Ipod question

[Hopeless]

Can you put songs on it that you rip from your own cds?

 

[secretanchitman]

absolutely. itunes will rip the cd, put it in your library, and sync it over to your ipod!

 

[Hopeless]

Thanks.

Do you have to use itunes or can you just copy songs to it?

I've already ripped most of my cds to the computer using media player. I went with wma as it was the only format that had an option for variable bit rate. I have a feeling ipods will not play wma. I kinda remember media player being able to sync and change files for devices, I'm not sure if it is just bit rate or if it can convert to mp3.

 

[MrX8503]

I'm not sure about WMAs but if you have MP3s you can send them into iTunes.

 

[TheStu]

When you install iTunes in Windows it gives you the option to convert the files from WMA to AAC. Though I would convert them in WMP first to <insert bitrate here> MP3.

 

[akugami]

Thanks.

Do you have to use itunes or can you just copy songs to it?

I've already ripped most of my cds to the computer using media player. I went with wma as it was the only format that had an option for variable bit rate. I have a feeling ipods will not play wma. I kinda remember media player being able to sync and change files for devices, I'm not sure if it is just bit rate or if it can convert to mp3.

For future reference, the MP3 format allows for variable bitrate encoding. Some encoding solutions may not offer it but all of the latest software should offer variable bitrate MP3 playback.

 

[Hopeless]

Thanks for the replys.

Is there any way to get music on an ipod without going through itunes?

When you install iTunes in Windows it gives you the option to convert the files from WMA to AAC. Though I would convert them in WMP first to <insert bitrate here> MP3.

If at all possible I'd rather not have 2 copies of all my songs and just have the pc convert them when it copies them over.

For future reference, the MP3 format allows for variable bitrate encoding. Some encoding solutions may not offer it but all of the latest software should offer variable bitrate MP3 playback.

Yeah I'd read about it, but at the time I didn't feel like installing something else. Media player only had varible bitrate encoding for wma and my phone can play wma files so I just went with that.

 

[akugami]

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/lame_encoder.htm

Download LAME at the above link.

LAME encoder is free and better than Media Player for encoding purposes. While I can definitely see why you would not want to install a bunch of junk on your computer, using LAME (or other encoder) to convert your collection to a high quality VBR MP3's will serve you better in the long run due to higher compatibility with a higher number of devices. MP3's work almost everywhere, and while WMA is highly supported, it doesn't have the near universal support of MP3's.

 

[s44]

I honestly think a re-rip to AAC would be better. Better SQ at a particular bandwidth, about as universal as MP3 these days, and the native iPod format.

Of course, I use Nero's codec and Foobar, but letting iTunes doing it should be fine. I hate lossy-lossy conversion, though, so I'd suggest re-rips from CD (using old tag data, if possible).

 

[Esiuda]

I recently got a ipod for my car,

I have always used Windows Media Player, and had about 100gigs of music saved as wma's

Itunes converted it, but really made a mess of the files,
Missing album art
Songs not put with the album they came from
(was always a greatest hits ablum. album with guest artest's, compalations)

Did I mention I hate apple?

I now run 2 seperate databases for my music, one for itunes and one for Windows Media Player. I copy new discs twice, due to the problems itunes putting album art and artist infor in correctly. I only run itunes to sync with my ipod, and i only got the ipod because kenwood interfaces with it using the touch screen on the indash head unit.

Sorry for the rant, but for me, Windows Media Center works Very well, there may be better programs, but for me, it just works. (win7 with the latest media center)