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[InflatableMouse]

If anyone here is using iTunes Match could you share your experiences with it?

I'm considering using it to stream my music to my new ipad and iphone. I've read how its supposed to work but some real experiences would be nice. I'm sure there are some hooks to it that aren't obvious from reading the product page.

Thanks.

[bspachman]

I've been using it since its release. I set my expectation bar low--really low--and have been (mostly) pleasantly surprised. For my purposes it has retained the old-time-Apple "It Just Works" vibe.

I've always used MC to manage all of my music. I keep 'stacks' of my audio files with lossless compressed files for home use and ~128kbps files for portable use. I use MCiTS to sync the compressed files into a Windows iTunes library. I have iTunes Match turned on for that Windows iTunes library.

I then use iTunes Match on my Macintosh laptop and occasionally on my iPhone. When I first started using iTM, I had problems with album artwork disappearing. There were lots of threads on Apple's message boards about the same problem, but no consistent solution. I eventually got everything working properly--one possibility was that since I was an early adopter, there were capacity and server issues. All I know is that I haven't seen this particular problem for some time.

The only other hiccup I've been experiencing is that I will often get a message that one machine or another was unable to connect to iTM. Signing out and signing back in seems to take care of it.

One often-mentioned, but definitely sweet aspect was that the matching process (though long) does afford an opportunity to download higher-quality versions of tracks in your library. In my case, they were old DRM-encumbered iTunes Store purchases that I had converted to CD, then re-ripped. The re-ripped versions were matched and I could download the current version of the track without DRM and at a much higher bitrate.

Do you have specific questions?
brad

[sunfire7]

I have it too, I use it to "upgrade" those low-medium quality mp3 that I can't get in lossless, I don't use streaming.

Pros:
*You can match your mp3s to a better quality DRM free iTunes Store AAC plus, and you can keep them.
*If you have your music well tagged, upload takes less than a regular upload because of matched songs.
*You can forget about sync music to your iDevice, since is in the cloud now
*You can "stream" music (it's a combo of stream and download from the cloud)

Cons:
*Your matched songs are upgraded in quality and format but it keeps your tags ( I would prefer let the user choice)
*If you select itunes match in your iDevice, you cannot play the songs you already have in your phone (don't know if are erased) So you have to choose between itunes match or traditional in-device music, which is not cool.

Overall I'm happy with the service since is not expensive and it upgrades those files I can't find in lossless formats.

[glynor]

If anyone here is using iTunes Match could you share your experiences with it?

I tried.

[)p(]

If anyone here is using iTunes Match could you share your experiences with it?

It works very well under wifi but it has more dropouts then Spotify with 3g.
Matching was not that great with my library. But my uploading speed is good so that was not really an issue.
I mostly use spotify but sometimes its handy to have access to music that is not in Spotify.

[Magic_Randy]

Anyone know what happens if you start under the 25,000 song limit and then surpass it?

[glynor]

Anyone know what happens if you start under the 25,000 song limit and then surpass it?

Doesn't look good.  Check the bottom of this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3492422?start=45&tstart=0

[Magic_Randy]

Doesn't look good.  Check the bottom of this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3492422?start=45&tstart=0

Interesting thread, thanks...

I signed up for iTunes Match. It was matching when I posed my question. My library is not as big as many of the other MC users so I fit in the current limit.

At 20,785 I have room for growth but eventually will hit the current limit. Looks like there is no no easy workaround today. I certainly don't want to have multiple libraries.

In any case, it's only $25 a year so even if I eventually grow out of it it's no big deal.

[Scarpad]

It does'nt often pickup the correct or any artwork and the albums are mostley missing album art even thou its in Itunes

[Magic_Randy]

Well, I'm now using iTunes Match.

I signed up last Thursday and it took until last night (6+ days) and some gymnastics to get everything matched.

My library has about 21k songs. Of these 15k+ were matched and the remaining were uploaded. The upload is what takes the time (almost all of the 6+ days). That being said, some of the time was lost do to errors and the PC sat idle until I sorted it out.

I only have about 50 tracks that were either not matched or uploaded. Most of these were ineligible as they were under the minimum bit-rate requirement. Other than that there were 5 tracks that had problems. Of these 1 has an error and will probably have to be re-ripped to get it to upload. This one was handled gracefully by the match process. The other 4 crashed iTunes (not graceful). These were tricky as you have to identify which ones are causing the crash and delete them from your iTunes library to allow the process to proceed. This is where the gymnastics come into play. Fortunately all 4 were on a single album so it did not take too long to sort it out.

Now I'm wondering what happens as I make changes in MC. As an example, if I move and rename files, how does this impact what is matched in iTunes. Any feedback from your experiences would be appreciated.