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[ashawley]

Steve:

Somethin' is funky with this build regarding "Delete Songs".

Here's what I did:

1. Wiped iPod Clean
2. Sync'd all my playlists as usual w/Delete checked as my default setting: no problem
3. Sync'd again w/Delete checked

Results: the second sync reuploaded all of the songs.  It completed fine, but I could tell it was reuploading because I was getting transfer rates of 6-7 MB/sec.  

Go figure.  It should have been going at 200 MB/sec (the usual rate when you sync and nothing's changed).

Must be something with the file naming convention or something....

Also, regarding the naming convention.  This is probably a stupid question, but I noticed that you're including basically the full path in the file name.  When you're talking about 2000 or 4000 songs does this end up taking any appreciable amount of space on the HDD?  I just remember that ephpod named them randomly w/4 character numbers (2001.mp3, 2002.mp3 etc).  It probably just adds up to a few hundred KB but just wondering....

Adam

[nekura]

Out of curiosity, am I the only one who's having harmless little troubles regarding songs with semi-colons in the title?  For instance, I have a track entitled "If Tails, Despair; If Heads, Hope."  The track transfers to the iPod fine, plays fine, displays properly in Ephpod's file listing...  but in Media Center's file listing, things get kinda messy.

Under the Playlists column, you'd find the track number...  the Artist is the song length, "If Tails, Despair" is the track name...   the album is the actual artist...  no filename...  track number is the song's bitrate...  not sure about the duration...   filetype is "If Heads, Hope"...  Genre is the actual album name...   no bitrate, and 0 bytes for the filesize.  I thought I fell into the Twilight Zone when I saw all of that listed.

By the way, I'm with Adam, I love smartlists.  I went bowling for five hours tonight, so I decided to create a six hour smartlist of my favorite gaming music to put on my iPod.  Ah, it was so much fun...   By the way, if Adam's the Johnny Appleseed of smartlists, what does that make me?

[mindracing]

With regard to synch speeds (see my earlier post) and JimH doing 1100 songs in 15 minutes, I am wondering if there is something in my settings that's causing it to run slow.

When I use 'send to' and the 'upload' I get a file conversion dialogue for each file and this convesion seems to take ages.

So, what is it converting? I thought the MP3s just went straight onto the iPOD without conversion.

Any ideas anyone?

[cct1]

Steve:

Somethin' is funky with this build regarding "Delete Songs".

Here's what I did:

1. Wiped iPod Clean
2. Sync'd all my playlists as usual w/Delete checked as my default setting: no problem
3. Sync'd again w/Delete checked

Results: the second sync reuploaded all of the songs.  It completed fine, but I could tell it was reuploading because I was getting transfer rates of 6-7 MB/sec.  

Go figure.  It should have been going at 200 MB/sec (the usual rate when you sync and nothing's changed).

Must be something with the file naming convention or something....

Adam

I noticed the exact same thing, but didn't no how to put it so it was comprehensible....

[nekura]

Yeah, I had that problem as well.  It caught me off guard since I was expecting 200MB/s transfer speeds and I had to leave in a few minutes, so I just cancelled it which left some dupes on my iPod.

[LarryJoe]

I am having a problem with songs ending 5 seconds or so before the end.  This is on the ipod.  I have been using MC9 and the plugin for about a month and this started a few weeks ago and is driving me crazy.

This is very frustrating.  The Ipod just goes to the next song even though there is 5 seconds to play.  The files appear to be complete, it is just that the ipod stops playing them before they are done.  I watched the LCD to verify.

I am using the latest plugin with the latest MC9.  I have formatted with XP, retored with 1.2.1 over and over and transferred over and over and the problem happens 50% of the time.  Yesterday while taking down my Christmas lights, it was happening to 50% of the tunes I listened to, so I decided to load up ephpod (2.60c) again and see what was up and low and behold, all is fine.

I really want to use the MC plugin as I got used to it and auto playlists rock for ipod functionality.  The funny thing is that I used the MC plugin as of a month ago and this just started happenning a few weeks ago.  I am out of ideas.

Anyone got any ideas?  Could it be the last few buggy releases of MC9??  This is definitely related to MC.

