iTunes: Trials and Tribulations

I always steer clear of Apple products, though admittedly this is only because I have a friend who is completely obsessed by them and frequently mocks me for my (higher-spec yet cheaper) PC and my (higher-spec yet cheaper) MP3 player. If only to spite him, I'll never have a Mac or an iPod.

Yeah but you have to admit that Apple bears some very close-mind restrictions in their products and i could never understand their elitist behavior.

2) video conversions between formats aren't always without problems though

Not familiar with it. If you're satisfied with it, then by all means that's perfectly ok

Likewise! He saved my ass by telling me to tag everything....best advise I've ever had.

Ok Thor - I don't mean to kick you while you are down but why in the world would you rip your music using Window Media Player thus creating wma files (which can't be played on the iPod) instead of using iTunes or another program that can create compatible file formats for the iPod? Now you have MP3's converted from wma files which means you are converting from one lossy format to another. Your files are going to sound like crap!

Also, you mention about being to hasty in your purchase. A little research would have helped you and mostly likely would have helped you avoid this problem.

Anyway, here is what I recommend.

OPTION #1

This is the most extreme option... re-rip all of your music into MP3, acc or Apple lossless. This might take the most time but at least you will have better sounding files then the ones you converted from the wma's files. Plus, you can control the tags before ripping, add art work, etc, etc, etc. You'll have full control over your music.

Now, if you don't want to go that route and decide to convert from the wma files you have to then...

OPTION #2

...delete all the converted files you have. They are all disorganized anyway and re-converting them won't take that long. Next, make sure all of your tags (in your wma files) are clean. This will help in the organized and folder naming when converting through iTunes. Example: Make sure that if you have a John Williams piece that the artist field displays John Williams and not original soundtrack recording. Now, before you convert them check the iTunes preferences/advance tab EDIT> PREFERENCE>ADVANCED to see how iTunes is going to organized your music. Uncheck "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized". If you check that then your folders are most definitely going to get messed up. Also, check the bit rate you want to convert your music too. EDIT>PREFERENCES>GENERAL>IMPORT SETTINGS *NOTE - Since you are going from wma to another format then may I recommend you select Apple Lossless. That will limit the amount of compression from one file to another. Or at least go to 320k AAC or MP3.

Once that's done then do a test with one or two album to make sure that you are happy with the results. If not, then MSN me, email me or type out your results here.

As for movies... there's software you can find on the internet that will convert your movies to a format that your iPod will be able to play back. You might want to open them in Quicktime and export from there... but that might only be possible if you have Quicktime Pro.

Good luck,

-Erik-

Awesome tips, y'all (Martijn and Erik in particular).

Even though I also imported/converted many tracks that had not been copied from my own CD's (but rather downloaded or once ripped from CD's I no longer own), I thankfully hadn't come that long into my CD collection conversion yet. So I guess I'll delete all the converted files (and all the files on my iPod - about 5 Gigs worth in total, some 2700 songs), and then start from scratch, like you suggest, Erik.

However, I think I'll keep the wma rips I've already done.

Am I correct to assume that iTunes is the best program to use for ripping my CD's into mp3's then?

Sorry for sounding dumb, but I'm a real tech noob compared to you guys. I thought Windows Media Player made mp3's out of my CD's when I ripped the tracks!

TJ

CDex is excellent and free, with many options for ripping.

Yup, or go for the ultimate overkill in quality and rip to WAV.

It's pretty good. But one piece of freeware that gets consistently good reviews is Audiograbber. Fast and reliable.

http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

-Erik-

Tomorrow?

Hmmm....I'm trying to change the tags of the files before I move them (and in the case of the WMA-files, convert them) to iTunes, but my Windows Media Player can't seem to get the info up in the "rip" box, like the old version. Where the hell do I this, then?!? Am I not able to change the tag info on files that are already ripped and stored on my harddisk?

(other than, you know, to change EACH single track manually!)

It's not that kind of tag, it's the tags denoting artist, album, track title etc. I used to be able to do this on WMP, but this new version doesn't seem to have that option.

Cool! You're a bottomless pit, Erik (of knowledge, that is)! I didn't even know such a program existed. I'm now doing this slowly, step-by-step instead of the panic-stricken first few days after I got the damn thing!

Erik is certainly the man!!! His character defect is the Toronto Maple Leaf's