iPods

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 6:30 pm

iPods and their ilk....discuss!

Anyone got one? Im thinking of going for it, and getting one...but want other opinions. I heard that the battery on the iPod is crap as well, with a limited shelf life (and an expensive non-warranty replacement). Any views, ideas, comments?

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:08 pm

I don't have one, but I'm positive that I would suffer a memory wipe of one entire side of my family to get one.

Tim(e) · Post by **Tim(e)** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:58 pm

I haven't had any experience of these, but I have heard that the iPod battery is built into the unit and so yes, it is an expensive replacement if warranty has expired.

I have however, been looking at this Creative Nomad Zen sreies, which has 20gb, 40gb, or 60gb options.

LessThanZero · Post by **LessThanZero** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 8:52 pm

I was JUST thinking about getting one LC! ME OLD SCOOT!

I might have to do something called "Brush-hogging" this week. It's not perverted, it's like mowing the lawn. Ok, that sounds perverted too...

It's a tractor or something!

Anyway, I want to get an Ipod...those are like discman's right? Or are they discmen? Are they discpeople?

I want to get one of those things, so that while I'm brushhogging this field for my father-in-law, I can listen to Glitter Gulch! and think about my SpookyGirlfriend.

There's a .001% chance that I would purchase a cowboy hat to do this also. and download Almost Blue and the rest of KOA onto the ipod as well....

Sorry LC, I don't know anything about them though.

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 9:10 pm

laughingcrow wrote:iPods and their ilk....discuss!

Anyone got one? Im thinking of going for it, and getting one...but want other opinions. I heard that the battery on the iPod is crap as well, with a limited shelf life (and an expensive non-warranty replacement). Any views, ideas, comments?

Awesome. Get one, immediately!! I love my 15 GB iPod. Holds my entire music collection - or thereabouts. The most beautiful piece of technology introduced in the past ten years. I dare anyone to name one better. My battery is fine, and I've had mine for over a year.

Tim(e) · Post by **Tim(e)** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 9:31 pm

Who Shot Sam? wrote:
laughingcrow wrote:iPods and their ilk....discuss!

Anyone got one? Im thinking of going for it, and getting one...but want other opinions. I heard that the battery on the iPod is crap as well, with a limited shelf life (and an expensive non-warranty replacement). Any views, ideas, comments?
Awesome. Get one, immediately!! I love my 15 GB iPod. Holds my entire music collection - or thereabouts. The most beautiful piece of technology introduced in the past ten years. I dare anyone to name one better. My battery is fine, and I've had mine for over a year.

I think that therein lies the problem... the battery is more than likely to expire after the warranty, meaning a fairly expensive replacement and possibly time spent without your iPod (this is something that must be done by an appropriate service centre, I believe).

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:48 am

I steal music, too. So it's perfect for me.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:49 am

Hmm, is their an issue with not having a Mac computer? I only have a Windows laptop running ME.

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:53 am

No, it is still compatible.

However, Creative Nomads (that's what they are, right?) are much cheaper for the gigabytes they provide.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 7:20 am

I'm going to step up to the plate as an Apple fan and all purpose nerd.

I bought an iPod just after they came out in November 2001 and although my model is just a 5Gb original (holding, at a push 1,200 songs) it has been the most worthwhile gizmo I've ever bought (and I've bought a lot of gizmos). No battery problems over 2.5years later.

Here are some obvious and not so obvious things you should know because in the last year everyone I know seems to have gotten an iPod, then they come to me to sort it out...

Although it's an Apple product, iPods are both PC and Apple compatible out of the box.

The music you want to put on your iPod has to already be on a computer either "ripped" from a cd of stolen/borrowed off the net. So think twice if you're going to buy a 40Gb iPod and your computer only has a 10Gb drive.

iTunes is the program which "rips" songs off CD and files all the songs you have on your computer and lets you decide which ones go onto your iPod. This program is free from http://www.apple.com/itunes and there are PC and Apple versions of the software. I repeat it's free.

In the US, UK, France and Germany the iTunes program can be used to buy songs off the iTunes Music Store, all legitimate.