LJ

[JimH]

Steve is out until Monday, so he probably won't be able to reply until then.  He went to Philadelphia to see his folks.

[LarryJoe]

Thanks Jim, no probelm, I am sure we will get to a solution soon enough.

[SteveG]

Hello All,

I can't do any testing on the iPod right now because I am caught up with Eagles fever in Philadelphia.

Adam and cct1,

If you have not reformatted, try this. If you have files named with the old naming convention and you synch, for sure it will reupload them. If you still have the problem after a reformat, then there is something else going on which I will look at Monday.

Mindracing,

Before uploading the files, go to options and deselect the file conversion option. If you have that option selected, the files will convert and that will definitely take some time. That option causes your files to convert to whatever settings you have selected.

LarryJoe,

I don't know. Can you isolate that it is only certain files that exhibit that behavior.

Nekura,

Semicolons in files will definitely cause a problem, similar to the '|' problem that Tou and I isolated and fixed. Once we can do some work on MC 9 I can make a more elegant fix for this. Regarding Appleseed, perhaps the title Patron Saint of Smartlists?

[LarryJoe]

Hello All,

LarryJoe,

I don't know. Can you isolate that it is only certain files that exhibit that behavior.

This problem is isolated to the same files and not a random thing where the same song will play to the end once and get cut off the next time I listen to it.  I can examine that particular file over and over on the ipod and it will cut out 5 seconds early every time.

[RandyP]

Problems with Sync...

I found that I had a problem in a ripped file. I re-reripped the file, deleted it and its entry from MC9, put the new file into the directory structure at the same place, and did an Import Media. The new rip of the song was imported by MC9 and played properly.

Bug 1: I did a sync with the iPod with "Update Tags" set. The new tag field(s) were updated in the iPod, but the song file itself was not transferred.

Bug 2: I tried the sync again with "Delete files..." selected. Oops... now it is deleting and replacing every file on the iPod. (This is a confirmation of other postings)

Randy

[ashawley]

<snip>
Adam and cct1,

If you have not reformatted, try this.
</snip>

Yes Steve, this is after a reformat, still occurs.

Adam

[cct1]

Hello All,


Adam and cct1,

If you have not reformatted, try this. If you have files named with the old naming convention and you synch, for sure it will reupload them.

That was the first thing I tried too.  Before I reformatted, I was actually getting duplicate files put on the playlists with each synch, reformatting took care of that problem, but it still reuploads all the songs (when the delete is checked)--it synchs just fine (and incredibly fast I might add) if delete is not checked.

[willrmc]

hey steve, i havn'e posted in a while cause everything has been working great. but with this new build, i tried syncing with delete and update checked. and it just said that i was over ipods capacity, so i guess it needs to go through and delete all the files before it tries to copy any. and i was also having the same problem as others with every song being recopied to the ipod not just the new or changed ones. thanks again.
-

[mindracing]

Hello All,


Mindracing,

Before uploading the files, go to options and deselect the file conversion option. If you have that option selected, the files will convert and that will definitely take some time. That option causes your files to convert to whatever settings you have selected.

I just can't find the file conversion option to uncheck, as per SteveG's advice.

Could someone please point me in the right direction.

Thanks in anticipation

[SteveG]

Hello All,

LarryJoe,

Can you please email me one of the files that cuts off the 5 seconds (steve @ jriver.com)

Randy,

These actions are both by design. The synch does not overwrite the files so that the speed is fast. If you would like the file to overwrite the one on the iPod, drag and drop the file on the iPod and then check "Overwrite"

The Delete Files checkbox should do what it says, it will delete all files on the iPod that are not in the synch. Could you describe what you wish it would do and I can try to add something to the Plugin.

Adam, cct1 and Will,

It sounds like there is a bug. I can't do much for it until Monday.  If it is still workable lets wait until then, if not, I can call in and have someone post the old Plug-in.

Mindracing,

I replied to your email, hopefully you are all set.

[ashawley]

Steve:

I think that it's no big deal.  If you want to sync and need to delete songs off the iPod I just deleted them first, then did a sync w/o Delete checked and it went super fast as usual.

