Are iPod's and iTunes monogamous?

[slowbiz]

I'm going to be buying one of the new colour 60GB iPod's in a couple of days. I've heard that an iPod will only work with one copy of iTunes. So basically, if I have it, I can only hook it up to my computer at home OR the iTunes on my computer at home will only work with my iPod.

Is this true?

 

[Kris]

I'm going to be buying one of the new colour 60GB iPod's in a couple of days. I've heard that an iPod will only work with one copy of iTunes. So basically, if I have it, I can only hook it up to my computer at home OR the iTunes on my computer at home will only work with my iPod.

Is this true?

You can use it with as many computers as your want. You just can't copy music that you transfered to the iPod via iTunes to any computer without some sort of 3rd party software.

Also, make sure you don't sync it with other computers otherwise it'll replace all of your music on the player with whatever is in the iTunes Library

 

[jon_k]

here is a question. What if you have to format your computer. Can you pull your iPod music back to your computer via iTunes once you format?

 

[KaosDG]

here is a question. What if you have to format your computer. Can you pull your iPod music back to your computer via iTunes once you format?

not via iTunes.

get other software to do that.

 

[kidicarus74]

as far as formatting your computer goes, you can either use 3rd party software (which from what i've seen usually costs $20 for the retail versions) or you can use another little trick: enable "hard disk use" on your iPod so that the computer recognizes it as just a normal remvoable hard disk and then turn on "show hidden files and folders" in windows explorer. Now, you can navigate to the weird-label directories on your iPod, copy all the music out, and reimport it all back into iTunes. If you turn on "let itunes organize my music", it'll use the ID3 tags embedded in the music and organize the music into folders and whatnot... hope that helps...

 

[jon_k]

I know how to do the external iPod HD trick to get your music back, but the thing I'm worried about is all those protected m4p music files that I purchased off of apple music store. Will they play on my computer if I format?

also what are the name of some of those 3rd party programs?

 

[kidicarus74]

one thing i found out the hard way is MAKE SURE YOU DE-AUTHORIZE YOU COMPUTER BEFORE FORMATTING. Apple allows you to "authorize" 5 computers to play itunes music store encrypted files. So, if you don't deauthorize, you're out one computer, which is how between my laptop and desktop, i'm down to 1 computer authorization left (someone please let me know if there's a way to fix this).

BUT, instead, now i just burn my music to a cd (which i do anyway so i can listen in my car), and re-rip the files, thus stripping the encryption.

God Bless the gray line of legality created by the DMCA

 

[jon_k]

Is there a way you can burn the m4p to a "virtual CDR" drive then rip it back into unprotected apple lossless?

Also, how do you de-authorize a computer?

 

[kidicarus74]

not sure about the "virtual cdr" trick, never tried it myself, but give it a shot and let us know.

to deauthorize: "Advanced" menu on the toolbar -> "Deauthorize Computer" -> select "Deauthorize Computer for Music Store Account" -> enter itunes store id and pass and you're done.

for those that don't know: you authorize a computer the first time you try to play and encrypted song and it asks you to enter your password

 

[Galvatron]

BUT, instead, now i just burn my music to a cd (which i do anyway so i can listen in my car), and re-rip the files, thus stripping the encryption.

Strips the encryption and kills your quality. Whatever floats your boat.

 

[KoMiT]

what I do is I copy all the songs over again via file browser on the files part,

 

[kidicarus74]

Strips the encryption and kills your quality. Whatever floats your boat.

stripping the encryption is what i want, so i don't understand the firt part of your statement (since it reads like you're making that out to be bad). As far as "killing" quality, my purchased music is all 128 kbps, there is no copy degredation when writing audio files to a cd, and i rip mp3's at 128kbps, so i guess i don't understand what you could mean by "killing" quality...

and even if the encryption stripped songs did lose some quality (if they were somehow better than cd quality to begin with and then minutely degraded by the burning/ripping process) i'd still rather be encryption free and never have to worry about the songs i paid for not working or not being able to access them later down the road

admittedly, i'm sure there is some software out there that will strip the encryption for you without burning cds... that's just my method since i spend a lot of time in my car which has a cd player and i absolutely hate those FM transmitter things and those tape-to-mini jack converters so i will burn the cds regardless

what I do is I copy all the songs over again via file browser on the files part,

that's what i was talking about with enabling disk usage on the ipod and showing hidden files/folders in explorer

 

[Kris]

i'm down to 1 computer authorization left (someone please let me know if there's a way to fix this).

Read the part about deauthorizing all computers. I believe you're only allowed 1 de-authorization a year.
93014

 

[kidicarus74]

Read the part about deauthorizing all computers. I believe you're only allowed 1 de-authorization a year.
93014

thanks for the linkage

The Deauthorize All button will not appear if you have less than 5 authorized computers or if you have used this option within the last 12 months.

You can authorize and deauthorize all you want all year, every year. You can only use the "Deauthorize All" (meaning one key stroke on one workstation deauthorizes every workstation you've authorized) option once every 12 months