iPod/MP3 Players?

J

Jeremy Reynolds

Joined
Jan 7, 2000
Messages
817
I didn't really know who/where to ask about these, so I decided I would go to my fellow knife nuts.

I have been debating getting an iPod lately. Many of the kids and other teachers at school use them all the time and claim they are great. I love the idea of having 1000 songs in one little package, so I have been looking into them a lot more lately.

Now, my questions....

My roommate has close to 1000 mp3s on his comp. If I was to connect my iPod to his comp (he already has the software, as he has an iPod. but he's out of town for the weekend,) can I connect the iPod to my computer and rearrange, or delete, or download the songs on my comp?

Also, how easy is it to rip MP3s onto my hard drive from my CD collection? I have 350+ CDs, and would love to use many of them and not pay for songs online.

Also, are there any reccomended sites with reasonable download prices? I am not looking to pirate MP3s and download them illegaly. I will pay for whatever songs I use, I would just prefer not to pay $10 a month + $1 per song if I can avoid it.

Also, are the iPods worth the cash, or should i look at other alternatives?

Thanks

JR
 
JR, I bought my wife an iPod 20GB in Nov., she has around 1800 songs on it and it should hold around 5000. She loves it. I use iTunes to store my MP3's on my computer, and also to make up Playlists for use on the iPod. I download songs from Limewire and my understanding is that it is legal.

I search a song or artist on Limewire and download it to iTunes, I can burn CD's direct from there. Every time I plug my wife's iPod into my computer it updates and adds any new songs to her iPod. It's been working out great, it's fast, easy and she loves it.

They also have a new iPod out that holds 250 songs and costs $100. Since you can plug in and change the songs every day if you want, it might be something worth considering.

Even if you don't get an iPod, get iTunes it's a great MP3 jukebox. Dowload all of your CD's into it, you'll be able to retrieve any song in your collection in seconds. I've added a couple of satelite speakers and a sub-woofer to my computer, I may never play music on my stereo again.
 
Moving to Gadgets & Gear. :)
 
I have a 20 GB Ipod that I like a lot, but I don't think much of the Itunes software. I already have about 500 GB of MP3s on my server. Itunes is a totally inadequate jukebox for my needs, so I continue to use Winamp to play music at home. I use Itunes only for managing the music on the Ipod. In fact, I actually maintain a separate Ipod directory containing copies of the tracks from my main library. This is so I can resample them at a lower rate to fit more on the Ipod.

You must use Itunes to copy music and playlists to the Ipod, and it's strictly a one-way street. You can't sync the music files to the Ipod from one computer and copy them to another computer. However, you can use the Ipod as a portable hard drive and copy all of the MP3s from one computer to another. You can't play the files on the Ipod while they're copied in this way, though, and this would be as illegal as downloading them for free.

Also, I find Apple's marketspeak in which they rate the Ipod by the number of "songs" it can hold to be utterly retarded. They seem to assume that all Ipod users listen to nothing but three-minute pop hits downloaded from their lame store using their proprietary format at ridiculously low sample rates. I have 4078 MP3s on my Ipod at the moment, instead of the 10,000 they claim, and it's utterly full, but that's because most of the music I listen to consists of tracks much longer than three minutes.

Despite these complaints, though, I still think it's a great product. It's small, lightweight, and extremely easy to use. I use the Griffin Itrip (a tiny FM transmitter that plugs into the Ipod) in the car to play MP3s over the stereo, which works great.

Incidently, I got mine from the Apple online store, and got a 10% discount simply by specifying the name of the college where I'm a student. That's all I had to do to get the discount (if you receive my meaning).
 
PhilL said:
I download songs from Limewire and my understanding is that it is legal.
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"Legal". ;)

Better be careful, lest you be made an example of by the RIAA.

craigz said:
You must use Itunes to copy music and playlists to the Ipod, and it's strictly a one-way street. You can't sync the music files to the Ipod from one computer and copy them to another computer. However, you can use the Ipod as a portable hard drive and copy all of the MP3s from one computer to another.
Click to expand...
Isn't the IPod automatically mounted as a removable drive? The music is all there in regular files, right? So any music without copy protection could technically be transferred into or out of the player without ITunes.

