Just got an iPod, I think I hate it.....

F

Flapjack

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 29, 2000
Messages
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Ok, after farting around with this stupid thing trying to find a non-iTunes way to load songs on it (I can't stand overly-intrusive, bloaty Apple software), I've come across another problem. This thing does not have a "folders" option. My mp3s (all 50GB of them) are an absolute mess. I gave up on ID3 tags YEARS ago. To go back now and try to fix them all would be an absolute waste of time. I may be unemployed... but I still got shit to do.

This is supposed to replace my stolen OmniFi player, which not only did the genre/artist/song thing (WAY before Apple did), but also has a folder option, which lets you browse alphabetically.

So does anyone know how to make a folder view? Is it even possible? I have all my mp3s broken down into alphabetical folders. Am I to believe the almighty iPod cannot do this?

(by the way, it's the new 80GB video iPod).
 
Apple probduct FTL!!!.....seriously though I don't think I could I buy an Ipod, I have too much pride....hehe :D .......oh yeah I'm way to cool also :cool: , Lastly I just want to say you should return the the ipod and get a zune or zen b/c they are both FTW!!!
 
@ [ T ] A C O

Just because I have so much music, I'd hate to go through and fix it all.

If I were to fix it, is there anything to help automate the process? Not all my songs are jacked up. I stopped trying to make them perfect a few years back. I even have a few albums that I ripped from CD using some using some junk-ass ripper that named the tracks: Track1, Track2, etc...
 
mitcity22 said:
Apple probduct FTL!!!.....seriously though I don't think I could I buy an Ipod, I have too much pride....hehe :D .......oh yeah I'm way to cool also :cool: , Lastly I just want to say you should return the the ipod and get a zune or zen b/c they are both FTW!!!
Click to expand...
It was a tough decision for me, too. My car got broken into and my OmniFi (which I loved) was stolen. I had already hacked it with an 80GB drive and aftermarket firmware. It was wonderful.

The thieves took my GPS, headunit, OmniFi, XM. I also had an iPod in the glove box, but it wasn't hooked up to the stereo or anything. The only thing the left (or forgot) was my radar detector (mounted high up) and the microphone for my Bluetooth (built into my old stereo).

The insurance company decided it was cheaper to replace the whole shebang with an AVIC-Z1. I just had to pay the deductible. So now, I have the ability to control the iPod (if that can even really be done at all) through the AVIC-Z1. That would be nice, if I could only get this mofo iPod to work.
 
There are linux alternatives for the ipod. I'm not sure if what you want is possible with them either, however. RockBox

Tag & Rename is a great program for cleaning up tags. Tag & Rename
 
Installing Rockbox or Linux would give you a folders option, but it might be more trouble than it's worth if you don't know what you're doing.

EDIT: GlobalFear beat me to it.

You have to use a customized build of Rockbox to install it on the 5.5G (30/80GB) iPod.

If you want a folders option, I'm assuming you have them organized? If they're in a specific scheme, you could use a program like foobar2000 or Media Monkey to organize them automatically, but backup first.
 
You can use Winamp... or Ephpod.. both free, or Anapod, which is not free but is a great iTunes alternative..
 
Do you want help or do you just want to complain about the iPod behaviour?
 
I understand were your comming from, but iTunes isn't that bad. Your iPod actualy works better when synced with Mac iTunes.
 
Actually I should have said Rockbox isn't stable on the 80gb iPod version yet.
If you can use Rockbox, you can just use the files option of browsing for music and would be ok.
 
@Torquemada XP

#1: I just separated from the USAF with 12 years of service. I'm unemployed BY CHOICE. I was paid probably more than you make in 4 years to separate voluntarily through Force Shaping, a program designed to slim down the Air Force.

#2: If you had read the thread, you'd have found the my insurance company paid for the iPod

#3: If you pay $399 for an iPod, you're a knucklehead. I paid $325 after getting Best Buy to match the price at Ecost.com

If I took the tone of you post wrong, I'm apologize. But it sounded pretty condescending to me.


