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[FortNinety]

I'm ready to make the plunge and get an iPod, but I have some very basic questions about it. And anyone who's dealt with Mac people can attest, getting a straight answer for something simple can often be tricky.

First things first... I rip music via iTunes on my Mac. I used to make all my songs mp3s, but now I output to AAC since they sound just as good (or so I've been told... truth be told, I'm losing my hearing... seriously... so it's hard for me to tell) and are smaller in size.

Question: I can freely move files to and from my iPod with no hassles right? I keep hearing that you can only do it for a limited amount of times, or are limited to just a few Macs. Or is this just with songs purchased via the iTunes store? I've never bought a song so I don't know about this.

If such is the case, how is this possible? Hidden files or whatnot? Anyway, my basic concern is that I will have a minimum of fuss when transferring songs between my iPod and Mac, as well as sharing them with friends on their Macs (or PCs). Thanks in advance.

 

[xsarien]

I'm ready to make the plunge and get an iPod, but I have some very basic questions about it. And anyone who's dealt with Mac people can attest, getting a straight answer for something simple can often be tricky.

First things first... I rip music via iTunes on my Mac. I used to make all my songs mp3s, but now I output to AAC since they sound just as good (or so I've been told... truth be told, I'm losing my hearing... seriously... so it's hard for me to tell) and are smaller in size.

Question: I can freely move files to and from my iPod with no hassles right? I keep hearing that you can only do it for a limited amount of times, or are limited to just a few Macs. Or is this just with songs purchased via the iTunes store? I've never bought a song so I don't know about this.

If such is the case, how is this possible? Hidden files or whatnot? Anyway, my basic concern is that I will have a minimum of fuss when transferring songs between my iPod and Mac, as well as sharing them with friends on their Macs (or PCs). Thanks in advance.

In a nutshell:
iTunes encodes into AAC format, which is smaller and arguably better sounding than mp3. Your mileage obviously varies depending on songs, bitrates, etc.

iTunes + iPod is one way, the iPod syncs to your computer, iTunes will not load music from an iPod onto the computer. It's an anti-piracy thing. The good news is that songs that you rip are completely unrestricted, you can copy them to as many iPods as many times as you like; songs purchased from iTMS are a completely different beast. I'm not too sure on the details, but I do know you're limited in how many times you can burn them to a CD. I don't know what they do about straight transfers to iPods, if anything.

If you want to transfer songs *from* an iPod, mount it as an external disk, and just search for the files you need. It doesn't sort them on the drive in any kind of logical order. The iPod sorts and displays everything by ID3.

 

[Quadrophenic]

I am pretty sure you can change iTunes so it rips in MP3 format at various bitrates in addition to Wav, AAC, and Apple Lossless.

 

[xsarien]

I am pretty sure you can change iTunes so it rips in MP3 format at various bitrates in addition to Wav, AAC, and Apple Lossless.

Yeah, but the iTunes MP3 codec is crap.

 

[KarishBHR]

If you want to transfer songs *from* an iPod, mount it as an external disk, and just search for the files you need. It doesn't sort them on the drive in any kind of logical order. The iPod sorts and displays everything by ID3.

Wait... so when the Ipod shows up as a hard drive... I can just drag song into it (Im using Windows) and it will show up in the correct way?

 

[Mercury Fred]

There are also a slew of programs that you can use to transfer songs from your Ipod back to your computer or another computer. Check www.ipodlounge.com for downloads, info, etc.

 

[BigJonsson]

I think it's BS that you can't easily transfer songs from the iPod back to the PC...I want to delete all the MP3's on my hard drive to save space and just keep them on the iPod but I don't want to risk not being able to transfer them back

 

[xsarien]

Wait... so when the Ipod shows up as a hard drive... I can just drag song into it (Im using Windows) and it will show up in the correct way?

Nope. It will store those files as data, not as "music."

 

[FortNinety]

I think it's BS that you can't easily transfer songs from the iPod back to the PC...I want to delete all the MP3's on my hard drive to save space and just keep them on the iPod but I don't want to risk not being able to transfer them back

Yeah, that was the major reason for me to get an iPod really. As a go between.

 

[BigJonsson]

It looks like ipodlounge has programs that will do the trick, can anyone recommend one that can transfer from iPod to PC?

 

[xsarien]

Yeah, that was the major reason for me to get an iPod really. As a go between.

Well, obviously if you're in a situation where you need to move particular music files to another computer, you can double up (so to speak) and copy the files as data to the iPod. Then they should be available to any computer that recognizes the iPod as a drive.

 

[FortNinety]

So to transfer music, whether they be mp3s or AACs, I simply copy the music as data in addition to the regular method, with playlists and the such? Is that what you mean by doubling up? If so... man, that's cuts space in half.

I guess for the iPod to play music, it can't be just in data format, meaning it has to go through iTunes, right?

 

[xsarien]

So to transfer music, whether they be mp3s or AACs, I simply copy the music as data in addition to the regular method, with playlists and the such? Is that what you mean by doubling up? If so... man, that's cuts space in half.

I guess for the iPod to play music, it can't be just in data format, meaning it has to go through iTunes, right?

If you want to play music, the music needs to be transferred through iTunes or similar software from iPodlounge.com. If you want to be able to easily transfer music from one machine to another - and think about how often you're actually going to do that - you'll need to copy the music directly to the iPod in the Finder.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

Unless your questions are MAC specific in which case I'm sorry I bothered you... loser.

You can drag files onto your iPod in Windows, they will not play on the iPod.

Xplay will let you drag files onto your iPod in Windows. They will play.

Xplay will also let you manage your iPod with WMP, if you really wanna, but last I checked, WMP10 was a problem. Check Mediafour.com to be sure.

Other, less featured, software like Xplay can be navigated to via iPodlounge.com, whose forums suck. EphPod is an old school program that I never needed to try.

You can get songs that your iPod is playing off your iPod by running a search on the iPod when it is recognized as a drive. Make sure you are able to see and search hidden files and folders, then search for *.mp3 or just keywords based on artist or song. The files you get back have been renamed, but are playable and recognizable.

iTunes can rip to any damn format you want except WMA and Vorbis(I think). I'm not sold on AAC as the future yet, so besides what I buy offa iTunes, I'm still ripping high VBR MP3s.

You can get by, fully managing your iPod with just Xplay if you wanted to, and dragging files off and on would never be a problem. I don't drag music around anymore so i just let iTunes do it all.


BTW, there's nothing in this post that I haven't posted at least twice before in other threads, because I'm so goddamn friendly.