Help - What AM I Doin' Wrong? 80GB Classic

[Natmich]

OK... My son has bought a 80GB "Classic" (6th Gen?) today. We've copied 5GB of various MP3, MP4's across from his old 3RD Gen pod to the PC and then across to the new unit. All the songs are all shown under the Audio Tracks Tab in Sveta but on dismounting the pod just states "No Music" when we try to view the tracks. The music has been put into the "music" folder, and then into a number of separate folders beginning with "F" within the "ipod control" folder. I've downloaded and installed the registry patch and I am using Release 6 ipod driver. I note that on the Extras tabon Sveta, there is nothing shown for the pods serial, firmware version or model numbers. This is most frustrating, not least for him so any help would be really appreciated.

Rob

[LtData]

The Sveta iPod driver will probably need to be updated so that the new iPods will work with it.

[Natmich]

The Sveta iPod driver will probably need to be updated so that the new iPods will work with it.

I thought this was basically just the same as the 5th Gen 80gb Video with new packaging? Presume they all work? If not, given the whole range has been revised, any idea when we can expect a new driver?

Rob

[Spoon]

Work on updating the Sveta for R13 compatilbility is due to start early December.

[Teknojnky]

fyi, things may have gotten a little more complicated.

http://ipodminusitunes.blogspot.com/2007/09/apple-cuts-us-off.html

[Spoon]

I have always known Apple is a company which likes to keep things close, and not allow other programs. To Steve Jobs Interoperbility is a bad word, I am sort of Glad it is Microsoft in #1, as I think Apple would be far worse.

[LtData]

Looks like they figured it out: http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/496-iPod-Classic-Will-Be-Supported.html

[Natmich]

OK - he's using itunes for the moment - just get this cracked Spoon, for Gods sake! Presume that video and all the other stuff will be supported?

[LtData]

Currently, only music files are support on the iPod with Sveta. When Sveta is updated with compatability for dMC r12, I believe support for video files will be included, or at least support to leave them as videos, instead of the current behavior of them just being files and not being viewable on the iPod.

[Natmich]

Work on updating the Sveta for R13 compatilbility is due to start early December.

Any news Spoon when this may be in beta? He's getting fed-up witn iTunes!

[Spoon]

It has slipped a few months, we are still on CD Writer R3.

[EBorg]

I bought the 12.3 version of Power Pack & MP3 encoder two days ago. Now I want to start my ripping project and I find out that Sveta Portable Audio (one of the reasons I bought the product) doesn't work with 12.3????

Then I find out that 12.3 has issues with iPOD classic too??
(I just got an 80 gig iPOD for x-mas). I'm beginning to think I made a bad decision. Please tell me this will all be fixed soon. iTunes is driving me crazy.

Eric

[garym]

No issues with IPOD. Why do you think this? I have several IPOD classics (80gb & 160gb) and the songs I rip with dbpoweramp 12.3 (to FLAC, then to lame VBR mp3 for the ipod) work just fine with all labels, album art, etc.). After encoding to mp3, I add the files to my ITUNES library for the purposes of synching with ITUNES (latest version). no problems at all. I also use foobar2000 for playing my library on my computer.

Perhaps you can post exactly what problem you are having in getting songs on to your IPOD and I can help. Many new users of Ipods/itunes misunderstand how library/synching process works.

I bought the 12.3 version of Power Pack & MP3 encoder two days ago. Now I want to start my ripping project and I find out that Sveta Portable Audio (one of the reasons I bought the product) doesn't work with 12.3????

Then I find out that 12.3 has issues with iPOD classic too??
(I just got an 80 gig iPOD for x-mas). I'm beginning to think I made a bad decision. Please tell me this will all be fixed soon. iTunes is driving me crazy.

Eric

[EBorg]

No issues with IPOD. Why do you think this? I have several IPOD classics (80gb & 160gb) and the songs I rip with dbpoweramp 12.3 (to FLAC, then to lame VBR mp3 for the ipod) work just fine with all labels, album art, etc.). After encoding to mp3, I add the files to my ITUNES library for the purposes of synching with ITUNES (latest version). no problems at all. I also use foobar2000 for playing my library on my computer.

Perhaps you can post exactly what problem you are having in getting songs on to your IPOD and I can help. Many new users of Ipods/itunes misunderstand how library/synching process works.


See posts one and two.

Currently I rip a CD to WAVE and put it on my desktop hard-drive. Then I batch convert several folders at a time (one folder per CD) to ALAC for importing into iTunes so I can get the songs on my iPOD. I also batch convert to FLAC for long-term storage on hard disk and for best compatability with other music server/players I might invest in later.

Once the stuff is on the iPOD I find that the album art is no longer with the songs. So it is back into iTunes to download album art (which I hope is free since I have had to do it a number of times). Then I have to go back and copy the album art to each song so it shows up. I though this process was going to be much easier. When I first read about Sveta ripping directly to iPod I thought !eureka!. Now due to incompatability I'm thinking "sucker".