So, I think it can wait....other's might disagree, but I'd hate to go back.

Adam

[cct1]

It's not a big deal, it's a relatively  minor bug--I agree with Adam it's not worth going back to an earlier plugin for; IMHO it can definitely wait until you get the chance to fix it.

[RandyP]

The Delete Files checkbox should do what it says, it will delete all files on the iPod that are not in the synch. Could you describe what you wish it would do and I can try to add something to the Plugin.

Steve,

I guess I didn't communicate the problem well. Here's a simple way to repoduce it.

Make two Smarlists that partially overlap. In my test case, Smartlist "Test 1" contained all files with "Name of" in the Title (8 files). Smartlist "Test 2" contained all files with "Name" in the Title (18 files).

Format the iPod for MC to ensure a clean start. Sync it once with Update Tags. Select only the two test lists. For me, all 18 files were transferred. When the sync is complete, sync it again without changing anything at all, setting "Delete files Not in List" and "Update Tags".

During the second sync, it deleted all files from the iPod and retransmited all 18 of them again. It should not have deleted any files from the iPod, as they were all in the selected lists. In fact, not one single thing changed between sync 1 and sync 2, but all files were deleted and retransmitted.

This is 100% reproducible. MC 5.0.88 / iPod .038

Randy

[RandyP]

These actions are both by design. The synch does not overwrite the files so that the speed is fast. If you would like the file to overwrite the one on the iPod, drag and drop the file on the iPod and then check "Overwrite"

Steve,

Maybe I'm not getting something...

I had a song, "Name of the Game", that I had gotten as a 128-MP3. It was part of the MC9 database and had been synced to the iPod.

I bought the CD and ripped "Name of the Game" at VBR/High because I like it. I went into MC9 and deleted both the database entry and the old MP3 file. Then I moved the new, ripped MP3 file into the proper folder and imported it into MC9.

Then I synced with the iPod... and the new file did not transfer.

How can a file that has been imported since the last sync, has a newer "Created Date", is a different length and has a different compression than that on the iPod, not be considered "syncable"? It's obviously a new file, and the word "Synchronize" has to maintain its general interpretation: the same stuff is on both the iPod and the computer.

"Fast" doesn't mean much if the right files aren't being transferred. I'd like to think that "Synchronize" removes the burden of iPod file management from me and puts it onto MC9.... Press "Sync" and they're the same.

thx, Randy

[Dave T]

I click on the plugin link on the plugin page, and it says that it installed the plugin, but it doesn't appear to be there.  After I click "Ok" in the "Plugin installed ok" dialog, it jumps me into the Web Media screen.  If I right click on the IPod drive under "My Computer" in MC9, I don't see the proper choices for the IPod, as described in the excellent doc here: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ashawley01/.

- Dave

[JimH]

Is it a WiniPod? or a MaciPod?

[newhere]

I click on the plugin link on the plugin page, and it says that it installed the plugin, but it doesn't appear to be there.

Did you install the plugin while MC 9 was running? You might want to try to remove the plugin, close MC 9 and then reinstall. Also, make sure that you have restored the Ipod and not have it renamed and also not have MJ do anything to it.

Payam

[Dave T]

Hi guys.  Thanks for the help.

To answer Jim's question - it's a Windows IPod.

To answer Payam's question - yes, I installed the plugin while MC9 was running.   I tried to follow your instructions, but it still doesn't seem to be installed.  I couldn't uninstall it, because it isn't installed.  But, I did try to install it while MC9 wasn't running, and it still didn't work.

Am I correct in thinking that a plugin called "IPod" or something like that should show up when I expand "Plugins" in the MJ tree?  It doesn't.  All I see is the one plugin I have installed - WebRemote.

So, please help!  My IPod is dead in the water right now.  I reformatted it, in preparation to redownload my tunes via MC9, and now I can't even put anything on it with MusicMatch - MM crashes when I try to upload.  I think I can get that working again - it worked before - but I'd rather move to MC9.

Thanks again,
Dave

[Kurt Young]

Dave, real quick, verify the date of your plugin.

Go to C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\Plugins

Look for hhportables.dll.