@all

Thanks for the help and suggestions. Based on everyone's input, I will bite the bullet and use iTunes, only for loading/organizing songs. I will choose the option not to reencode the music when loading it up. Thanks again for the POSITIVE input. For any Apple fans I offended, I apologize.... but Apple is a bit overbearing when it comes to their software.
 
Flapjack said:
Thanks for the help and suggestions. Based on everyone's input, I will bite the bullet and use iTunes, only for loading/organizing songs. I will choose the option not to reencode the music when loading it up. Thanks again for the POSITIVE input. For any Apple fans I offended, I apologize.... but Apple is a bit overbearing when it comes to their software.
Click to expand...
It's usually QuickTime that gives Windows users the urge to pry their eyes out. ;)
 
B. W. said:
It's usually QuickTime that gives Windows users the urge to pry their eyes out. ;)
Click to expand...
You're right. I completely stopped using that altogether. "Quicktime Alternative" works beautifully. I've never found a file that wouldn't play with it and WMP classic...

Is iTunes less intrusive? Are you actually able to keep it from running when you don't need it? That's what pisses me off more than anything....
 
itunes is better than it used to be. It only runs the iPodDetector full time, but that app is very small.

Quicktime is the POS that everyone hates (and should hate). Its always there and always buggy :p
 
Grentz said:
itunes is better than it used to be. It only runs the iPodDetector full time, but that app is very small.

Quicktime is the POS that everyone hates (and should hate). Its always there and always buggy :p
Click to expand...

you can easily turn quicktime off.
I thought this thread was closed.....how'd it get reopened?
 
Grentz said:
itunes is better than it used to be. It only runs the iPodDetector full time, but that app is very small.

Quicktime is the POS that everyone hates (and should hate). Its always there and always buggy :p
Click to expand...
Does iTunes force an install of Quicktime? Because I'm happy with the job "Quicktime Alternative" is doing.
 
Tag&Rename looks sweet, but RockBox is not yet compatible with the 80GB iPod.

**EDIT**

Just saw B.W.'s post about a customized install. Probably way beyond me.

GlobalFear said:
There are linux alternatives for the ipod. I'm not sure if what you want is possible with them either, however. RockBox

Tag & Rename is a great program for cleaning up tags. Tag & Rename
Click to expand...
 
Ok, using Anapod, I was able to drag a folder over to the Playlists area (after I copied all my music to the iPod). It said "files already exist, do you want to create a playlist?". I hit yes.

Using it that way, I can get my "folders" to show up on the iPod kinda the same way they did on the OmniFi. This will probably do the trick for me. I'll also use Tag&Rename to clean up my files, since that it what really needs to be done. It's just such a daunting task when you have 50GB of music...
 
I'm glad to see you tried Anapod.. it's great software, and I think you'll find over time that it really is a superior alternative to iTunes..
 
ampedxc27 said:
It does, but you can uninstall it afterwards.
Click to expand...

technically you can't uninstall Quicktime as it's the framework that itunes was built on and runs on. What you uninstall is the Quicktime player but the framework (just like microsoft's directx or the .net framework) stays.

More on topic, I understand why people might not like iTunes on windows, it's definitely not the seemless experience it is on OSX. But, I will have to say, nothing will ever integrate as well with the ipod hardward as the system that was designed for it, but the people that developed it.
 
Flapjack said:
Does iTunes force an install of Quicktime? Because I'm happy with the job "Quicktime Alternative" is doing.
Click to expand...
iTunes requires Quicktime, since iTunes uses Quicktime. Quicktime is a framework for media encoding, decoding and playback. iTunes uses the Quicktime framework to play music and show videos.

Quicktime Player is another application that uses the Quicktime framework.
 
I'll have to agree that if you can get to the point where you use iTunes for synchronizing things, you'll be happier overall. Smart playlists in particular are very nice for when you want a regular rotation of music ("all my least-played albums," etc.) or if you want a themed playlist that automatically brings in new music as you rip it into iTunes.
 
Flapjack said:
Ok, using Anapod, I was able to drag a folder over to the Playlists area (after I copied all my music to the iPod). It said "files already exist, do you want to create a playlist?". I hit yes.

