[Gridlinked]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zenpunk /img/forum/go_quote.gif What kind of macho are you? My girlfriend is an IT engineer and my mum a micro-biologist. Thank you. Go back to your cave..

If you can cool your jets for a second you might realize that he's trying to say that iTunes is a very easy to learn and easy to use program. For some people that's all they need and all they care about. Maybe he didn't use the bes choice of words in his comparison, but that's the basic idea.

 

[TouchOfEvil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zenpunk /img/forum/go_quote.gif What kind of macho are you? My girlfriend is an IT engineer and my mum a micro-biologist. Thank you. Go back to your cave..

Really? Humor must not exist in your cave.

 

[labrat]

Delete

 

[ccfoodog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nywytboy68 /img/forum/go_quote.gif J.River Media Jukebox works w/the iPod as well.

I used JR Media Center as well and liked it -- it has lots of great features, like transcoding on the fly, so you can have lossless files for your home, and MP3s for your mobile player -- but it became apparent when the iPod Touch came out that they were losing the arms race with Apple.

That is to say, it was clear Apple didn't really want competition for iTunes, and with the iPod Touch, basically locked them out.

Since I got an iPod Touch, I gave up. I needed it to work which meant using iTunes.

Now, that was a while ago and perhaps things have changed, but beware Apple is locking down their newer devices more and more.

It probably doesn't affect the classic iPods as much, but if you later switch to a different Apple device, your investment in whatever software may be lost.

The best answer is probably not to get locked into the Apple devices at all.... But at the time, DRMed music was the norm, and it was fairly easy to get locked in.

-john

 

[Gridlinked]

I was pretty interested in J.River Media Jukebox until I realized it didn't work with my Touch, so I'm using Media Monkey instead. I like it but I wish there was a way to just select a group of tracks or albums and tell it to send it to my Touch as opposed to have to drag groups of tracks at a time. Dont get me wrong, it works, but it's clunky. However, it's better than Itunes which I refuse to use other than to initially register my Touch.

 

[12thgear]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ccfoodog /img/forum/go_quote.gif I used JR Media Center as well and liked it -- it has lots of great features, like transcoding on the fly, so you can have lossless files for your home, and MP3s for your mobile player -- but it became apparent when the iPod Touch came out that they were losing the arms race with Apple. That is to say, it was clear Apple didn't really want competition for iTunes, and with the iPod Touch, basically locked them out. Since I got an iPod Touch, I gave up. I needed it to work which meant using iTunes. Now, that was a while ago and perhaps things have changed, but beware Apple is locking down their newer devices more and more. It probably doesn't affect the classic iPods as much, but if you later switch to a different Apple device, your investment in whatever software may be lost. The best answer is probably not to get locked into the Apple devices at all.... But at the time, DRMed music was the norm, and it was fairly easy to get locked in. -john

If you're talking about music, there's no reason Apple has to lock you into anything, unless you're referring to older iTunes purchases, which were protected using FairPlay. iTunes tracks are now DRM-free AAC, and many devices will play those. And of course if you're ripping CDs you can control your own fate.

Any movies you buy via iTunes are protected by FairPlay. I don't see this changing anytime soon. And unfortunately ripping DVDs is a complicated issue for the average user.

And of course with Apple's hottest products (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) being handheld computers with lots of compelling apps, you're now talking about DRM and OS compatibility. Obviously you can't expect competing platforms to run native iPhone apps. As these devices continue to get more powerful, I look forward to seeing web apps become richer, mitigating some of the cross-platform issues.

I notice nobody has mentioned DoubleTwist. I played around with it a little bit getting things onto my PSP. It's not perfect, but it's somewhat clean and elegant.

 

[tds101]

Hmm, Media Monkey works w/the Touch, and not J.River? Thanks, didn't know this.

 

[dweaver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by james444 /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you're using Windows, look no further than Mediamonkey.

X2 on Media Monkey, it's works very well for me so far. Allowing me to rip all my music I have disks to FLAC and then I just set it to convert them to MP3 for my devices. Allowing me to have perfect FLAC copies as my main source with no audio loss and easily maintain the appropriate MP3 quality and size on my smaller portable devices.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by labrat /img/forum/go_quote.gif Even your mom or your girlfriends can be trained to do this by themselves!

Sigh.

And y'all wonder why women don't feel comfortable posting here...?

 

[12thgear]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sigh. And y'all wonder why women don't feel comfortable posting here...?

I thought it was because of the constant bickering.

 

[james444]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlinked /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was pretty interested in J.River Media Jukebox until I realized it didn't work with my Touch, so I'm using Media Monkey instead. I like it but I wish there was a way to just select a group of tracks or albums and tell it to send it to my Touch as opposed to have to drag groups of tracks at a time. Dont get me wrong, it works, but it's clunky. However, it's better than Itunes which I refuse to use other than to initially register my Touch.

I don't understand your problem, there are two alternate ways to sync to your Touch besides drag & drop. First, you can select a group of tracks or albums, right-click, choose "Send to..." and select your Touch. Or you can create a playlist, send the selected tracks/albums to that playlist and configure your Touch to sync with that playlist. I use the latter (one playlist per DAP) and think it's a most elegant and versatile way to sync my DAPs.

 

[roebeet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nywytboy68 /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you had a Zune, you'd be screwed. Seems the iPod isn't as "restricted" as most claim, huh? And yes, I own both.

Both of them are equally restricted. It's just that iPod's are more common and thus developers are more prone to make hacks for it. There used to be hacks for the Zune 30 to bypass the Zune Software, if I recall correctly (but newer firmware stopped that).

 

[ChromeJob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by labrat /img/forum/go_quote.gif iTunes is very good, actually. You can manage your music, from CD'd or other sources, into your iPod. Even your mom or your girlfriends can be trained to do this by themselves! The only problem with using iTunes is locking your iPod to one specific computer! But EphPod software is free and easy to use, so that obstacle is easily bypassed! And there are other similar solutions available if you look around!

I didn't know Mark Shuttleworth was on this site?! Hey guy!

 

[ChromeJob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gridlinked /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was pretty interested in J.River Media Jukebox until I realized it didn't work with my Touch, so I'm using Media Monkey instead. I like it but I wish there was a way to just select a group of tracks or albums and tell it to send it to my Touch as opposed to have to drag groups of tracks at a time. Dont get me wrong, it works, but it's clunky. However, it's better than Itunes which I refuse to use other than to initially register my Touch.

You might need to use Auto-Playlists (a Gold version feature). Because my Nano only has 8gb of storage, I use playlists that select random albums or tracks that I haven't listened to recently, as well as 100% of my podcasts. When I sync, it updates the playlists and syncs new selections. ... With the advanced search feature in AutoPlaylists, a lot of options are possible combined with Auto-sync.

 

[Uber_Roxxorz]

What are your guys' thoughts on Winamp? I've used it in the past to listen to music and manage portable media players.