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[Jakester]

I'm on the market for an iPod, my first portable player since the walkman.  I want to take my 10K library onto my boat this summer, and I'm installing a stereo in my boat with aux in for this purpose.  My library is all .ape ripped from my CDs.  (BTW I love MC and the whole secure rip - lossless compress - ASIO playback chain.  To my ears the quality beats playing the original CD on my Home Theater rig.  Thanks J River!)

With the whole Apple proprietary format thing it seems logical that iTunes will always be a bit ahead of MC in terms of file type support.  Is that a fair statement?  Assuming so, it seems that maybe the easiest thing is to use iTunes to sync the iPod.  So here are my iTunes/iPod newbie questions:

1) I understand MC can sync to a virtual device, say a separate drive on my network, correct?
2) If I convert to .mp3 during the sync using alt extreme (MC uses LAME, right?) then will iTunes be able to import this .mp3 version of my library?
3) Will the tags make it all the way through this chain and into the iPod so that I can create playlists using genre, album, artist, etc.?  I also have ratings stored in my .ape tags - will those make it?

Sorry for newbie questions, hopefully this will be easy for someone to answer.

Thanks.

[Jakester]

Anyone?

[JimH]

With the whole Apple proprietary format thing it seems logical that iTunes will always be a bit ahead of MC in terms of file type support. 

MC runs circles around iTunes for format support.  FLAC, WMA, APE, OGG, etc.  Probably 3X.  MC also plays anything iTunes does.

1) I understand MC can sync to a virtual device, say a separate drive on my network, correct?

Yes.  Set it up in MC11.1 under Handhelds, advanced.

2) If I convert to .mp3 during the sync using alt extreme (MC uses LAME, right?) then will iTunes be able to import this .mp3 version of my library?

Others may disagree, but there is no point doing anything special with encoder settings since the device probably can't reproduce the differences in any meaningful way.

3) Will the tags make it all the way through this chain and into the iPod so that I can create playlists using genre, album, artist, etc.?  I also have ratings stored in my .ape tags - will those make it?

Yes.

I assume you know that MC can convert to MP3 on the fly as it uploads to a handheld.  The first time this would take some time (overnight works) but after that, it will synch just what's missing.

[trott]

2) If I convert to .mp3 during the sync using alt extreme (MC uses LAME, right?) then will iTunes be able to import this .mp3 version of my library?
Thanks.

It will be able to import them, as well as sync it with the ipod. However, I (who has a 3G ipod) find that very high bitrate mp3's skip on the ipod.

[Jakester]

Thanks JimH and trott.

trott - how high is very high?

[trott]

It depends on the model of the iPod apparantly...On mine (3G) I experience the occasional (read: occasional) skip at lame -V2 --vbr-new. I have never had a skip at V4. So...Now I'm encoding at V3

[Alex B]

For MP3 files that are meant only for portables I would recommend trying this command line in the "Custom Command Line Switches" option:

gogo.exe -a -b 192 -m j -q 2

You may be surprised about the speed/quality ratio.

The setting makes ABR (average bit rate) files that are not likely to skip on iPod.

More information and my test report are in this thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=30834.msg219960#msg219960

[Jakester]

thanks - I'll check it out