Quake3World

edit: Shit, sorry -- I didn't realize this post was going to be so long.


Well, the decision I was wrangling over has finally been made for me. My gf gave me an early birthday present so I could take it on vacation with us next week.

I now have a shiny, new 30gb iPod Photo. This thing is awesome. :icon32:

As much as I love the iPod (and parts of iTunes), I'm still having trouble fitting iTunes into the way I already manage my music, so maybe some of you guys who have been using it can help me out with a couple of things...

First, I decided not to let iTunes manage my music folders for me. From what I've heard, it has caused no end of headaches for a lot of people who have allowed it to, and I like the way I have them arranged already.
But, with the way iTunes works, I've started to wonder if I should go ahead and allow it to do that anyway.

I've got a lot of mp3's that don't have the correct id3 tag information in them. I've started going through my library in iTunes and editing the Artist/Album/Song information, and getting things a little more organized. But I just started realize that, even though I'm editing all this info in iTunes, none of it is going to transfer over to the id3 info in my mp3/music files. I knew this already (since I told it not to manage my files for me), but I just didn't make the connection until just now that - if I want to edit my id3 information - I'm going to have to do all this twice. And - even if I decided to let iTunes manage my files - I'm not sure that the file info in iTunes is even stored in id3 tag format. Isn't it just stored in iTunes/proprietary format that won't carry over to other mediums?

What would you iTunes users recommend I do about file and file info management for my music?

Also, both my gf and myself now have iPods. We're hoping that we can both share all of our music, and sync our collections so we both have all the same music. Is that possible at all with iTunes/iPod? She's purchased a lot of songs from the iTunes Store, and from what I've read those can only be played/used on the computer that is authorized to have them. Is there an easy/manageable way to share all our music?

And my last question -- if the things I'm wanting to do are not possible with iTunes, are there any third-party/open-source applications out there that can work with the iPod and do the things that iTunes does, or similar?

I know that's a lot to ask for, but I'll be happy with any information any of you guys can give me on any of those questions.

I'm just starting to really dig into using the iPod and software, but iTunes just doesn't really live up to the standards I'm used to with other software - as far as ease of use, and tools/options for advanced users who don't worry as much about a pretty interface and single-click, drag/drop management. For instance, it's a pain in the ass just to change song info for songs. There are columns you can display for every info category, but in order to edit it, you have to switch back and forth from mouse to keyboard to mouse to keyboard a lot to get anything done, and it's very cumbersome.

You have to click the song you want, then press CTRL-I for the information window, then click or tab down to the field you want to edit and make the changes you want. After you edit it and hit enter, the song moves to its corresponding place in the library, so using the keyboard to go to the next song will take you all the way up there, instead of where you were working, so you have to go back to the mouse to select the next song you want to edit. This doesn't sound like much of a hassle, but when you have a hundred or two songs that need information changed, it gets to be quite tedious.
It would be much easier if I could just use the keyboard and tab between the fields that are displayed in the main window, and edit them right there on the screen. But the tab and arrow keys don't tab between song fields, and none of the help files have shortcuts for this type of thing.

So again, any suggestions/info you guys can give to help me out will be greatly appreciated. :icon25:

macnerd forums will get you rockin mate

http://forums.macnn.com/forumdisplay.ph ... 1b74&f=103

hreers a macnn link yo

Is all the info valid for iTunes on Windows? I don't have a Mac.

I let iTunes manage my music folder for me. Works pretty good 99% of the time

-mac fag tho.

How exactly does it arrange the folders? It may not be the same on Windows as it is on Mac, but does it have folders for artists, albums, etc? Or does it throw them all in a single folder, and just depend on the info tags to sort them in iTunes?

Anapod worked well for me when i was using it

http://www.mlipod.com/index.php

Forget iTunes

already did, although the addition of podcast support is sure a nice added feature. most podcast apps fall flat on their faces.

aye, the Winamp iPod plugin gets my vote too :icon31:

R00k wrote:How exactly does it arrange the folders? It may not be the same on Windows as it is on Mac, but does it have folders for artists, albums, etc? Or does it throw them all in a single folder, and just depend on the info tags to sort them in iTunes?

