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)