Multiple users use one iTunes account. Sure you can now use iTunes from each users account, but I would like to see a "personal" perferences iTunes so I only see my smart lists and groups, not other users. That way I can find my music easier.
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iTunes 4.8 Coming
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If you want both A and B, then what's the point of the feature in the first place?aswitcher said:
James Philp said:
I agree with you, but I guess you misunderstood my post. My songs are mostly converted from CD to MP3 in Musicmatch (which created some problems for a few) and then into AAC on iTunes so I could fit them on my iPod.
My CDs I never use. Literally. I rip them, and put them in a drawer. I like iTunes keeping track of the playcounts, being able to randomize everything, etc.
What I plan to do when 5 comes out is re-rip all my music into AIFF, burn a couple of DVDs with all of these songs and then convert them from AIFF to He-AAC so I can pack more punch onto my shuffle and still have great quality. Then when the next big (or rather, smaller) codec comes out, I can re-rip them from AIFF and not lose any quality.
chameeeleon said:
Still not sure:
Rip to aiff - same as just pulling the files in the finder window to the HD.
Put on a DVD - @ about 700MB per album, you aint gonna get many on one DVD - like 12 with Dual-Layer (less than half with a 4.5Gb), so, depending on how much music you have, may not be too good a solution - I would have many more than 50 DVDs!
Also, once burnt, play count etc. will not be able to be modified. To my mind 50+ DVD's is no more accesible than just keeping the CD's! Also, say you buy a few CD's and then rip to aiff and burn to DVD - how do you start catalogueing the DVD's (can't do it alphabetically anymore)
It will get very hard to find certain tracks/albums in the long term.If you're planning to "re-rip ... to aiff" from your MP3 or AAC, i'm sure you know that will not afford any increase the sound quality!? Will just 'expand' the encoding, just as if you try to increase the size of a jpeg.
My solution - Keep all CD's well organised, when I purchase next Mac re-ripp to a new format. (PB G5 I hope!) If I were you I'd buy some CD racks from cheap-kea and then the ripping will go smoothly.
Sorry if I sound condecending, I don't mean to.. maybe I don't understand still, but from what i can gather, you're gonna be buying a lot of DVD-Rs and spending a lot of time! (Believe me, I have re-ripped my entire collection more than twice for various reason and it takes days!)
P.S:
As for the shuffle - I own one too, and having to keep all the music on the hard-drive is a pain as I'm 'on the road' and have my G3 PB with a 10Gb HD! - Space is crucial (as OS 10.3 seems to take way more than 2.5Gb with virtual memory. When I get home to my iMac G4 it's going to be rubbish too, as no USB 2! - v e r y s l o w!! Good thing i bought it primaraly as a memory stick!
What's on that CD?
I stand (slightly) corrected, BUT, when you pull files from the CD on to the HD you get aiff (and WAV in windows right? - not sure, havent used a PC in about 5 years or so, but then this is a Mac forum!?) Have to shove a few aiffs into a cd, burn it and see if it plays on my hifi.. Hmmmmm.
Case in point: Put a CD in I bought a couple of weeks ago open it in Finder and I get a collection of aiffs called 1 xxxxxxx, 2 xxxxxxx etc. Do you get a set of WAVs in windows then? Surely it's a mute point about the format then if that's the only thing the computer sees it as?
wrldwzrd89 said:
I stand (slightly) corrected, BUT, when you pull files from the CD on to the HD you get aiff (and WAV in windows right? - not sure, havent used a PC in about 5 years or so, but then this is a Mac forum!?) Have to shove a few aiffs into a cd, burn it and see if it plays on my hifi.. Hmmmmm.
Case in point: Put a CD in I bought a couple of weeks ago open it in Finder and I get a collection of aiffs called 1 xxxxxxx, 2 xxxxxxx etc. Do you get a set of WAVs in windows then? Surely it's a mute point about the format then if that's the only thing the computer sees it as?