Right-click it, hit properties.  Find the date modified and let us know.

(to be honest, i haven't followed the whole thread, but it seems like he doesn't have write access to the folder.  I know he probably does, but that's just what my very first impression was)

PS - hope everyone had a good holiday, and I'm looking forward to getting "back to normal"

[newhere]

... a plugin called "IPod" or something like that should show up when I expand "Plugins" in the MJ tree?

That sounds like the same problem I encountered, right now the plugin will just show up in the plugins menu under 'Handheld' and then as 'Portable Devices' (it will just say Portable Devices and not Ipod). Your ipod should be visible on the left tree under Cd, DVD & Handhelds (you might just see the Drive letter that the ipod uses). Now if you really just restored the ipod and did nothing else (no rename, use as firewire or Music Match stuff), only then will you be able to right click that Drive Letter and see a 'Format Ipod for MJ' after that you can sync.
Hope this helps
Payam

[Dave T]

Payam:

Ok, that answers one question.  I guess it is installed then.  I do have a "Portable Devices" under the handhelds in the "Plugin Manager" menu.  Kurt - the date on my hh_portable.dll is 12/30/2002 2:39PM.

So, it's there, but when I right click on it under "My Computer", I just get the normal menu you get when you click on a drive - not the special IPod menu.  My IPod is named "IPOD", and shows up as such.  I don't have MM running.

Thanks again for the help.  Any other suggestions?

- Dave

[cct1]

Do you have the ipod plugged into your computer when you access media center?  Mine doesn't show up under handhelds UNLESS my ipod is connected to my computer--then it shows up under handhelds as a drive  ("G" in my case).  I right click on this drive to synch, format, etc...

[Dave T]

It's plugged in - it shows up under "My Computer".  But, it doesn't show up under CD, DVD, & Handhelds.

- Dave

[newhere]

It's plugged in - it shows up under "My Computer".  But, it doesn't show up under CD, DVD, & Handhelds.

- Dave

Hmm so it does not even show up as a little Palm lookalike kinda black with a huge screen (which is the current symbol for the ipod in MC)?
I also could not get the special options to show at first, but I always could see the little icon with the Drive letter (in my case coming after the cd drives) F:
Now I could not see any special sync and format options because after I did a restore (via Apple Firmware Restorer) my Music Match came up and asked questions, when I deinstalled Music Match and restored the iPod, it would suddenly have the option 'Format for MJ' in MC 9.
So you can't even see an icon that looks like a handheld organizer with just a plain drive letter next to it (like F: E: or something)? Very strange.

Payam

[ashawley]

DaveT:

What version of MC9 are you running.  Make sure you have 9.0.88 or .89

Get the latest good release here.  It's at the bottom of the page.

Sorry, but I didn't see anyone ask that, just want to make sure we cover all the bases.

I'm also assuming that your iPod says "Do Not Disconnect" when it's connected to your PC.  If you haven't already done it, do a restore w/the Apple Updater, make sure you've got the 1.2.1 version of the updater.

Adam

[Kurt Young]

Steve,

I synched yesterday and it errored out, giving me an "error while copying file" -- turns out that it was a file that I had deleted but not removed from my MC library.  Running an "Update Library" fixed it.

If possible, could you make the plugin just skip any "orphaned" files when transferring, rather than displaying an error and halting the transfer?  Or perhaps put up some text in the error suggesting that people run a library update?

[Dave T]

Okay okay!

I got it working.  The problems seemed to be that I hadn't uninstalled MusicMatch jukebox.  The doc says that it's not neccessary, so I didn't.  I'd figured that I'd just as soon keep it, just in case.  After uninstalling MM, I am able to see the IPod under "Handhelds".  Has anyone been able to get MC9 to work with an IPod, without uninstalling MM?  

So, now I'm able to upload songs.  What I now want to do is to upload all songs in my library, but the ones I specify.  I discovered that the way to do this is to first create a playlist that contains what I don't want to copy, and then to create a smartlist that specifies everything but what's in the playlist.  (BTW, I had a hard time finding out how to do this - there's no explicit section in the help file that says what a smartlist is...)

