iPods

LadyKiKi

LadyKiKi

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I am looking to finally upgrade my player to an iPod, the most recent one released is the iPod Classic, I'm thinking of buying it to keep me going for a while.

Questions though, I've had some friends tell me not to and now here are my concerns:

1. iTunes. Do you need to keep a copy of your music on your PC? I am aware that you can only delete music in iTunes with the iPod plugged in. I want to put all my music in the iPod and then delete them off my PC.

2. iTunes. If the answer to 1 is No then can you play music off your iPod when it is plugged into your PC (while it's charging). I've recieved mixed feedback from a few sources that you cannot.

3. iTunes. Does it convert your MP3 files to its own format? Meaning, does that mean I cannot share my music with ... say my friend who also has iTunes? I read somewhere back a while ago it converts all the music to the "iPod file format". But then you cannot transfer music back to a PC from an iPod ... or something. I need clarification. Apparently you can only delete ... ?!

4. iTunes. So... I keep hearing bullshit about everything that goes on it (iPod) must be from the iTunes store. Is this true?

So all my problems concerns the functions of iTunes really... hope someone can help! :biggrin:
 
1) Indirectly, no. You can sych up your iPod once then delete the music from your PC. I am not sure what will happen in you want to add music in the future. Since the original music is gone, will iTunes remove the music from the iPod at the next synch (say, when you want to add music to your iPod)?

2) I have not found a way to play music off my iPod on my other computers other than plug the iPod into my speakers.

3) iTunes offers to change the format of your MP3s to ACC. You don't have to do this in order to have your MP3s play on your iPod. While in the MP3 (non-DRM [Digital Rights Management]) state, you can share them with who you see fit.

4) I never used iTunes to buy anything since I'm against DRM, and I haven't seen any effects of iTunes on any of my iPods.

I can confirm #1 by connecting my iPod to my back-up computer. It might take me a while to do so, but I can get you a concrete answer when I do.
 
Ah thank you for swift response. To discuss:

2) I have not found a way to play music off my iPod on my other computers other than plug the iPod into my speakers.
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I mean, can the iPod be connected to another computer or my own one (without the music on my computer, just iPod) and be played from my computer with the iPod connected the music? Or is it purely just plug into speakers only, because that is somewhat extremely discouraging.

As for #1, if you have the time, feel free, otherwise it's not extremely important. It's just that it seems silly to keep (say, in the future) 70gb of music when your laptop only has a 40gb hard drive. So you cannot just drag and drop the music and instead must synch everytime? Dang ... ?!
 
It sounds like you want one of the MP3 players that simply mount to your computer as a removable drive. That way, you keep the MP3s on your MP3 player onlyand listen to it with headphones, or plug it into any computer and play the files over USB/Firewire. When you want to add music to it, just drag and drop and you're all set!
 
the one big quirk i absolutely hate about ipod and that i have recently run into was the fact that after i reinstalled windows onto my computer, when i thought it would have been really easy to take my music off of my ipod and put it on my computer, but no...not a big deal. since i couldnt do that, i figured any new music that i wanted to put on it, i would just add to what was already on my ipod. NOPE! since the library that was used to put music on there to begin with, was different that the new one i had, it requires me to delete all of the music that is on there to put new stuff on.

i wish it were like the sansa where you can drag and drop
 
masterorion said:
the one big quirk i absolutely hate about ipod and that i have recently run into was the fact that after i reinstalled windows onto my computer, when i thought it would have been really easy to take my music off of my ipod and put it on my computer, but no...not a big deal. since i couldnt do that, i figured any new music that i wanted to put on it, i would just add to what was already on my ipod. NOPE! since the library that was used to put music on there to begin with, was different that the new one i had, it requires me to delete all of the music that is on there to put new stuff on.

i wish it were like the sansa where you can drag and drop
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Just open your ipod like a hard drive through windows explorer, drag and drop the music into a new folder on your computer and tell itunes to import all of the files in that folder. I did this to give my sister venture brothers season 2 and it worked fine. You might have to resend everything back to your ipod(I haven't reinstalled itunes since I reformatted) but you should still have all of your music there if you didn't save it before hand.
 
masterorion said:
the one big quirk i absolutely hate about ipod and that i have recently run into was the fact that after i reinstalled windows onto my computer, when i thought it would have been really easy to take my music off of my ipod and put it on my computer, but no...
Click to expand...

I've seen many utilities that do this for you. For example:
http://www.copytrans.net/
 
The iPod can appear in Windows Explorer like an external device? (USB stick/external hard drive)

It sounds like you want one of the MP3 players that simply mount to your computer as a removable drive. That way, you keep the MP3s on your MP3 player onlyand listen to it with headphones, or plug it into any computer and play the files over USB/Firewire. When you want to add music to it, just drag and drop and you're all set!
Click to expand...