There's got to be an easier way to do this. I'm a lot more technically savvy than most people but this all has me stumped. Part of the problem is I can't stand the sound of MP3. I need lossless or I need to find someone who wants to buy an iPOD with my name lasered on the back.

Eric

[Spoon]

Rip to WMA lossless and import to iTunes if you want to preserve the album art.

[garym]

I think your album art issue may be with the WAV files. I don't think you can typically add tags to wav files. Not even sure why you need the wav files given that you are creating FLAC (lossless) files but that's another topic. I can tell you what I do:

1. I rip to FLAC with artwork embedded to files. (you don't have to do this, you can instead save the album art within the same folder as the files--see the options related to album art in dbpoweramp). If I can't automatically find album art at this point, I go into MP3TAG and add album art to the FLAC files manually. You can add the art to each file in the album all at once by selecting all the files at once then adding the art to the art "tag".
2. I then use dbpoweramp to convert to mp3 (lame -V2) with replaygain values. Here the album art from step one automatically copies over to the mp3. You can convert to apple lossless at this point instead...not sure about the album art converting along with the other tags when you convert to apple lossless)
2a. I then do something you might not care about. I use an "action" within mp3tag (ver 2.39c or later) to create an ITUNES soundcheck value equal to the "album" replaygain value (by the way, this value is simply stored within a comment field in the ID3v2.3 or .4 tag; I use 2.3). If I do this here, ITUNES won't do the soundcheck scan mentioned below and itunes/ipod will use the album replaygain values instead of its usual track level soundcheck.
3. I keep the mp3 files in a directory organized by: ipodmusic/artist/album
4. Within ITUNES, I select FILE, then "add folder" and select the ipodmusic directory. I then let it add all these files. Itunes will go through all subdirectories under ipodmusic. It will only add new files (so you can add this folder multiple times and itunes will only pick up the new files within the directories (it won't add same files twice).
5. ITUNES will then "check for album art" (even if you have automatically check for missing album art turned OFF (which I do), it will still scan each file for album art when you initially add the files...what it is doing here is creating its own itunes library file containing the album art for each album. Itunes will then scan for soundcheck values (if you have the soundcheck option checked; in my case it doesn't do this step as it "finds" the soundcheck values I created with mp3tag earlier) and for gapless information. All these initial scans can take a long time (maybe 4 to 6 hours for my 50,000 plus files). But again, it does all these things only the first time.

At this point I can sync itunes with my ipod and everything works smoothly, with album art, etc.

A couple of other points:
1. Itunes does NOT charge you for downloading album art. And by the way, if you use itunes to find and download album art, it is not embedding the art. Instead it stores it in your itunes album art directory for use by the itunes library. You can embed this art. Simply open the song file within itunes, copy the album image, then highlight all the songs within that album, right click and select file information, the go to album art and paste the picture in that field. At this point the album art is now embedded within the file itself and can be read by other applications (fb2k, winamp, etc.)

2. I don't want to debate lossless vs lossy (and I myself archive everything to FLAC so I never have to rip again), but you should really at least consider lossy for use on your ipod. Very few people can ABX lame mp3 -V2 files from original except for a few "problem" samples. Have you tried to ABX a lossy file compared to original? If you haven't, you should. It certainly opened my eyes (ears) regarding what I could hear!

[EBorg]

GaryM

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Your patience and thoroughness is appreciated. :thumbup:

Thanks,

Eric

[garym]

you're welcome. One other point. Within itunes you can select "let ITUNES keep your music organized" from one of the options. If you do this, itunes will rename your files themselves to be track number and track song name. If you don't want the actual files on your harddrive renamed then leave this option unchecked. I actually use this option because it is how I organize my music anyhow (by artist/album subdirectories with song files named by track # and title).

Also keep in mind that itunes works a little differently from some players. It only uses the file tag info to create its own internal library (database). And then the IPOD uses the library info. The IPOD itself is not reading the actual song tags based on my understanding.

[Natmich]

OK - So is ther any news as to when we can expect the new vesion of Sveta, that will support the latest gen of Ipods, Spoon?

[Spoon]

Work will begin after CD Writer is completed (which is about to be worked on next).

[Natmich]

Work will begin after CD Writer is completed (which is about to be worked on next).

Spoon

Probably a stupid question, but any further news when Sveta will be worked on to handle the current gen ipods?

Cheers... Rob

[Spoon]

Soon to be started (is next in Line CD writer is almost finished).

[Natmich]

Soon to be started (is next in Line CD writer is almost finished).

Spoon

At the risk of boringly repeating myself, is there any further news when Sveta will be worked on to handle the current gen ipods?

Cheers... Rob

[LtData]

Now that the CD writer is finished, I believe Sveta is next up to be updated. Watch the beta section of the forum for the beta when it is released for testing.

[Spoon]

Indeed, just aquired an ipod touch.

[Natmich]

Indeed, just aquired an ipod touch.

So, any news on the update, Spoon?

[Spoon]

It seems each new firmware update Apple move the goal posts further away, IFAIK firmware 2.0 on these devices lock out programs again...