Actually, there's some behind-the-scenes trickery going on to make it appear that you're seeing AIFF/WAV files. What happens when you drag the audio files off the CD is that the computer, using some built-in audio conversion API (application programming interface), converts the dragged files on the fly to AIFF/WAV (the format depends on whether you're using Mac OS X or Windows). Mac OS 9 does NOT do this.James Philp said:
wrldwzrd89 said:
What you say is correct, but taking into account the data rate from the CD to the HD, it leads me to believe this "API" may be a rudamentary as just tagging the file as an extension, as the aiffs dumped onto the HD at an identical rate to any other type of file.
Have you tried burning aiffs dragged into an image with the finder and trying it in a hifi? I may try this, as no conversion would take place. (perhaps the tracks need to starts 1 xxxx etc.?) What do you think?
That is not possible if the tracks appear as WAV on Windows and AIFF on Mac OS, since AIFF and WAV are not at all the same (relative to AIFF, WAV is 'backwards'). Have you ever tried converting a file to AIFF or WAV in iTunes? The conversion's VERY fast, even for long tracks. This suggests that the conversion process is so quick that it can be done in real time with no noticeable difference in transfer speed. On the Mac end of things, Core Audio probably handles it behind the scenes. On Windows, it's probably some component of Windows Media Player.James Philp said:
EDIT: I don't have any audio CDs to test your idea with other than ones I burned myself using iTunes.
I would advise not to do that. I once tried that, and at first it seemed to work alright, but when I burned a CD and played it back on the stereo, the sound was distorted. Looking at the aiffs in Soundedit I discovered that the waveforms where clipped, and data was missing, creating the distorted sound.James Philp said:
To create good aiffs you do have to use a CD-rip program like iTunes. Converting your CDs with iTunes will give you the same sound quality as the original CD.
As wrldwzrd89 said the audio on the cd is not in aiff or wav format, but in raw. You can't play aiffs on your regular hifi-set. If you burn a CD from aiffs, and burn it as a audio cd, the aiffs will be converted to the raw CD-audio format on the fly.
Mac-Xpert said:
Very interesting.. Wonder why this would happen. I won't try it now anyway! Cheers!
Yes, but chameeeleon is choosing AIFF because AIFF is likely to be around longer than Apple Lossless.Rantipole said:
This is too easy. Open View Options, check Date Added, click OK, DONE (in iTunes 4.7.1).Chip NoVaMac said:
I agree with better playlists options. I don't care about lyrics from iTMS, unless lyrics are integrated into full Karaoke visualizations.ryanide said:
So my wish list includes...
1) Full Karaoke visualization options
2) Better Playlist options:
a) ability to lock and unlock playlists, to prevent adding or removing songs
b) ability to organize and arrange playlists by dragging them in the Source menu, just like dragging songs in a playlist.
c) "Get Info" for playlists: lock/unlock switch, playcount (yes, for the playlist), Dates Created and Modified, number of items/songs, number of artists, time duration, size in MB if burned to CD, etc.
d) Hierarchal levels for playlists (folders)
e) ability to search multiple and various criteria of playlists: dates, songs, artist, composer, etc.
f) Star ratings for playlists
3) Implementation of half-star ratings for a 1-10 scale
4) More meta-data tag options: multiple titles/names, sub-titles/names, movement title/name, sub-movement title/name, multiple artists, secondary artists, multiple genres, sub-genres, multiple composers (music vs lyrics), multiple albums, etc.
5) More printing options and expanded printing capabilities.
6) I like the suggestion of color implementation.
7) Higher bit-rate songs from iTMS
Anything from iTMS ought to be paid for, whether that is Songs, Album Art, Liner Notes, or Lyrics. iTMS should not be the place for free album art downloads, just because you have the song files on your computer, whether you own the CD or not. Just because you have the CD does not entitle you to free album art.
That is easy. For a "personal" preferences playlist, just create a playlist (Smart or regular) of "your music," then search within "your music" playlist and create other playlists from "your music" playlist. As for not seeing other users' playlists and music, playlist folders can solve that issue.aswitcher said:
If this can be done through AppleScript, then when Tiger ships, Automater should make this a relatively painless procedure. Something like:stcanard said:Oh, I agree that I would love that too, I think the problem is UI design. I've never seen a UI that can do arbitrary logic in a simple and easy to understand form, which is what Apple seems to be going for.