I currently own some 20gb Creative Zen Xtra thing, that requires you to use the software provided to make it work, but I can live with that at the very least. It doesn't appear in Windows Explorer but still, it's not too picky.
 
Both of mine do, I have a nano and an ipod video. Half the use of my ipod video is just as a 30GB portable hard drive.
 
LadyKiKi said:
I currently own some 20gb Creative Zen Xtra thing, that requires you to use the software provided to make it work, but I can live with that at the very least. It doesn't appear in Windows Explorer but still, it's not too picky.
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My Zen Photo just appears in Explorer. I don't use any software for it, just drag and drop.
 
crookedmidget said:
Do you have space allocated for data? And can you play music from the data partition?

I have a Shuffle and a mini, and i can't see it. >.<
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Nope, there was no setup, I just open the ipod up in windows explorer and drag and drop the files into the main folder.

I never tried playing a file from it directly before, mainly because I didn't see any reason to. I'll try it later and see if it works, I just won't know what I'm playing since the music files all get renamed when they go on your ipod.

Edit: found my ipod, yeah, you can play the files straight off it when you're looking at it like a hard drive. My roommate's computer does the same thing, and he doesn't even have itunes installed.
 
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boo shuffle. I hate that thing


I guess its because its so small I lost it day 3 of ownership
 
If it is possible to do that, by looking at it like a hard drive and playing MP3s off it, are the MP3s actually MP3s? I keep bumping into people reviewing that it converts the MP3s to its own iPod format or something? Is it worth doing that at all? :shok:
 
LadyKiKi said:
If it is possible to do that, by looking at it like a hard drive and playing MP3s off it, are the MP3s actually MP3s? I keep bumping into people reviewing that it converts the MP3s to its own iPod format or something? Is it worth doing that at all? :shok:
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All but one of my songs are actual mp3's. One song I couldn't find anywhere, so I had to buy it through itunes. The songs you download through itunes are .m4p or something like that, it's a proprietary format that only ipods use; which is part of why people bitch at apple about their DRM.
 
You can play music from your plugged in iPod in your computer. It shows up in iTunes. There are programs too that let you extract music from your iPod (although Apple doesn't want it), Sharepod and Xpod being examples.

I recomend having a back up of your songs in your computer or external HD. Just in case your iPod dies someday.
 
Negorissimo said:
You can play music from your plugged in iPod in your computer. It shows up in iTunes. There are programs too that let you extract music from your iPod (although Apple doesn't want it), Sharepod and Xpod being examples.

I recomend having a back up of your songs in your computer or external HD. Just in case your iPod dies someday.
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Yeh I intend to keep a copy of the music.

However, isn't syncing a problem? I don't plan to ever sync, as I will put music on iPod manually, but can it be completely turned off? I hear music gets loss if the iPod doesn't find the music on the PC.
 
LadyKiKi said:
Yeh I intend to keep a copy of the music.

However, isn't syncing a problem? I don't plan to ever sync, as I will put music on iPod manually, but can it be completely turned off? I hear music gets loss if the iPod doesn't find the music on the PC.
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I haven't noticed anything like that. I didn't sync my ipod, because I would change things around, or just delete music I only needed to hear once(presentations and the like). I've never had a problem with my ipod deleting the music from the player just because it wasn't on the computer, especially when I've connected it to several other computers with very different music interests.
 
Bajaratt said:
I haven't noticed anything like that. I didn't sync my ipod, because I would change things around, or just delete music I only needed to hear once(presentations and the like). I've never had a problem with my ipod deleting the music from the player just because it wasn't on the computer, especially when I've connected it to several other computers with very different music interests.
Click to expand...

Ah, so does this mean I can manage all my music on iTunes? For example, delete 1 track or 1 album I don't want anymore, and stuff. I am aware that the iPod itself does NOT let you delete anything from it through the iPod, but if it means I can plug the iPod into a PC which will then load up iTunes, and display what's on the iPod so I can manage it, I think that is all what I will require.

Will it let me move music onto my computer (not brought from iTunes store or anything, something I've had before) or will it have to go through some sort of complicated process? I just want to easily move music on and off the iPod and computer with relatively less hassle.

Note that I will -never- buy music from iTunes store or anything, as anything I buy will be in the format of a CD and then transferred onto the iPod myself via MP3 Ripping programs, etc.

It just seems nothing is quite straightforward with the iPod, so I'm trying to suss all these weird things out. :banghead3:
 
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