Anyway, my only remaining question is how to transcode the bitrate of my mp3's to a lower bitrate for my IPod.  I've seen it mentioned that you can do this, but I don't see how.  Right clicking on the ipod doesn't give me access to any settings to do this, the synchronize menu doesn't let you specify the transcoding bitrate, ... - I don't know where else I should look.

Thanks again for all the help.

- Dave

[ashawley]

Dave T:

Glad you got it working.  I wasn't aware of the MMJB needing to be uninstalled problem.  In theory as long as the iPod shows up in My Computer as a drive, meaning you have "Enable Firewire Disk Mode" ticked off on MMJB then it should work fine.  Guess I'll need to do some testinga and see what the deal is.

Regarding the smartlist.  There's an easier way to do it.  Make a Smartlist that excludes what you don't want.  You'll notice if you do Add Rule>Artist you get a dialog of all your Artists.  At the bottom of that dialog is an option "Do what with this selection" with a drop-down list for Include or Exclude.  What I do is change it to Exclude and select the Artists I don't want on my iPod.  That playlist I call "iPod Tunes".  You can do the same with Albums as well, so if you want to include The Beatles, but don't want the White Album on the iPod, you can add another rule for Album and exclude that Album (and more).

Hope that makes sense.

As far as the transcoding.  It's kind of funky right now.  And I don't know if it works right on syncing, but you can test it out and let us know.

First, grab one song (that will end up on your iPod from your sync list.  And right click it and select Send To>I:iPod (whatever your iPod's drive letter is).  The click your iPod.  An "Upload" frame will show up at the bottom.  There will be an Options button.  Clicking it should let you change the transcoding.  Now, this setting in theory should be preserved for when you do the sync, but I'm not sure if it will.

Also, remember that when you do this your upload times are going to be drastically increased due to the transcoding.

Adam

[mindracing]

I had the same problem with sync speed.

Using 'send to' with no conversion options the speed is fine.

If I do a sync with 'transfer all files' they all get converted and it takes forever.

I can't find a way to turn off conversion when doing a full sync.

[newhere]

Dave T:

In theory as long as the iPod shows up in My Computer as a drive, meaning you have "Enable Firewire Disk Mode" ticked off on MMJB then it should work fine.  

Adam, does this mean that I can't use iPod as a data drive when I use MC?

Also why would anyone not include the White Album from the Beatles?

Payam

P.S. I am currently pondering about the 'The' preceding artists names (such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles...) Should I be using the 'The' in MC? Though question because it seems to belong to the Name but on the other hand the Letter T is way overused if I do. Interestingly enough, the iPod seems to filter the 'The' out and if I go artist and arrive at say 'B', it will show the Beatles I thought that was cool, would be great if MC would follow up (but then if I search with the Wizard it will just show it either way, I think that is one of the niftiest features of MC anyhow). Jeez look at all this ranting sorry folks...

[Dave T]

I've wondered about the "the", too.  I always take the artist/album names assigned to me by YADB, and consequently often get two entries for artists in the Artist/Album view ("The Rolling Stones", "Rolling Stones").  Other jukebox software (and the IPod) will ignore a "the" in the start of a name.  This must have come up before... anyone know if J River plans a fix?

Back to the topic - I will try transcoding tonight and report back.  I only had a quick chance to try it this morning, and it did seem very slow.  For some reason, the transcoding in Musicmatch was much faster.

- Dave

[SteveG]

Everyone,

I ran out of time today and have not had a chance to sift through everyone's messages. I will get on this tomorrow. Sorry for the delay.

Steve

[ashawley]

Adam, does this mean that I can't use iPod as a data drive when I use MC?

Also why would anyone not include the White Album from the Beatles?

Payam

P.S. I am currently pondering about the 'The' preceding artists names (such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles...) Should I be using the 'The' in MC? Though question because it seems to belong to the Name but on the other hand the Letter T is way overused if I do. Interestingly enough, the iPod seems to filter the 'The' out and if I go artist and arrive at say 'B', it will show the Beatles I thought that was cool, would be great if MC would follow up (but then if I search with the Wizard it will just show it either way, I think that is one of the niftiest features of MC anyhow). Jeez look at all this ranting sorry folks...

