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[Joe Z.]

Which should I go with?  I would like to avoid MMJB.  Any comments on experiences greatly appreciated.

Thanks - Joe

PS - Hurry up MJ and get that pluggin out.

[SeanC]

EphPod, hands down.  Don't even bother opening the software included with Ipod.  Just install the Windows version of the EphPod software.  Ignore the suggestions to install MacOpener, it is NOT required with WinPod/Windows-EphPod.

You should be up and running in 5 mins or less.  And man, firewire is FAST!

[Joe Z.]

Thanks for the quick reply Sean.  I am phyched! One good thing about buying over the internet vs. in-store, the time from shipping to reciept gives you time to research.  In the old days, I would have bought this, read the instructions quickly and slammed it in.

More comments welcome.

Listening to Ben Folds Five Lullabye

[Kurt Young]

And here's hoping that everything's going well with the MJ iPod Plugin!  If I can make a donation of Mt. Dew, donuts or beer to speed production along, guys, just let me know!

[yonkiman]

Here's another vote for Ephpod and against ever opening the Apple/MMJB software.  It's crap.

[Steve]

Kurt,

Thanks for the offer. Donuts and Beer - Good.

Mt. Don't.

[Joe Z.]

Thanks all.  It arrived today and I charged it here at work.  Can't wait to mess around with it.  For people that are shopping for one the best deal I could find was from MacMall for $494 |PLS|12 for overnight shipping. Given they do not charge sales tax like buy.com and the Apple Store, and Amazon ($499) and is still not shipping these, $494 and only $12 for overnight was a good deal.

Can't wait to load up some tunes tonight when I get home.

[BipolarONE]

Please tell me about EphPod. Does it come with the Ipod? Where/ What is it. I am looking to buy the 5 gig Windows Ipod later this month.

[SeanC]

EphPod is software written to allow Ipod use on Windows. You can find more info at the Ephpod website.  It is free, and until JRiver adds Ipod support to MJ, it's the fastest and easiest way to upload to Ipods.

[Kurt Young]

Rock on!  Anything to help y'all out getting that plugin made!

 

[BipolarONE]

Thank you SeanC. I have downloaded it already.

[JGourd]

EphPod may be free but you get what you pay for. It is a hack, although it is a really good hack that works. Hacks are prone to break because they use unofficial methods to make things work. MMJB's plugin however was developed with help from Apple and is an offically sanctioned product which you may ask for support help with.

As evil as MMJB may be, I have found a way to simply use it as a transfer utility without actually importing any songs into it. The trick is to use drag and drop from the Windows Explorer to add media files and M3U playlists. Since I have a Rio Receiver on which I use playlists already, it was trivial to simply drag the playlists onto the iPod icon in MMJB and watch 12 gig of music seamlessly transfer in one fell swoop.

As soon as the Apple SDK is out, these cool J River guys will give us the power.

[Joe Z.]

Just thought I would post my experience, I installed last night.  First I plugged the ipod into the firewire port.  It was immediately recognized by XP.  The removable drive was there as well.  Then I installed EphPod and launched it.  I thought this was going to be smooth at this point.  I then went through the wizard and when it asked for the drive the ipod was on, I dropped down the box and selected my ipod drive.  Then EphPod told me the the file or directory structure on the ipod was not proper and there was a button to create this structure.  I went to explorer and surfed the ipod and the folder EpPod was looking for was certainly there.  I thought this was odd from all the reading I have done.  I clicked the button to create the hidden music folder and it failed.  I got out of the wizard and tried to load some music and it would fail referencing the hidden ipod directory that it said was not there, but was.  After trying a few more times, reinstalling Ephod and rebooting, I decided that I would have to bite the bullet and load the CD with MMJB.  This also installed an Ipod application as well that could be used to update and resore the ipod.  From the advice of other who said "Don't even open the Apple CD, Ephdod is all you need", I was confused.  I could see not installing MMJB, but the ipdod utulity is a must I think.  Anyhow, I freakin still hate MMJB's interface and after a few minutes, I got some tunes loaded.  At the same time, I noticed some songs on the ipod that failed to transfer with EphPod.  These appeared to be data files named correctly, but they would not play and would actually freeze the ipod.  I was happier because I got some tunes on the thing, but felt a format/restore was in order, so I did it.  I then closed MMJB and opened ephpod and I could transfer no problem.  So I blew away the piece of trash MMJB and EphPod is working.  I hope this thread helps someone with similar issues.  I have some tagging issues with ephpod that I will post in a separate thread.

The long and short - I can't wait for MJ's pluggin.

Thanks for all the adice and help.

Joe

[SeanC]

Then EphPod told me the the file or directory structure on the ipod was not proper and there was a button to create this structure.

Sorry you had that trouble - Ephpod could improve by having it properly recreate those directories  That must have been what MMJB did, and I remember having to do that to get things going on my WinPod too.

[Joe Z.]

Thanks Sean.  Luckily, a quick look last night at the Apple Ipod Windows forums turned up a thread that supported my experience.  But, the directory structure was there right out of the box before I even loaded MMJB.  For some reason, Ephpod could not see and could not rewrite it.  Ephpod does need a little work, but overall, I think I will enjoy it once I learn it and resolve some tagging issues I had last night.  It is probably more mature with the Mac version with Mac Opener than straight Windows interface.

[willrmc]

joe, if you haven't already you should go check out ipodlounge.com they have great forums there that will answer a lot of questions

[Joe Z.]

Thanks, I found it a few days ago.  Great site and very useful.  Shopping for a better case based on their reviews and links.

[SeanC]

One of the things that the Apple program iTunes and the iPod do well is this - when you play tracks in iTunes, it increments a track counter in the MP3 tag.  When you play tracks on the iPod, it increments them there.  When you synchronize the iPod with iTunes, iTunes updates the play counter.

That way, the smartlists in iTunes are aware of how many times you have heard the tunes, whether played on the PC or on the iPod.

Very cool!  Can we have this in the MJ plugin too?

[new_unit]

I run MJ and XPlay. I love Xplay for the simple file management and for the removable drive features. MJ for ripping and auto naming is the best. EphPod made my XP box BSOD. This was a first with XP. I had to do a safe mode uninstall. I found out later there are issues with my RAID.

[TimB]

Sounds like you made the right decision.

I know folks that like EphPod and folks that like XPlay (I'm still making up my mind), I don't know ANYONE that likes MMJB.



-=Tim=-

[JimH]

With a little luck, we may have ipod working in a few days.  Steve is making progress.

[udeups]

With a little luck, we may have ipod working in a few days.  Steve is making progress.

Win, Mac or both? For Mac iPod, will I have to have third party (or is it fourth party in this case?) software installed (ie. MediaFour, etc) for MJ to recognize the unit? Are the databases identical? If it is necessary and I do have said third party software allowing PC to recognize iPod, would MJ interaction with it be the same as with the Win iPod?

[SteveG]

udeups,

Hard to say. The first order of business is getting this working for the iPod for Windows. I won't know about the Mac iPod until this is done.


Steve