[kerelybonto]

I've had a 20GB Windows iPod since Christmas and have yet to work out all its quirks. Compared to other hard drive players I've used, it's by far the best -- but I can't get the damn thing to transfer files from my computer to the player perfectly.

I think most of this stems from my laptop's unpowered Firewire port. I can get transfers to work (though the iPod reset doesn't work exactly as it's supposed to), but there are all sorts of errors in transmission. The files on my computer's hard drive are perfect, but they frequently (it varies, but sometimes is more than half of the tracks) get screwed up in the process of moving them to the iPod. Often the first part of a song is chopped off, sometime as much as forty seconds or more. More often, though, random bits of the song are excised, usually just a few milliseconds, but again up to lengthy chunks.

Of course I trashed the supa-****ty MusicMatch Jukebox integrated software as soon as I got it. I couldn't get the damn thing to transmit at all with that -- well, very occasionally, but almost never. Pretty much the same thing with XPlay. Of course I ended up with ephpod, the only reason I was able to actually use my iPod. But in ephpod I get the kind of transmission errors I described above. I think there's some correlation between the number of errors and the amount of battery power the iPod has, but I'm not sure. I always download songs to the iPod when it's at a full charge these days, but even then I get quite a few errors.

So who else is using one of these things with an unpowered Firewire port? Anyone know of anything I can try? Is there any software available that will do an integrity check as it transmitts, kind of like EAC does with CD ripping?

Thanks.

kerely

 

[grinch]

i'd give xplay another try if i were you. i find ephpod to be a flaming piece of crap, with all the renaming and stuff that goes on during the copy i couldn't stand it. xplay is great, just drag and drop directories and it copies right over and boom it's done.

i recommend eac to rip but be sure to check the id3v1.1 checkbox in the compression options so that it gives all the mp3s a track number in the id3. xplay really needs the of the tracks will just be sorted alphabetically. of course, one doesn't need this if they use that horrible id3v2 crap instead.

my only problem is if i leave my ipod plugged up to my machine it becomes impossible to unmount and i haven't quite worked out why. must be some sort of conflicting program of some kind, though i'm not quite sure which yet. other than this i'm extremely happy with my ipod and find it to be the best audio investment i've made since buying hp1's.

 

[minya]

What Firewire card are you using? You're not using the Firewire port on a Creative soundcard, are you?

- Chris

 

[aeberbach]

Ephpod works great for me. My process is to keep MP3s in an Artist/Album/Song hierarchy. I use Tagscan to make every tag conform to my organization (there are some truly bizarre naming schemes from CDDB while encoding) and then Ephpod just copies directories or removes them.

Probably you have an issue with a driver. I use a Shuttle XPC and the firewire ports are unpowered, but I never have a problem transferring large quantities of data to the iPod, DV camera or external hard drive, even while doing other things. I would start looking for new chipset drivers. If using a Creative card for firewire I would be very suspicious of that too.

 

[kerelybonto]

I'm using a Maxtor PCMCIA FireWire with the out-of-box drivers (as opposed to letting Windows detect it). I'm pretty sure the problem has nothing to do with the FireWire port itself, though I don't use it for anything else, but the iPod is known to be finicky with unpowered ports. Do any of you use an upowered port? -- you have to do a manual reset to hook up the iPod (though mine doesn't do what it's apparently supposed to after said reset).

grinch, I'll give XPlay another try, but it didn't work for **** over the multiple times I tried to make it do its thing. EphPod, contrary to your experience, works great for me -- there are no corrupted tag problems or anything. In fact, I get that problem using the MusicMatch junk, but EphPod works fine, just that parts of songs are missing. All my tracks are from CDs I burned with EAC and ripped with Lame, and I designed their naming scheme. That's not a problem at all (the MP3 files are all just TrackNumber - SongTitle sitting in Artist/Album directories) ... just the damn random bits excised.

kerely

 

[kerelybonto]

Bumping this in hope that someone with an unpowered port reads it. ...

kerely

 

[stan23]

i've never heard of your problems and i'm pretty active in the boards at ipodlounge.com as well.

But what you describe is classic 'soundblaster audigy firewire port problem'

They may not be the same, but perhaps the controller chipset in your firewire pcmcia port and the one on the audigy is one in the same.

But to answer your question -- yes, I use an 'unpowered' firewire port with the ipod on my laptop and it works fine. The port is the smaller 4-pin one that came built-in with my notebook.

 

[kerelybonto]

Hmm, okay -- so I'll try fiddling with different drivers and see if I can work it out. ...

Thanks.

kerely

 

[kerelybonto]

Fiddled, no dice.

stan23, if it's built in to your laptop, it's probably not unpowered. Are you sure about that or were you just assuming since it's on a laptop?

Can you check to see which drivers you're using? Mine's a Microsoft driver, labelled as OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller, version 5.1.2535.0 (7/1/01). There aren't any updates on Microsoft's site and that's what Maxtor says to use. ...

kerely

 

[aeberbach]

kerely, I just read some more detail - OHCI compliant firewire brings back some very bad memories. I could never get one to work in my Thinkpad, had just the problems you describe but with incomplete and corrupted files. You're not using a Western Digital PCMCIA firewire card are you?

 

[Digital-Monk]

Kerely:

I have experienced this with ephod as well. I never took mu ch notice of it because I didn't have the time to be bothered. I'm using a audigy card. I'm gonna try it on a none audigy card once I get all my mp3's fixed up and replace the ones that are clipped (my HD died in the meantime).

 

[kerelybonto]

Just wanted to update everybody -- after ****ing with every set of drivers I could find, it finally occured to me to update the firmware. I downloaded 1.26 (highest currently available for Windows) and wiped my 'Pod clean ... seems to have taken care of it. I've been listening for the last couple days and have only found two songs with errors.

So ...

kerely

 

[stan23]

glad you got it working!

Yes, my laptop's port is unpowered. It uses a TI chipset.

I use only Ephpod and it works great for me.

 

[Ruahrc]

I had some similar problems using my powered Audigy port: songs were getting cut off at the beginning. (Using Ephpod) I could tell which files were corrupted, however, because during the copy ephpod would stall for a couple of seconds and the iPod's hard drive would click before continuing. I read around and later found that raising my PCI latency from 32 to 64 (picked 64 because it is one of those "power-of-2" numbers) fixed the problem completely. Maybe you have a similar setting for your port?

Ruahrc

 

[kerelybonto]

I've since found a few more errors, but the total's only at five in probably around 20 or more hours of listening, which is significantly better than I've ever got before.

I can't find a PCI latency setting anywhere, Ruahrc. Is yours in your IEEE 1394 device controls?

What version of EphPod are you guys running, by the way? -- I'm using 2.58, which is the highest finished version out. (There's a 2.60f beta available now, too.)

kerely