Payam:

You absolutely can use the iPod as a hard drive with MC9.  MC9 doesn't do anything with the drive letter assigned by windows.  Unlike MMJB (which does), it leaves it up to Windows to manage.

Regarding the "The", I know that the iPod ignores leading articles and that's a great thing.  A number of folks have requested it of JRiver, hopefully they'll add it as well.

P.S.: and I just couldn't think of another album to exclude

Adam

[Dave T]

Ok, I'm back home, and started my upload/transcoding.  I'm trying to upload about 22 gig of mp3's encoded at highest quality VBR, to a 20 gig IPod.  I'm transcoding to what MC9 calls "Normal/High Quality VBR".  It's running now.  Some observations:

1) When I right click on my playlist and "Send To" the IPod, there's about a 30 second delay.  Probably something to do with the number of songs I'm copying.  

2) When I next click on the IPod, there's another 30 second delay.

3) The "Upload" box at the bottom, below the queue, has the Upload button cut off.

4) The transcoding is VERY slow - about 30 seconds per song.  Maybe this is reasonable - I don't know.  But, somehow, MM does it much faster, or at least it claims to.  When I set MM to transcode, it's faster - perhaps it isn't really transcoding?

5) It doesn't tell me how much space the uploaded files would take.  It would be nice if it gave at least an estimate - I'll be unhappy if all these files end up not fitting, after waiting all night.  There is a "available size after upload" number, but it shows the initial space available.  The "Upload File Size" doesn't change when I change the transcode options.

So, I'll let this run, it'll probably take all night.  I'll post back if I have more issues.

Thanks.

- Dave

[mindracing]

Dave T,

You're not alone.

I experience exactly the same results.

[buddy]

Well, I have blown it.  After reading the help document dicussed earlier I followed the optional recommendation for 'restoring'.  Now I'm unable to get windows (xp) to display the ipod as an external disk.  However, the 'safely remove hardware' icon in the tray does see it and provides an option to remove.  
I understand that MC requires the ipod as an external drive with a lable of "ipod" before it will recognize as handheld device.
Now I can't do anything with my ipod.
Did the restore procedure do something to my ipod/windows interaction?  How do I resolve this problem?  I've visited apple's site and can find no reference to windows or a ipod driver for windows.
I'm really bummed out, and would appreciate any help!!

[fex]

...
I'm really bummed out, and would appreciate any help!!

My "quick and dirty" solution: Reinstall MMJB and the last ipod-plugin. Then, after connecting ipod, a new window (plugin) appears. Under the options you can define now, that the ipod shows up as a "normal" hard drive. You can also define within these options, that MMJB not automatic starts, when you connect the ipod.

After this, MJ/MC can recognise the ipod without any problem. There is no reason to deinstall MMJB, when you use MJ/MC. So you always have both options for the "emergency"-case. Only don't run both at the same time.

Fex

[Phil Lee]

Buddy, I agree with Fex. I had the same problem as you are having when I uninstalled MMJB last month. After reinstalling it my iPod started working as a drive again. I mentioned this problem in one of the previous iPod plugin threads here.

[Dave T]

Update after trying to rip my cd collection last night:

It died after 2 or 3 hours.  It was stuck on the "encoding" screen, for one of the songs that was being transcoded.  MC9 was locked up completely - the cancel button did nothing.  I restarted MC9, did another "send to" of my playlist to the IPod, went to the IPod "queue", removed the songs already copied from the queue, and hit "Update" again.  It locked up on the same song.  I then tried to copy a single song, and same thing - it locked up.

That was all I had time to try this morning.  I'll try more tonight.  I don't know what happened - the IPod is still connected - I can browse to it fine in Windows Explorer.

Anyhew...

I just realized that it's going to take about 33 hours to rip my 4000 songs!  This is because of the transcoding taking 30 seconds per song.  MusicMatch did the entire copy, with transcoding, in about 40 minutes.  I realize that MC9 has a much better encoder than MM, but I'd prefer lower quality/higher speed, when it comes to transcoding to my IPod.  Are there any faster MP3 encoder plugins avalable that I can use to transcode to my IPod in MC9?  Or, would it be possible, at least, to make the encoder in MC9 encode while it's unencoding?  (It looks like it first converts the MP3 back to WAV, then encodes it.   I thought that MC9 was able to start encoding as it unencoded, at least when you do a burn...)

