Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Captor]

Hi
I have read a lot in here that it is difficult to sync with iPods. Is that correct?
That was one of the main reasons that i did buy MC in the first place. So I wonder whats happening?

I have my Ipod Classic 160 GB with about 60 GB Wav-files and now I want to use MC instead of iTunes in the future.
In my MC I use flac-files and I would like them into my iPod and also the playlists and the art work.
But when reading all this complaints I wonder if it maybe is better I stay with iTunes?


Best Regards
Captor

[BryanC]

MC syncs the iPod Classic, but the iPod classic isn't going to be compatible with your FLAC files, regardless of what program you use. If you switch to iTunes, it will convert all of your existing FLAC files to ALAC and sync from there.

You can set MC to automatically convert your FLAC files to a filetype the iPod supports such as AAC, MP3, or WAV during the sync.

[Captor]

I see, today I use wav in iTunes and iPod so then I can continuing with that. Or is ACC better? I am first or all interesting in the sound quality
and second to get the art work as well. I beleive that I will get problem with the artwork if MC converts it to wav.
So how about ACC? Do you have any knowledge about that filetype? Will the flac files be compressed? Will there be problem
with the art work?

And of course also the playlists. I was hoping I could get the same I have in my computer into the iPod but it seams like it will
not be like that.

[BryanC]

Your playlists will sync fine. I would recommend keeping the FLAC files on your computer for archival reasons. You can convert to a compressed (lossy) format to the iPod on-the-fly from your FLAC archives. MP3 and AAC are both lossy formats but transparent at high bitrates.

[Captor]

OK, thank you very much Bryanhoop!
May I ask something else, you seams to be familiar in the music/iPod field.
I am not slave under iPod/Aple. In fact I would welcome if there is another equal player ot there!
The thing is that I am travelling a lot and for that reason the iPod was a good choice. Because there are
a lot of external speaker which I can take with me on my travels.
I do now have 2 different travel speakers from Logitech.
So that is what I need. A equal or better player than iPod + decent loudspeakers that I can carry i my bag
when travelling.
And of course there must be space for about 100 GB or something like that. 80 GB will do too.
Do you have any suggestion about that? I have heard that there is some player out there that hase even better
sound quality than iPod.

[BryanC]

I don't really see a valid reason here for you to upgrade hardware. If you aren't happy with transcoding from FLAC on-the-fly during your iPod sync, there are other options. You could use dbPowerAmp or foobar2000 (with proper ALAC plugin installed) to convert your files (with tags) from FLAC to ALAC with an m4a extension. JRiver will read those new files just fine. You could just directly transfer the Apple Lossless files to your iPod and save you a few steps during the resync.

As we all know, the iPod probably has the most accessories (including external sepakers) available to it over any other player.

[Captor]

Really? So what you are saying is that I can use ALAC files in j River? That is maybe a good idea.
Does that mean that I always when ripping a new CD into J River that i have to convert that in dbPowerAmp to ALAC before read the files into JRiver? Or can I set that to be automatically as today with the Flac? And there is no problems with album art and playlists and ALAC?
Can I convert my Flac into ALAC and the albunart and playlists will follow?

The reason why I start to talk about changing hardware is that I want a lossless fileformat in the mp3 player. I am very picky with
the sound quality. And the iPod has decreased the quality of the DA-converter. The old ones haf a Wolfson converter. What they
use today I dont know. But my old iPod with Wolfson sounded much better. And I have heard that there are other players out there
with better sound.
But as you said, iPod have more accessories which is important too. So OK, maybe your suggestion is the best for me.
But there must not be any problem with album art and playlists.

[BryanC]

You don't necessarily have to use an external encoding program, although I personally haven't tried it.

To get you started, you may want to check out: Here and this snippet from the wiki:

External Encoder. If you already own a command line MP3 encoder such as Xing, Blade, Lame or Gogo, select this and enter the EXE path and parameters. If the encoder supports long file names, check the box.

[Captor]

Wow! You have really a lot of knowledge in this field. I am afraid that this is a little bit over my head.
But I will read and concider and hopefully learn some new stuff.
I read here in the forum that many people have problems with the album art. Do you know something about that?

[BryanC]

Your album art should be fine. The only situation that may present a problem is if you are syncing WAV files to your iPod. The JRiver database is capable of tagging and storing artwork for WAV files, but I am unsure (and I am guessing, unlikely) that iPods are able to correctly display album artwork for WAV files. If the qaac encoder settings do not allow album art transfer from FLAC to ALAC (I'm guessing it will), you might have to complete the conversion to ALAC within MC16 and then select "write library values to tags." Under tools->file options, also make sure "also store image in the file's tag" is also checked.

When you eventually get your iPod connected to MC, there are several album artwork settings available under Handheld options. These will allow you to enable album artwork support on your iPod.

[Captor]

IPods are able to display artwork with Wav. I have tryed that. But only if the same albums are for sale at the
applestore. Then I can get the album art from there. Otherwise it is impossible to get in the album art when using
Wav files. I have struggle with that a lot. That is one reason why I started with Flac in the first place. Easy to get album art. That time I did not know that the iPod dont read Flac.
Well, I know now that there is a lot for me to learn. I have to study this carefully and decide what way to go.
Maybe I have to ask you more. Hope it is OK?
Anyway, thank you very much for your great support!

[BryanC]

Luckily MC16 has the ability to grab cover art from the internet, regardless of whether or not the album is available via the Apple Store. If you have not already, try importing some albums into MC16 that do not have cover art. Right-click the files, and choose Cover Art->Get from Internet and it will attempt to find cover art from JRiver's own YADB database.

This link will have some good information for you.

Edit: Also, here and here.

[Captor]

Yes i have try that already and it works flawless every time. Very nice.
Thanks for the information as well!

[Captor]

Hello again Bryanhoop
I have thought a lot on how to do this and I think I have decide to do it as you first suggested.
You said:  "If you switch to iTunes, it will convert all of your existing FLAC files to ALAC and sync from there".
I have my MC files (Flac) on my media PC and the itunes on another computer. So I will simply share the files from media PC into the other PC and then import them to iTunes. The Flac files will then be converted to ALAC and imported into iTunes, right?
So hopefully the artwork will follow into iTunes.
And about the playlists I guess I must import them separately?

I want to continuing with Flac in MC.

I am not updating the ipod more than 2-3 times in a year so its no hard work to do it this way.
If iPod would accep Flag that would be perfect but that will probably never happen. I could install
Rockbox in my iPod but the layout in that screenshots I have seen dont makes me smile... Looks like we are back in the late 1980 or something.