Artist Album '[Track #] [Track Name].[Type]'
or
Compilations Album '[Track #] [Track Name].[Type]' for 'various artists' type albums

R00k wrote:How exactly does it arrange the folders? It may not be the same on Windows as it is on Mac, but does it have folders for artists, albums, etc? Or does it throw them all in a single folder, and just depend on the info tags to sort them in iTunes?

Used to do the second, now it does the first.

I used to fuck around with managing my music tag and files until I let iTunes do it for me. All I do is drop new files into the program and it sorts them... It makes the folders, names the file, etc. My time is too valuable to worry about naming and arranging files and itunes does an acceptable job for me.

yer just lazy, admit it

I have it manage my music folder, works great. No issues at all, just as long as your ID3 tags are consistent.

Psyche911 wrote:I have it manage my music folder, works great. No issues at all, just as long as your ID3 tags are consistent.

R00k wrote: I've got a lot of mp3's that don't have the correct id3 tag information in them.

Holy crap. The winamp plugin looks pretty good, but this Anapod software is exactly perfectly what I was hoping to find. Windows shell integration, mass file editing, customizing iPod settings through the PC...

Thanks juggs, I'm going to try it out - from what I see so far, I'll probably buy it. :icon14:

Okay I'm checking out the trial for AnaPod. I love it.

There is one feature it doesn't have that I need - batch id3 tag editing for files on the PC. It will re-tag files on the iPod, but I guess I need to clean up all the id3 tags on the mp3 files on my pc before it will be very useful.

I supposed I could transfer ALL my music to the iPod and edit them there, but that would be quite a hassle, since I would have to re-sort them and copy them back into their individual artist/album folders on my hard drive to get them back on my PC.

What's the best batch id3-tag editor out there?

R00k wrote:Okay I'm checking out the trial for AnaPod. I love it.

There is one feature it doesn't have that I need - batch id3 tag editing for files on the PC. It will re-tag files on the iPod, but I guess I need to clean up all the id3 tags on the mp3 files on my pc before it will be very useful.

I supposed I could transfer ALL my music to the iPod and edit them there, but that would be quite a hassle, since I would have to re-sort them and copy them back into their individual artist/album folders on my hard drive to get them back on my PC.

What's the best batch id3-tag editor out there?

glad you like it. i use tag and rename. it does the job and is pretty intuitive. i believe Saturn recommended that one way back.

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:

Psyche911 wrote:I have it manage my music folder, works great. No issues at all, just as long as your ID3 tags are consistent.

R00k wrote: I've got a lot of mp3's that don't have the correct id3 tag information in them.

So fix 'em like I did.

That's the next step. The least fun part of the whole process.

+JuggerNaut+ wrote:tag and rename

*googles*

Tag and Rename is the program you'd want to use. Does an excellent job.

hey i just bought one myself, tho the 60GB as it was only $100 more than the 20GB. i don't know how specific you are about your rips but if you do any hi-quality vbr stuff like --aps or --ape w/lame then there may be some skipping in playback. i've witnessed it myself in test rips. i myself still use --r3mix, mostly to save on compression times and filesize but i digress...

i've tried ephpod as well as itunes and tho i find the interface to be quite simplistic there is no way to display any album art as of yet with it, which renders that feature useless so i've gone back to itunes. maybe anapod can display album art? i've yet to try it. also, foobar2000 has a plugin that works well i've heard. search for foo_pod if you're into that app.

but i would steer clear of itunes renaming scheme if you're into managing your files already. tag and rename is definately the way to go, complete with amazon album art tool.

actually i have an itunes question now...is there any way to take what i've got on my ipod and throw it into my library in i tunes? i don't want the files to be copied to my HDD, mainly becuase they're dupes, but i just want to create an ipod specific library as opposed to my complete collection