decreased to about 6 hours remaining. Still at 0.2 MB/s though.
The only way to sync the iPod when the uncompressed file size exceeds the device capacity is to "Always convert audio". I think that Media Center should estimate the size of files after compressed before it issues such error messages. Or, if it already does such an estimate, should give a more consistent error message. The current error message refers to the size of the uncompressed files to sync, so one can argue that MC does not do any estimate before syncing.
Has anyone experienced that behaviour? Is there any workaround to sync faster?