Using it that way, I can get my "folders" to show up on the iPod kinda the same way they did on the OmniFi. This will probably do the trick for me. I'll also use Tag&Rename to clean up my files, since that it what really needs to be done. It's just such a daunting task when you have 50GB of music...
Click to expand...

I spent a sunday morning 3 weeks ago using it on 125 gigs of music. Don't act like you can't do it.
 
corrosive23 said:
I spent a sunday morning 3 weeks ago using it on 125 gigs of music. Don't act like you can't do it.
Click to expand...

Prior to my lubeless hard drive death catastrophe, I had just over 100 GB of music, and every single MP3 had its proper tag info, capitalization, etc. Tag & Rename helped immensely, and although it took a while, having everything properly catalogued was great.
 
digital_exhaust said:
I'm glad to see you tried Anapod.. it's great software, and I think you'll find over time that it really is a superior alternative to iTunes..
Click to expand...
I'm glad too. I like it. The only problem I have is I disconnect, then select "eject ipod", but the ipod still says "do not disconnect". I've waited several minutes. If I remove the ipod anyways, it'll become unresponsive and require a reset. Not sure what to do there....
 
@Torquemada XP & corrosive23

I'm sure I can do it. I still don't know how to use Tag&Rename, but haven't had much time to play with it yet. I'll fool around with it a bit tonight....
 
It has a great feature that allows you to loosely organize a group that you think are part of a certain album, and search Amazon to tag the files. It will also embed album art and reviews of the album in the files.
 
I've never used T&R so I can't vouch for its performance. However, if you want to see what your other options are, you might want to give MusicBrainz a look... They are running an open-source tagging system that uses a downloadable applet to analyze your music and then matches it to user-submitted data stored on their system (similar to CDDB or Gracenote) and then tags the files appropriately. I've used it and it works great, especially if your files are presently untagged.
 
Thrash said:
I've never used T&R so I can't vouch for its performance. However, if you want to see what your other options are, you might want to give MusicBrainz a look... They are running an open-source tagging system that uses a downloadable applet to analyze your music and then matches it to user-submitted data stored on their system (similar to CDDB or Gracenote) and then tags the files appropriately. I've used it and it works great, especially if your files are presently untagged.
Click to expand...
Nice. I will try it now.
 
Sorry to bring up an old thread. I tried some of the programs recommended and was able to tag and rename most of my library. About 25% of my albums got completely jacked up, however. Songs got shifted, for example, what is listed as track 4 is actually track 5, etc...

I have a different question today, though. If I want to add one stinking album to my iPod, it takes almost an hour. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Basically, I'll plug it in and iTunes (yeah, I'm using it now... still don't like it much) will come up. I'll go to "Add folder" from the File menu and it will start syncing. From there, it'll sit for about 30 minutes and then bring up a message (sorry, can't remember what it is), then I'll hit ok and it will start loading the songs. 15-30 minutes later it will be done.

Is there any other way to add a few songs???
 
Ok, the pop up error was "some of the files could not be copied because they are not supported". That comes up every time, so I'm not worried about it. I just need a faster way to dump an album onto the iPod.
 
I use Ephpod to manage things on my iPod. Don't know if it was mentioned in the thread. It's free and works pretty well. Transfers very fast.

You can do group renaming too if you have say, an album of tunes and the tags are jacked up. You can select all the songs, hit the corresponding F key above the field you want to modify, and blammo.... all done.
 
@Scroatdog

Now that I'm done laughing about your nick, I can safely tell you I haven't tried Ephpod yet. If it does stuff that iTunes doesn't, I'll definitely try it out. I can't handle how slow iTunes is, just for adding one album...

**EDIT**
Just realized, it doesn't seem like Ephpod supports the newer iPods. I have 80GB video one.
 
two guesses-

- if you're adding "nonstandard" file types, itunes may be converting them as they're added to the library, which would slow things down.
-since you're using usb to transfer things to the ipod, make sure you don't have anything on your usb bus that would slow it down (you probably know this, but USB works at the lowest common speed, so if you have an old device plugged into your speedy USB, it slows the entire bus down)
 
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