I'd be perfectly happy if they gave me an option to type SQL queries, but I expect that to happen sometime after they implement WMV support, and switch to being a Microsoft music reseller...
- Go through some directory and for each song...
- Look up that song in iTunes and fetch its info
- Delete that song from iTunes
- Import/convert the song from your source directory
- Paste the fetched info onto the result
HE-AAC is a part of the MPEG-4 spec, just like the AVC video codec is.wrldwzrd89 said:
My guess is that we'll see it ship as a part of Tiger, when the rest of all those MPEG-4/HD goodies become mainstream.
I think his point is that converting from AIFF is going to be faster than re-ripping from the original CDs. He's looking for a way to take advantage of new/better codecs without re-ripping, since (as we all know) transcoding always degrades sound quality.James Philp said:
Keeping AIFFs (or other lossless formats) on the hard drive is one way, but that wastes a lot of drive space. Keeping AIFFs off-line on DVDs or something allows you to (hopefully) re-encode when new codecs come out, while maintaining the relatively low storage requirements of lossy codecs (like AAC).
As for what CDs are, others have already pointed out that they are not AIFF, but are raw streams of PCM data (with some error correction codes thrown in.) AIFF is a container-type format which may hold raw PCM data (in a wide variety of formats) or may contain compressed data (also in a wide variety of formats.)
I know plenty of people who would strongly disagree with you.James Philp said:
But that's irrelevant. The OP's collection was mostly MP3 format, transcoded to AAC. That is going to reveal a lot of defects, compared to AAC converted directly from raw data as a part of CD ripping. He's talking about re-ripping everything, but in a way that won't force him to do it all over again in the future if/when he decides to switch to a better codec.
No, let me correct you, by that logic you are entitled to scan the art yourself of the CD you have, just as you are entitled to "rip" a CD you own. But not download either at someone else's expense. Just because you have the CD, you are not entitled to download the songs for free, same with the art and the lyrics.Rantipole said:I'm betting this will happen with a price increase. 128, 99 cents; 256, $1.49.
Huh?
Sol said:
Gawd, if Apple would just include support for OGG and FLAC, they'd shut up 80% of the iPod+iTunes "haters" on Slashdot and actually get more hold-out "geeks" to buy their wares instead of MP3 players from other companies.
Sometimes I just don't understand Apple's thinking. OGG and FLAC are not competitors to iTunes. The iTunes Music Store is not the reason why people buy iPods; however, the iPod does educate its owners about the online store...its more of an ancillary sale to the iPod itself (until the day comes where purchased downloaded music outpaces retail CD sales). Thus any extra benefit Apple adds to its product, the more chances it has at selling more iPods to more customers. Because eventually, one of Apple's competitors will catch up in the style department. Its amazing that nobody has yet, especially with the financial and R&D that Samsung and Sony both have at their disposal. That's not to detract anything from Apple's efforts (Mr. Ives, especially), since I own an iPod (Photo) myself and highly recommend it to others.
There was an interview a few months ago with one of Rio's engineers who speculated that Apple never offered OGG support with iPod+iTunes because he believed he chip used in the original iPods wasn't robust enough to decode OGG files, but Slashdot posters tore down that argument.
Promoting OGG AND ACC usage helps Apple by encouraging end users not to think/use MP3. If there was a large shift, then Apple could eventually phase out MP3 support on the iPods and thereby increasing their profits from not having to continue licensing the format. Of course, to do that, Apple would have to improve the MP3-to-AAC conversion (and/or MP3-to-OGG) in the iTunes program itself (less lossless). Then Apple would only have to license MP3 usage through the iTunes program itself. Sure, Sony drew fire for a similar strategy for MP3-to-ATRAC conversion on their portables, but ATRAC does not sound as good as AAC, and only Sony uses ATRAC whereas other products from companies besides Apple supports (unencrypted) AAC files.