I don't have an IPod and don't use ITunes, but what I gather is that the ITunes Music Store only sells AAC files that are copy-controlled. The IPod can play these files, but they cannot be played on another computer. You'd have to burn them to a CD first then re-rip them to a better format. Or you could just share the CD.

The ripping function in the ITunes program can rip from CD to MP3 or MP4/AAC. I think that regardless of the encoding, files ripped from personal CDs are not rights-management-crippled and can be used anywhere. Converting to the ubiquitous standard format, mp3, will save you the hassle if you want to transfer to a non-Apple player sometime in the future. Despite mp3's popularity, it is claimed that MP4/AAC is a superior codec in terms of audio quality and filesize.

Open-source and open-standards evangelism section:
Personally, I like to do things right the first time-- I encode with FLAC for lossless compression. I like to stay clean of any closed-format proprietary wackiness like DRMd AAC or WMA.
 
It is so easy to use the ipod software to download from a cd (sorry I don't know much about MP3s as we have many cd rental places in Japan).
 
Jeremy - good post. Lots of good information in the replies as well. I am not a PC/MP3 expert like some on here. I just wanted a simple, high capacity, potable music player. I found all that and more in the 4G iPod 40g. Brought it home and within minutes after the first recharge I was playing music. Took a couple of days to download my CD collection (300+) but worth it. I now have everyone of my CD's at my finger tips and can play in the gym, my car, the garage, anywhere. I have rediscoverd music from my college days that I'd forgotten about. The iPod may not be the best player out there, but it sure is the easiest. Good luck.
 
AlphalphaPB said:
Isn't the IPod automatically mounted as a removable drive? The music is all there in regular files, right? So any music without copy protection could technically be transferred into or out of the player without ITunes.
Click to expand...
It in not normally shown as a removable disk, you have to enable that option. Plus, the directory structure is very strange. You can't just plop files on and expect them to play.

I'm sure that is why others have written programs to work with the iPod. It is not drag and drop.
 
Well, I went to Super Target today and returned home with some Mountain Dew, Candy, Chips and an iPod mini found it's way into the mix. I got iTunes downloaded last night, so I have been ripping songs from disc during the Vikings game.

I am not ripping every song, just selectively taking the ones I like. I've got about 100 songs so far, so I got many more to go. I haven't had a chance to try my iPod yet, it's still charging. But, I am pretty satisfied with the ease of transfering my CDs to iTunes. If the iPod is that easy, I know I will be very pleased.

JR
 
bj70_guy said:
Just curious, do you think there is a better player than the iPod?
Click to expand...


IMHO Not that I've found, but I don't claim to be an expert either. I couldn't be happier with my 4G 40g and wished I'd have purchased long before now. The fact that I now have every cd I own with me at all times has allowed me to rediscover music that I had forgotten all about.
 
Congratz JR, I knew you could do it. I know you're going to enjoy iTunes and your new iPod. If you only load songs you like into iTunes when they're on your iPod if you put it on Shuffle you'll never hear a song you don't like.

Also when you're listening to your tunes on your computer don't miss trying the Visualizer, it's graphics that change in time to your music....it's kind of trippie :cool:. If you like it there are also other Visualizer programs you can download. The one I have on most of the time is G-Force.
 
I'm slowly working my way through the CD collection. On some CDs, I just had it rip the whole thing. On others, I am randomly selecting because they are groups that have about 3-4 good songs, and the rest suck.