- Dave

[Philippe]

Dave,

if you have a long list of songs requiring conversion to upload to iPod, on-the-fly conversion may not be what you want: MC will keep all WAV files in the Temp folder until all MP3 files are created.  Then only it will upload all MP3 to iPod and clear the Temp folder.

This has two major drawbacks : first you may get out of disk space because of all WAV files, second iPod has to be connected during the conversion which is an issue if your FireWire port is not powered.

I would rather recommend to convert all songs through Tools; Convert Format..., Encoding Options 'Delete WAV file', all Converter Options unchecked.

This will create MP3 copies of all songs in their relative folders.  Then locate them through My Computer, sort the folders by File Type so you have all MP3 at once, select the MP3 files, Send To iPod and proceed with iPod Upload (without conversion of course).  Then all you need is to clear the MP3 files.

Hope this helps,

[JimH]

I wonder if MusicMatch was only converting tracks that hadn't been converted before.  The two encoders should not be off by more than double the time.

A work-around might be setting up a second library for MP3 files.  File/Library/Library Manager is where you start.  Make sure you don't save the library in the same location as your default library.

Another possibility is a lower bit rate.

Encoding can also be done with any external program.

Dave, are you the same Dave who's working on the IR program over on AVSForum?  I'm following that with great interest.

[Dave T]

Phillippe:

Yipes!  So it won't do each song at a time, deleting the temp files as it goes?  That is a problem.  I checked, and I did indeed run out of disk space.  Unfortunately, your suggestion doesn't work for me - my original files are already mp3's.  I just want to convert them to a lower bitrate.  I use highest quality VBR for my main system, but want lower quality VBR for the IPod.

Looks like I have a problem.  I have a 20 gig IPod that I want to fill with music.  I want to compress my mp3's more than I do when listening to them on my main system.  How do I do it?  I have 13 gig free on my hard drive, but it looks like I'd need 100 meg or so free, if I want to add 20 gig of mp3's.

Jim - no, MusicMatch was doing conversion on the fly.  I was transoding my highest quality VBR mp3's to 128bps  CBR mp3's.  I didn't save the 128bps ones anywhere else but on my IPod, and it did it that fast the first time I copied everything up.  I have no idea how/why it was so fast, but it was.  Actually, you should be able to reproduce this - you guys have an IPod there, right?  It ships with everything you need to use it with MM.  I suppose you know all this...

Regarding your other suggestions - I'd rather not set up a seperate library.  I just want to transcode all the mp3's I have.  You said that I can use any encoder - can you tell me where to find one, or where I can find docs on this?  If there's another mp3 encoder I can use that is faster than LAME, and doesn't have the limitation of leaving all its temp files around, then that sounds like it would solve my issues.

Other than that, how can I do this?  Is there anyone that can fill a 20gig IPod with MP3's and do transcoding?  I don't mind if it's a little bit of a pain - I don't do this every day.  I just don't see how I can use MC at all for this - there's no way I'd have enough free space.  I guess can go back to MM - that worked.  The thing I like about using MC for it, other than that I'm using MC for all my other music, is that it supports copying using an "exclude" smartlist.  I have a bit more music than can fit on the IPod.  Specifying what I want by saying "everything but", is definately the way to go for me.

And, yes - Jim - I am the same Dave T as the IR program guy.  Thanks for the interest!

- Dave

[SteveG]

Everyone,

I am revamping some things within the Plug-in that will resolve the synching and naming issues.

Phillipe and DaveT,

I will address the transcoding after the revamp is finished.

Buddy,

If you are not all set, email me...
steve @ jriver.com

[Dave T]

Thanks, Steve.  I'll check back in a couple of weeks, to see the state of things.

In the meantime, I guess I'll reinstall MusicMatch, unless someone can tell me how to transcode with another encoder, as discussed above.

- Dave