iPods 101

whuppins · November 2007

Seriously, this is some basic-level shit. I think I'm the only person left on the planet who has never come in contact with an iPod of some flavor or another.

...but I'm thinking that an iPod Shuffle would make a perfect gift for my wife this Christmas to replace her existing Sony mp3 player. The only thing standing in my way is the sizeable collection of mp3's that we've already accumulated for the Sony player. From what I understand, iTunes uses a proprietary format to put its music onto the iPod, but I'm certainly not going to buy songs off of iTunes that we already own on CD just to be able to listen to them on the iPod.

So, for these plain ol' mp3s that I've ripped from CDs, how easily will they 'import' onto the iPod? Is this something that the iTunes software can do out-of-the-box? Is there any other reason that I should be concerned about using non-iTunes music tracks on an iPod?

Thanks.

Jeak · November 2007

iPod's and itunes are capable of using a few formats, one of them being MP3. Most of the music on my iPod is MP3.

Quid · November 2007

All of them will transfer over with no problem. It'll even scan your computer upon first installing iTunes for any music and put a copy in its folder. The only problem is that when you burn songs from your CD to it you'll have to manually enter the title and album data which is kind of annoying.

senor_x · November 2007

Quid wrote: »

All of them will transfer over with no problem. It'll even scan your computer upon first installing iTunes for any music and put a copy in its folder. The only problem is that when you burn songs from your CD to it you'll have to manually enter the title and album data which is kind of annoying.

Maybe if you're not connected to the internet - otherwise iTunes downloads all the information and cover art for you.

Quid · November 2007

Well then, there you go.

Erandus · November 2007

This may be a good place for me to jump in with my own iPod-retarded questions. I've never so much as touched one before, but I was thinking about getting one.

Is iTunes a fully required piece of software for putting music on the device, or can I simply open the thing as a detachable storage device and manually cram mp3's into it's file structure?

Evander · November 2007

You'd have to use iTunes to set it up, but afterwards you can enable it to allow for you to read it as an external disc.

TrippyDK · November 2007

There's also a bunch of third party ipod managers out there these days.

EggyToast · November 2007

The iPod is "awesome" because of metadata and library functionality. You achieve this through iTunes.

Otherwise there's little difference between any other device out there that lets you just throw crap on it and hit "PLAY." If you're simply looking for something to plug in, throw some songs on, and be small in your pocket, get a Sansa thingy. The iPod is cool because it's an extension of iTunes, and all of the cool things that iTunes can do are available on the go. Getting your songs into iTunes and fixing all your bad ID3 tags will make using ANY mp3 player, not to mention simply listening to your own music collection, significantly easier and more enjoyable.

After all, the iPod lets you play music by artist, album, genre, etc. If you don't have any of that information on there, how are you going to find your music?

As for formats, the iPod supports mp3 (not open, common) and AAC (open, less common). Files you purchase from the iTunes Music Store are protected files and can only be played in iTunes and on iPods. All other files can be played through iTunes, WMP, whatever, since they're just audio files. I had my entire CD library encoded as mp3, but actually used iTunes to re-encode everything as AAC since it's such a better format -- higher quality and smaller size. It's more open than MP3 so you're not reliant on the LAME codec, either.

iTunes is just a music library app, so if you ripped MP3s for a Sony or other device, as long as they're MP3s you simply drag them into iTunes and that's it. If you had a lot of illegally downloaded MP3s you'd have more work getting your tags straight, but since you ripped from CD the database stuff is essentially the same, so you may not have to do any work at all.

Some sony devices push ATRAC encoding on their players, which if you used is proprietary for SONY, not Apple.

Sam · November 2007

EggyToast wrote: »

The iPod is "awesome" because of metadata and library functionality. You achieve this through iTunes.

