iPod questions
 

I'm in my late 30's, and thinking of joining the MP3 "revolution" and getting an iPod. I was wondering if folks would be willing to share positives and negatives about the different models. I have a relatively large CD collection, and I'm thinking that it would be easier to travel (which I do for work a lot - driving) with an iPod than a buttload of CD's. Here's the other thing - when I travel, it's always in a rental car, so I'd have to get some sort of transponder-thing to play it in a vehicle, as well as some way to hook it up to my existing entertainment system. (don't want a specific speaker-docking system for an iPod)

Thanks for any and all comments!

I just got my very first ipod, and it's a 30 gig video ipod. You can put video clips, scroll thru your favorite pix, and of course! Listen to music. I personally listen to my ipod in the car with the headphones instead of figuring out how to plug it into a cd or tape player, but I know it can be done, you just have to buy extra equipment. I'm still very new to it, so perhaps some ipod veterans can give you more feedback!

p.s. my main complaint was that the instruction book it comes with is very short and doesn't answer many of the questions I had, especially about transferring songs from a CD that had songs on it already transferred into itunes-I had to keep the CD in my computer while transferring it.

I also do not like that it recharges via being plugged into a computer thru the same USB cord that transfers songs. It's a good way to save space, but the point of my carrying an ipod is when I don't have a computer. If I were taking a 3 day trip on the greyhound, hypothetically, I can't charge it at the public station, I'd have to find a computer USB outlet.

Re: iPod questions
 

In the car you can get a tape adapter, an FM transmitter (wireless over FM signal), just an audio wire to plug into the radio, or a bluetooth transmitter (wireless and digital so best quality, highest price).

-Rudey

If you needed instructions on that, I have absolutely no idea what to even tell you.

And you can buy a wall charger or dock for it if you want.

-Rudey

For a relatively large music collection, I would recommend the smallest size (30 GB) of the ipod (vs. the ipod nano or shuffle).

If you are a student (and even if you're not, but want to say you are), go to the apple website, click on education, select the state of your school, and then select your school. The educational discount isn't outstanding, but it does help.

In terms of traveling with the ipod, you have two options. The first is getting a cassette adaptor that plugs into the headphone jack of your ipod. I had one of these for about 2 years before it finally broke, and never had any complaints. The sound quality wasn't fantastic (and you have to be in a car with a tape deck) but it worked. The other option is something called the itrip (which has been discussed previously on GC). One problem with the itrip is that it can take some fidleing to get it working (a pain if you're in a city where you don't know the radio stations) and has been known to be very frustrating in places with lots of radio stations (especially big cities).

For an in home set up, the ipod will work with any speakers. They can either be purchased at the apple store, or any electronic store (best buy, fry's electronics, etc.).

they have all kinds of devices for Ipods at Best Buy and other electronic places. There is also a book on the Ipod at Barnes and Noble. You can always look stuff up online for free.
There is a charger for the car; it plugs into the lighter. You can do I-trip through that. But I suggust you get a transmitter that plugs in to the headphones slot instead since there are more channels that you can transmit the Ipod music to. If you have a tape play you can use one of the kits just like they have for CD players; they make them specifically for Ipod with the charger or you can use your old one and get an Ipod charger seperately.
Also if you have an older steoro system, like I have you can hook up the Ipod using an special audio cord, plug one in to the headphone jack on the Ipod and the other in plugs into the back of your steoro system. I usually just hook my old computer speakers up to the Ipod, it just plugs in.
And like Rudey said they make chargers you can plug into the wall for the Ipod. They also make really cool looking steoros.

so it is common knowledge that you need to keep the CD in the drive even after you transferred it to the itunes on your computer?

Since the 60g is only $100 more than the 30g...I wonder if that would be the best bargain...anybody have a 60g?

I've never had that problem - are you sure you transferred it to your computer? I know my mom was a little confused because she thought she had transferred, but she never hit Import CD.

I'm thinking they meant when you upload a CD to the Itunes software and then download it to your Ipod that the CD needs to remain on the hard drive, the music, not the actual CD.

All music on your IPOD must be on your harddrive. If you delete it, the next time you plug ipod into computer, it will delete it from ipod. Harddrive music and Ipod are always in sync.

yep. Even though I'm new to ipods, my family's owned computers since I was a baby, so I know I did that part correctly. What I did was go to my friend's house who burned a lot of his itunes for me onto CD Roms, then I added those songs to my itunes via add folder to library. But when I plugged the ipod to the computer, they wouldn't transfer unless I actually kept the CD in the drive. And thus every time for the other 3 CD's he had burned for me, I had to switch them out and plug them back in, shut down itunes and open it up again. I thought it was quite odd for something that claims great efficiency.

real quick-the itunes were uploaded onto the hard drive already by then, from the CD to the computer. hence the confusion, why the need to have them both on my hard drive AND have the CD in the computer at the same time?

you shouldn't need to do this.

Were the files converted from .wav to itunes format? Are the songs listed in your itunes interface?

Umm usually if you copy an itunes file onto your computer and click on it, you get a pop-up that asks you for your apple id to authorize it.

For stealing music, it's not "efficient" as most record companies and artists would take issue with the DRM of these files.

-Rudey

They were burned onto the disk in itunes format (if i'm using correct terminology)

OH, well that is different - but yeah, what you are saying is right.

It will be either AAC or m4a files and you can't complain that Apple hasn't provided you with instructions on how to pirate music.

A simple google search would have provided you with several solutions quickly. :)

-Rudey

This isn't true - it's an option.

Personally, I use my nano to store a small portion of my larger music collection (usually a 'workout' mix, and recent stuff I know I'll want to listen to when at work/on the road), so I don't sync w/ HD.

