Itunes

Welcome to the forums! We don't bite often, but don't feed the Herne. :P

I'm a diehard iTunes fan but I'm a pretty basic user... you lost me on codecs! Maybe Media Monkey is a good solution for Matt. :)

Funny thing is that a couple of days ago I saw my daughter connecting her iPod to the laptop and asked her if she wanted me to help fix the syncing problem that we had experienced.  She said that she had resync'd and back using iTunes. 

See my previous post here freaking ipod

All is good now.

Thank you,

I have included links below to Wikipedia abut codec's and flac.

I hope I explain this correct but a codec is a compressor/encryption for data streams for example mp3 is a codec as well as mpeg, x264, xvid and divx to name some of the more popular ones. Flac is a codec for lossless audio but Wikipedia could explain it better then I can.

If I have made a mistake please correct me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec

Remind me to put something unflattering about Tom in my next singing audio comment...

tmiller Thanks for posting to the forum a great alternative to iTunes. A lot of people don't like iTunes but love the iPod. This is a great alternative. I especially like the fact that you can push video with iTunes and still use Media Monkey for everything else - nice tip!!!

I agree as well about codec support. One thing is for sure: if you use iTunes only then you have to accept the codecs offered. One could argue that this is a little bit Microsoft'ish of them :P (shudup you lot - you know what I mean!). But the fact that you can change the rules with software is awesome.

Thanks tmiller for the contribution!! Much appreciated.

Yes we did feed Herne this week and I don't believe that he is biting much these days, we had him declawed...

In all seriousness though: I really hope that anyone wanting to post to this forum is not apprehensive to do so. I would like to think this forum is a safe environment to be both right and wrong. This place doesn't tend to be the home of flame wars and I will prevent it from being that way. I will however encourage people to disagree and argue. This is a lot different to flamming. Make a case and argue your point - But I or the moderators of this site will take action against members getting personal or degrading someone else. Period.

Anyway that aside - thanks mate!!!

I used floola yesterday to rip the tracks off some old nano before the user wiped it.

So far nothing's good. Itunes inability to transcode HD down to HVGA or whatever for my Touch 2G is not encouraging.

I do like the way I can now play a podcast on my Touch 2G and itunes updates with the played time.

I have nothing against iTunes persé, but there's some functionality I want from an audioplayer that I have so far been unable to find.

I have an external disk with my indie music collection connected to the office' Mac Mini. Since I collect the stuff together with friends from work, music is added and removed all the time without my knowledge. This is where my problems with iTunes start, because iTunes loses track of their changes if they make them directly to the disk. 

In my netbook's Linux I have the Amarok player, which DOES check the collection for changes. The problem with Amarok however is that the OS X version is as yet unreleased and the beta is badly broken.

I have also tried Songbird, which looked promising, but ALSO lacks a rescan option.

I'm getting tired of reloading the entire collection every time I spot a missing track. Does anyone know of a decent music player for OS X that keeps track of changes to my music collection?

Personally I think that maybe you need to reach an agreement with the guys at work! Unusual circumstances that you describe.

What about creating a master disk or something that retains integrity and have another one that can be changed? Then you can have syncing software to add new tracks but protect the existing ones?

Just a thought - I am sure there is a way to do it. But I think that the onus is on the user as opposed to the application.

It's like herding cats, I tell you. :)

Sounds it mate :P

Ooo.... Herne.... can't wait for the song! Never been featured in a song before.  You know we love you really! :P

tmiller... thanks for the linkies... Interesting stuff but I think that's all a bit pro for me though and I'll stick with iTunes and let it do its thing with whatever codec it decides to use like the amateur I am!

woollymittens... can't they just add it through the iTunes interface on the Mac Mini rather than directly in the folder structure?  Or create a separate dropbox folder on the hard drive that people add to, and then you just drag that into iTunes whenever you connect to the Mac Mini?

Thanks tom125, that is the obvious and only right solution. Like I said though: It's like herding cats. I find files in the weirdest places as it is.

for now I've settled for a compromise. I just empty the itunes folder every once in a while and re-add everything. Luckily that's mercifully fast for such a large collection.

I did find the perfect little utility for making a backup of the collection to an external harddisk though. It's simply a front-end for RSYNC the command line tool most easily compared to XCOPY if you are used to Windows.

It's called arRsync from http://arrsync.sourceforge.net/ and it makes it really easy to synchronize folder without scaring me with a command line.

double post... I got a "Gateway error". Sorry.