[geepondy]

Ok, either this weekend or next I'm going to purchase an Ipod Nano and load it up with all my girlfriend's cds. What I want to do is create a playlist for each of the cds. Is this easy to do and should it be done with the software prior to loading the songs onto the IPOD or done afterwards using the player? Once loaded, is accessing and then maneuvering amongst the different playlists difficult? She's not too good technically. Also with the software are there different encoding options? What is a good choice to balance quality towards file size? I've never used Itunes before.

One thing that sucks is that she wants a pink player and apparently one the 8 gig nano comes in pink when I think 4 gig will be more then sufficient for her music needs.

 

[Currawong]

Turn on "Use error correction" is a major one, especially if you intend to rip in in a lossless format.

iTunes is otherwise dead straightforward to use. Everything is drag-and-drop. There's also a "recently added" smart filter, making creating playlists from ripped CD's dead easy. When you plug in the Nano, it'll bring up a whole tabbed interface with options for music etc that make it easy to sort out what you want on there.

 

[otprof]

The iPod uses a database to organize the music both on the player and in iTunes, not file directories. In other words, there is no need to create a playlist for each CD because she can just use the menu to navigate through Music>Albums or Music>Artists>Albums.

Playlists are more commonly used for making special mixes that use music from different artists and albums. These are created in iTunes rather than on the player. The only playlist you can create on the iPod itself is an "on the go" playlist where you hold down the center button for a couple of seconds on each song you want added to that playlist. It's mainly for queueing up music to listen to, not for creating re-usable playlists.

I find the iPod interface to be fairly simple to use. My non-technical father-in-law has no problems with using the player, although i got him started by loading all of his music up for him.

You can set the encoding in the preferences. I would recommend MP3 over AAC because those files will play on everything. I don't think she would complain about 192K VBR MP3s, though if you have extra room on the player 224 or 256 would be good to have.

 

[geepondy]

As it's doubtful the girlfriend would ever use these files on anything then the IPOD, is ACC a better quality compression?