Otherwise there's little difference between any other device out there that lets you just throw crap on it and hit "PLAY." If you're simply looking for something to plug in, throw some songs on, and be small in your pocket, get a Sansa thingy. The iPod is cool because it's an extension of iTunes, and all of the cool things that iTunes can do are available on the go. Getting your songs into iTunes and fixing all your bad ID3 tags will make using ANY mp3 player, not to mention simply listening to your own music collection, significantly easier and more enjoyable.

After all, the iPod lets you play music by artist, album, genre, etc. If you don't have any of that information on there, how are you going to find your music?

As for formats, the iPod supports mp3 (not open, common) and AAC (open, less common). Files you purchase from the iTunes Music Store are protected files and can only be played in iTunes and on iPods. All other files can be played through iTunes, WMP, whatever, since they're just audio files. I had my entire CD library encoded as mp3, but actually used iTunes to re-encode everything as AAC since it's such a better format -- higher quality and smaller size. It's more open than MP3 so you're not reliant on the LAME codec, either.

iTunes is just a music library app, so if you ripped MP3s for a Sony or other device, as long as they're MP3s you simply drag them into iTunes and that's it. If you had a lot of illegally downloaded MP3s you'd have more work getting your tags straight, but since you ripped from CD the database stuff is essentially the same, so you may not have to do any work at all.

Some sony devices push ATRAC encoding on their players, which if you used is proprietary for SONY, not Apple.

And if you really want to listen to iTMS songs on other players or formats, you could always burn it to a cd and then rip it as something not restrictive

Iceman.USAF · December 2007

I'd suggests a nano, not a shuffle. You might not know but a shuffle means you can't select the songs you want to hear.

Just my .02

MichaelLC · December 2007

Iceman.USAF wrote: »

I'd suggests a nano, not a shuffle. You might not know but a shuffle means you can't select the songs you want to hear.

Just my .02

Seconded. Shuffles also have no screen. Can only do music, no photos, movies, etc. iTunes just finished d/l The Hitchhikers Guide (movie) that I bought.

If she wants a super-simple MP3 player without lots of screwing around, then yeah, Shuffle is a good choice. But if you think she'd like to show off pics of you/kid/cat/dog/iguana/misc., then Nano might be better.

Shazkar Shadowstorm · December 2007

I just got a new Nano to replace my old old black and white screen'd 20GB iPod that died

Damn, it is fucking sick
It is so sick

And I bought Phase for it for 5 bucks, which is basically iPod Hero for any song you own (made my guitar hero people!)

wunderbar · December 2007

I don't encode to AAC because only about 1/3 of everything I want to put music on supports it. MP3 is pretty much industry standard imo.

Echo · December 2007

The iPod nano video is certainly a very sexy little device. It's so thin that the leather case I bought for it made it three times as thick. :P

I'd highly recommend one for people who never had iPods before. For Apple, design means more than just how it looks - it's how good it is to use as well.

...I'm starting to sound like a real fanboy here.

whuppins · December 2007

Thanks for the info. For the record, the Shuffle is the best choice because she would use it almost exclusively to run with. Smaller/lighter is better; her current mp3 player has to be carried in her hand or strapped to her arm with some gay velcro contrivance. The current iteration of the Shuffle is so tiny and lightweight, in addition to having a built-in clip for sticking on your waistband or whatever (I just realized all this the other day, hence the thread), that it would be the perfect device for her.

Anyway, off to price them. It sounds like I found my Christmas present!

Bob The Monkey · December 2007

What alternatives are there to the iPod these days? I remember iRivers were raved about back in the day, but from my research they seem to have died a death.

Cynic Jester · December 2007

Bob The Monkey wrote: »

What alternatives are there to the iPod these days? I remember iRivers were raved about back in the day, but from my research they seem to have died a death.

I've been using Creative for my MP3 player needs, but I'm not really in the "know" as to how they are doing these days or if they have any decent models on the market. My Zen Touch has been chugging along now for years and it doesn't seem to be getting any worse for wear. It helps that the battery lasts 24h+, which is a must for me, if I grab a plane across the atlantic and my MP3 player runs out of gas, I'd choke someone.

Penny Arcade

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