Not only that but there are programs you can find easily to rip your ipod's music onto your hard drive.

-Rudey

I have Monster's iCarPlay. It's a wireless FM transmitter that plugs into the iPod's serial port as opposed to its headphone jack, so you get better sound quality. It's still not perfect, but not bad, either. Also, this will charge your iPod, unlike many other FM transmitters.

http://www.monstercable.com/images_d...ss_plus_tn.jpg

I run a 40GB and a nano off the same itunes. the nano has its own settings to only dl the music selected for it.

But if I erased 1/2 my cd's from itunes, plugged the 40gb in, it would sync w itunes and erase those from the 40gb.

The older 40gb I don't have much experience with. The nano 100% allows you to disable sync'ing, allowing drag-and-drop onto the player instead of auto-downloading (and similar manual deletion). I'm told that the newest version of iTunes runs the newest iPod Video off a similar set-up for sync'ing, but the OP should be able to tell us for sure.

I currently have music on my iPod that is not on any hard drive that the nano is certified to utilize - and without hacks - as does my coworker with an older 20gb.

Yes, if it's in 'automatic update' mode. (I'm not sure that that's really what it's called, but basically that's what it is.) But I have my iPod Mini--which I adore!--set to 'manual' mode, which means that I can add or delete songs one by one instead of it automatically updating every time I plug it in.

This is good to know.

...But with over 4500 songs on mine, the idea of manually updating it is daunting, you know?

That wouldn't be a problem unless you were going to remove or replace all 4500 songs, would it? I mean, if you just wanna add a few or take off a few, all you have to do is click and drag, and voila!.

My boyfriend has the 60g, and he has tons of music. His ipod still isn't close to being full. If you have excess amounts of music (read, more than around 8,000 songs), then go ahead and get the 60g. Otherwise, I don't really think it's worth it.

It's called "select all"

then click and drag. If you add songs to iTunes and want to transfer to your ipod, then make use of the recently added playlist to move just those tunes.

I got a 4GB iPod mini a little over a year ago, and I love it. The mini has been replaced by the nano. (My husband has a nano. I have iPod envy. :p ) If you don't have a whole lot of music, and small and lightweight is important to you, the nano might be a good choice. Otherwise, go for a full iPod.

For listening in my car, I use a cassette adapter. The sound quality is pretty good. This setup would be perfect if you usually drive rental cars, provided that the rental cars have cassette players.

Edit: Be warned that if you order an iPod through apple.com, they will ship FedEx, signature required at time of delivery. I learned this the hard way after FedEx returned my husband's iPod to Apple because no one was home to sign for it. Apple could have warned me when I placed the order, but noooo :rolleyes: I suggest you have it shipped to your office if you order online.

What computer manufacturer leaves packages of expensive items just on your door steps without a signature? You could also sign the slip they leave on your door to allow for it after the initial attempt.

-Rudey

Apple does not accept that. They require that someone be physically present to sign at time of delivery. I don't blame them for that. I do blame them for not stating that policy at any time during the ordering process. If they had done so, I would have redirected the delivery to my office.

Ditto. I got my daughter an Ipod mini for her birthday (this past Saturday) and I immediately set it to manual mode because we all share the Itunes and if it did it automatically, she'd be stuck with all my music too (and her brother's).

She wants to be able to sync from either my house or her dad's house, but they're having trouble getting the ipod software to load at his house. I told him I'd take a look at it, but it's a busy week so I don't know when I'll get to it. That's another good reason to have it set to manual. Otherwise, she'd lose some of her music.

I was upset that they didn't tell me the ipod wouldn't come filled with songs already.

By the way, I had an Apple Powerbook Fedex'd from Taiwan to NYC and left at the door without signature (I signed the back of a 1st attempt slip once to do that they consider that as the preference for the future).

Funny how that works.

-Rudey

One thing to note:
Apparently the new Griffen iTrip automatically searches for an empty radio station instead of having to configure it manually.

i just bought the griffen iTrip for my mini ... and how come everything sounds a little bit static-y ?? like if you turn the volume up somewhat loud, you can hear the static in the background ... ? i cant figure out what the hell to do to fix it ... and the radio station is fine? :rolleyes:

Because it's a low power transmitter trying to overpower whatever radio waves are coming into your car.

I started a thread about this, actually...everyone had really good suggestions.

OK, here's my question. I have a mini, and so far have had no problems with it...it's not too hard to figure out. I had a ton of music on my computer & copied everything into the iTunes library (or whatever...).

My son got some RCA Lyra piece of crap MP3 player for Christmas, and he has to use Music Match Jukebox to load music to his...he also got about $50 in iTunes gift cards...so here's the question. Is there going to be a problem getting the songs he downloads via iTunes into the library that Music Match uses? I keep telling his dad to figure it out, but winter is his busy season so he won't get to it until about March and the kid keeps badgering me!!! I don't want to download any new songs for him until we know the best way to do it to make sure we can BOTH put them on our respective gadgets....

Sadly, music purchased from the iTunes music store is only compatible with iTunes and iPods (it cannot be played with any other music software (i.e., Music Match Jukebox) or uploaded to other mp3 players. Therefore, your son could only use his downloads on his computer (using iTunes) or your ipod mini.

Or, since he now legally owns the music, he could burn it to a CD (so he can listen in the car, as well) and then re-rip it into a 'standard' mp3 format through MMJB.

i got a 30gb video for my birthday last month. the thing ive realized for me personally is that 30gb is way too much space. i tried filling it up and only got a third of the way and already i feel like i have a lot of music that I dont particularly like on it. i think i would have been better off getting a nano :rolleyes: