iPod 80 gig

[rostasi]

What is the advantage of re-ripping? Can MP3 files get damaged just sitting in a hard drive?

I'm saying that if Brad's tunes are either stuttering or not working at all (due to the freeze/incorrect demount), then he'll have to re-rip the tunes. The problem is that when an accident occurs it affects different songs without any musical or stylistic reasons so he could re-rip a song whenever he hears a problem with that song (which could be a long ongoing process) or just re-rip his complete library.

[rostasi]

So you think that the itunes files were also damaged? That might explain things. I had about 3000 songs on there and I've started to get rid of all of 'em. I'll just start again, except for some cds I no longer have.

What I'll probably do in that case is download those to a cd and then upload back into itunes to see if that works.

Yeah, if you've got the time to do it, you could try that - only you know

how much music that you have and how much time that you want to spend on fixing it.

Maybe you could create a disc of the files that you no longer have and then

casually go thru your CD library - listening and ripping.

It fills up real fast! Up to now, I've been making a separate playlist that I call "Orphans"

that holds little bits of things that I may get online or stuff that JSngry sends as attachments ( )

and after days, weeks, months...I'll burn a disc of all of the "orphaned" songs.

...but, yeah, from your description, I'd say that you may have damaged some or many of the audio files

with the freeze/demount.

A few years ago, I accidentally unplugged the wrong external drive -

just happened to be the one that had my iTunes folder on it

and off went the music and a bunch of files were now totally corrupt.

Learned my lesson real fast!

[tonym]

ipod calculator

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/ipod/calculator/

This is nice to see this. Since it may be difficult to estimate what your average song duration is,

you can put in "1 minute" and the numbers become the total minutes you can store.

Probably obvious, but thought I'd point that out in case it was missed.

I did it this way;

Click on the time tab so all tracks are listed downwards in order of time, then scroll to the halfway point: so if you have 2000 tracks go to 1000th on the list. That time in my case was 5'04" and many tracks shared that same time.

Not a 'true' average but the median and given that most tracks increase in quite small increments between 1min and 30mins there's not that much variation over a few thousand.

[rostasi]

Good idea! Yeah, it's a median, but it works for most folks. Thanks!

My last iTunes collection of tracks went from 0:00 to a track that was

many days in length, so I'm not sure if it would've worked for me.

[tonym]

Good idea! Yeah, it's a median, but it works for most folks. Thanks!

My last iTunes collection of tracks went from 0:00 to a track that was

many days in length, so I'm not sure if it would've worked for me.

been listening to John Cage's Organ piece again have we?

[king ubu]

So if a CD gets ripped to MP3 by iTunes (I never do it that way, but I just wonder), it gets encoded at a crappy 128 kbps? Is that just an unchangeable truth, or are there possibilities to set up how the MP3s will be created?

Many possibilities abound - not just 128.

I rip mine lossless - but yes, many choices abound.

I know there are many options, but is there an option to adjust the bitrate in iTunes? And if so, is iTunes a good programme to encode WAVs or CD-tracks to MP3?

I use CDex at the moment, usually at 320 kbs.

[md655321]

Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Importing.

There you can set the bitrate and choose lossless/AAC/MP3.

EAC is considering the gold standard for importing though.

[king ubu]

Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Importing.

There you can set the bitrate and choose lossless/AAC/MP3.

EAC is considering the gold standard for importing though.

Thank you, I guess I should have taken a closer look at the menues!

How do you set-up EAC to create MP3s? I always used CDex so far...

[Uncle Skid]

I just recently switched from CDex to EAC for ripping MP3s.

I found this guide very helpful in figuring out how to set all of the various options.

[Kari S]

Tip: Let's say you want to remove an album from your iPod, but not from your computers hard drive. Delete the album in iTunes, but answer to the following questions that you want it removed from your library but KEEP the files. Then do 'Sync'; it doesn't show it, but it removes the album from your iPod along with the rest of your new adds or changes you made before syncing.

...

I believe the problems with my configuration of an external HDD and iTunes freezing were caused by these things. First of all, I think iTunes (and/or my laptop) thinks that my hard drive and iPod should be connected to specific USB ports. If I connect them wrong, when iTunes tries to find the files in my library to sync iPod (which are on my external disc) it freezes the iPod. I think the same happens if the external hard disk isn't "ON". This is with autosyncing on.

Edited January 16, 2007 by Kari S

[king ubu]

I just recently switched from CDex to EAC for ripping MP3s.

I found this guide very helpful in figuring out how to set all of the various options.

Thanks a lot, I'll have a look at this!

[makpjazz57]

Are there any "deals" available when purchasing an 80GB iPOD? I might be getting a work bonus in February and if so, I'd love to replace my 20GB which died about 2 months ago. I saw the 80GB on sale through Circuit City on line for $332. Any suggestions as to where to research for best pricing?

Thanks in advance,

Marla

[rostasi]

Are there any "deals" available when purchasing an 80GB iPOD? I might be getting a work bonus in February and if so, I'd love to replace my 20GB which died about 2 months ago. I saw the 80GB on sale through Circuit City on line for $332. Any suggestions as to where to research for best pricing?

Thanks in advance,

Marla

I'd do a Froogle search.

[Ron S]

Are there any "deals" available when purchasing an 80GB iPOD? I might be getting a work bonus in February and if so, I'd love to replace my 20GB which died about 2 months ago. I saw the 80GB on sale through Circuit City on line for $332. Any suggestions as to where to research for best pricing?

Thanks in advance,

Marla

I'd do a Froogle search.

My favorite online shopping site is pricegrabber.com. Once you find the product you're looking for, you can enter your zip code and list the various prices in ascending order of total shipped price. Also, you can see how each merchant is rated/reviewed by consumers--VERY important.

EDIT: Here's the black, and here's the white.

Edited January 17, 2007 by Ron S

[makpjazz57]

Thanks Rostasi and Ron S. I'll do a search now just to get an idea what's in store for me and then the official "purchase search."

Marla

[makpjazz57]

I'm enjoying the search already through Froogle and pricegrabber.com, but was very surprised to see very low merchant ratings from Circuit City (on line) and amazon.com!!! I've only purchased CDs and some small items through amazon and have always rec'd excellent service. We have a Circuit City in the 'hood, so I don't have to order on line.

Marla

[Ron S]

I'm enjoying the search already through Froogle and pricegrabber.com, but was very surprised to see very low merchant ratings from Circuit City (on line) and amazon.com!!! I've only purchased CDs and some small items through amazon and have always rec'd excellent service. We have a Circuit City in the 'hood, so I don't have to order on line.

Marla

You have to take some of those ratings with a grain or two of salt, but at least they're better than nothing. Be sure to read the individual consumer reviews, also, to get a flavor of the feedback. I've also always had great experience with Amazon's customer service (not only the US Amazon but also UK and France).

[Stefan Wood]

Here, go to this site. This is in my opinion the best source for deals on ipods or anything else Mac related:

Deal mac

Edited January 17, 2007 by Stefan Wood

[Sundog]

Are there any "deals" available when purchasing an 80GB iPOD? I might be getting a work bonus in February and if so, I'd love to replace my 20GB which died about 2 months ago. I saw the 80GB on sale through Circuit City on line for $332. Any suggestions as to where to research for best pricing?

Thanks in advance,

Marla

$332 is pretty good for brand new. For a significantly better price I suspect you have to go the refurbished route. FYI- I bought an 80G at XMAS (as a gift, unfortunately not for me) at BestBuy for $349 and immediately got a 40$ gift card. Not a bad deal at all.

[makpjazz57]

Thanks Stefan and Tom. I'll check all of these suggestions. I think the bottom line is to check and check and check again right at the time I'm ready to buy - one store is going to have a better deal than all the others! What is interesting to me is that you can now get an 80GB iPOD for approx $330 and when I bought my click wheel 20GB iPOD about 3 years ago, it was $299. So, definitely a better bang for the buck on the newer iPODs (more GBs and video)!

Marla

[Aftab]

Marla-

Once you get your iPod, I would suggest you get a case for it - the screens of the iPods scratch easily. If I may suggest - get a Contour Showcase - I've had one for 2 years and my iPod still looks brand new - the case is a little beat up, but better that than the iPod. Check out www.contourcase.com - I am not affiliated with the company, I just think they make a great product.

[makpjazz57]

Thanks, Aftab. I will buy one based on your recommendation. Two questions, if you don't mind:

1) I see where the body of the iPOD is protected - what exactly is protecting the screen?

2) Have you watched any videos on your iPOD and if so, what did you think of the audio/video quality.

I have a decent collection of jazz videos and I'm also debating the purchase of an ARCHOS MP3 video player - I think you can get them up to 120 GB and then I could really take my videos with me!

Thank you,

Marla

[Aftab]

1) I see where the body of the iPOD is protected - what exactly is protecting the screen?

The whole body and screen are protected by a layer of plastic - the sides have a silicone-rubber type material. The plastic keeps your iPod from getting scratches while the silicone provides some shock absorbtion in case of drops. I've dropped mine a few times while in the case and have had no problems. The case will not fit in a dock, but all switches and ports are accesible through the case.

I did hours of research when I first bought my case 2 years ago, and have since researched again for a case for my new iPod, and the conclusion was the same. The deciding factors were - all-around protection (except for click wheel and ports), oversized cut-outs for larger headphone jacks and docking accessories, ease of iPod removal (for docking purposes, like iHome alarm clock, Apple dock, etc), and workmanship/design.

Here's a picture of the case opened up - you can see it's design a little better.

2) Have you watched any videos on your iPOD and if so, what did you think of the audio/video quality.

I have not - I just got a video iPod and have not had time to play with it. I have checked out a few of my friends' iPods and the video looks sweet, and the screen is nice and bright. A/V quality all depends on how it is compressed. The video available on iTunes looks great, as does some my friend has made.

For all the iPod info you'll ever need, go to iLounge.com - the best iPod website I have found.

Hope that helps.

Edited January 19, 2007 by Aftab

[Soulstation1]

fwiw

the new roxio 9 has software for dowloading to your i-pod

i don't own and i-pod

[Hardbopjazz]

2) Have you watched any videos on your iPOD and if so, what did you think of the audio/video quality.

I have a decent collection of jazz videos and I'm also debating the purchase of an ARCHOS MP3 video player - I think you can get them up to 120 GB and then I could really take my videos with me!

Thank you,

Marla

On the note of videos, how do you get them on your iPod? What format do the videos need to be in to up-load them? As Marla said, I too have a ton of videos I would like to put on my iPod.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Hardbopjazz