I still haven't tried the iPod out yet, as I am still charging it and ripping CDs. I plan on taking it with me tommorrow when I go to our basketball scrimmage (the old guys *they let me pretend to be old* are scrimmaging the varsity) and when I run errands. I have a feeling this will be a great purchase. Glad I let my roommate and others talk me into it. And even if the iPod thing sucks, the iTunes thing is really cool and I am really glad I was introduced to it.

JR
 
ipod alternatives, check out creative. they have a unit to compete with the ipod mini that looks pretty sweet. creative zen micro. personally since i never listen to more than 2 hours or so of songs in a day i purchased the smallest flash player i could find. the tl300 by mpio. i love it, i keep it hung from my belt loop like one might an arc aaa. charges by usb and works like a charm. it's perfect for listening to books on cd too. i probably use it for that as often as cds. by the way, if no one has tried books on tape or books on cd i would highly recommend it. it's nice to be able to listen to something while you're driving without bothering with commercials or channel flipping. and an fm transmitter makes it very easy to use. by the way, the ipod has created a music revolution, and i think it's awesome. but one feature that i really wish it had was a dedicated volume control. it's cool to use the scrollwheel but if you are already in a menu and a song comes on too loud you have to wait until the menu exits out (usually 2 secs or so). can be frustrating. also, take a look at cnet.com, i did a lot of research there before i bought my mp3 player and i'm very happy with it.

just my 2 cents

Pete
 
I bought an iPod mini around Thanksgiving and have nearly filled it up. I use iTunes - great program - and have ripped nearly all of my CDs onto the computer. If you go iPod (I recommend BTW) check out iPodlounge.com There you will find answers about machines, software, extras, GREAT reviews and some very helpful how-tos. I have never been quite as happy as I am with my iPod mini purchase (except for my Sebenza purchase) in all of my gadget things that I have bought in my life.

Enjoy and have fun now that you have found another addiction!

David
 
I've had three iPod's over the last year or so, but I only bought 1, yes one, they all broke and even the current iPod needs to be sent back to be fixed because the battery is dying. When my first one died I went and bought a iRiver iHP120 and LOVE it! The only thing I don't like about it is the joystick can be a problem to use sometimes. I took the first iPod back to the store and exchanged it. And then or course that one broke too. So I sent that one back to Apple and they sent me a new one. And now that one is broke. The second iPod I admit I dropped but it still worked for a while after that but then messed up. I'm not saying all iPods are bad i'm just saying I haven't had much luck. But my next MP3 Player will definitely be a iRiver.

Ryan
 
My wife uses an IRiver. The downside is that it uses proprietary software, since the unit does not show up as a mass storage device. The upside is that the transfer is lightning fast. The accessories are also pretty good. One AA battery lasts a long time. The IRiver's tuner is SUPERB. The capacity is kind of small. The Iriver does have the ability to record from a microphone input (read voice), or record from the tuner.

I use a Philips HDD070. The unit rocks. Capacity is good at 2 gig. The rechargeable battery recharges pretty quickly. You can use the included software to make playlists, or just dump them on as files. The unit does show up as a mass storage device. If you don't like the included software (Musicmatch), there are free alternatives. The tuner is okay, but not nearly as good as the one on the IRiver. Best of all, it's available at Walmart. So you can easily return it if it's not your cup of tea. Overall, I'm very happy with it so far.
 
I finally got my iPod loaded and usable. It took me a while to get it formatted, but now it's ready to go. I just plug it in to the USB port whenever I finish getting songs on the comp or chaning playlists around, and it updates pretty quick.

It took me a little bit to figure out the touch wheel. It's not bad when you get used to it, a bit sensative in the sense it goes really fast. Once you get used to the touch controls, it's very nice to have.

I took it on a basketball road trip this past weekend. I didn't use it much, as I watched a movie on the DVD player, but some of my players used my iPod quite a bit. The battery seemed to do well. It didn't quite last the advertised 8 hours, but that was the first charge it had received.

Overall, I am happy with this purchase. I need to get an armband for use while lifting weights. I really am glad i made the decision to buy one.

JR
 
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