The iPod is essentially a hard drive with headphones, so one of its other functions is as a hard drive, you can use it to carry a very large amout of files or back up your stuff. It just pops up on your desktop like any external drive or floppy disk.

If you have a bunch of songs on your iPod, you can't just plug your iPod into a friend's computer and let him/her copy all the songs off unless...
(a) You use a clever little utility like iProbe or some PC variant to bypass this protection
(b) You copy the songs onto your iPod as files when it's in Hard Drive mode, then you can copy them onto any computer.

The iPod can also store addresses and display text files on it's little screen, although I don't know if anyone has ever used this function.

The sound is great, and I'm pretty picky. It's 100 times better than minidisc.

The iPod looks cool and there are an insane amout of accessories to go with it. Most desirable are these speakers which I've heard in action and are very impressive
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W ... =T8355LL/A
here's a little microphone to turn your iPod into a dictaphone...
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W ... =T7419LL/A
back up all your mediacards (eg from a digital camera) onto your iPod so when your on holidays you don't need a laptop to take all the photos off your camera...
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W ... =T7418LL/A
...and a remote control...
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/W ... =T6921ZM/A

Toshiba, who make the little drive inside the iPod, have announced that they've made a 60Gb version, so if size is an issue, there'll be a 60Gb iPod later in the summer - that's 15,000 songs. If size isn't an issue, might I recommend the iPodmini which holds 1,000 songs on a 4Gb drive and is very small and nice...
http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/

That's all I can think of.

Any questions?

DrJ

Pov · Post by **Pov** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 7:21 am

I have a 20GB Creative Nomad Zen that's about 1 1/2 years old. I still use it a lot, because my commute is usually the only time I have to listen to music. It may not be as pretty, or as small, or as cool as the new iPod, but it sounds great, is easy to carry in my briefcase, and cost a lot less than the iPod that was available at the time I bought it.

If I were buying a new unit now (and I'm not) I would probably get the iPod. It's just too cool to pass up.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:08 am

Cheers guys. Can you use iTunes to load songs directly onto the iPod from the CD drive, bypassing having to load them all onto the PC?

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:26 am

No. I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

DrJ wrote: The music you want to put on your iPod has to already be on a computer either "ripped" from a cd of stolen/borrowed off the net. So think twice if you're going to buy a 40Gb iPod and your computer only has a 10Gb drive.

DrJ

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:28 am

DrJ wrote:No. I refer the right honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago.

Ah, Prime Minister's Question Time. I used to love watching that on C-SPAN on Sunday nights.

Betty Boothroyd - "Order.... ORDER!!!!"

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 10:34 am

Oh, I see...that's a bummer...and there's no freeware knocking about that can do that? Blast! Cheers Doc.

Do you have all your music burnes to your pc then DrJ? I imagine that must have taken an age, and then to burn it to the pod as well!

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 12:08 pm

Thankyou for bringing this "I-Pod Mini" to my attention. I really want it, even though I'll lose it immediately.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 1:39 pm

laughingcrow wrote: Do you have all your music burnes to your pc then DrJ? I imagine that must have taken an age, and then to burn it to the pod as well!

Yeah I bought a 250Gb external hard drive for my iMac about two months ago with the idea of ripping all my CDs. I also thought it'd be useful as I'm moving from Dublin to London and I want all my music. I was obsessed for 3-4 weeks and ripped almost everything, there are a few boxes of odd cd's still over at my parents' place. It's got 60Gb+ of stuff at just under 15,000 tracks. Including loads of radio shows and comedy stuff. My next plan is to raid other peoples iTunes library until I have enough songs to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!!! HaHAHAHAhHAAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it took a while to rip 'em, but the computer copies them onto the iPod at a rate of about a track a second. So when you initially put the stuff on your iPod it can take 10-15 minutes, but after that if you're just updating to put a new album on it'll take about 10 seconds.

DrJ

Pov · Post by **Pov** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:32 pm

DrJ wrote:
So it took a while to rip 'em, but the computer copies them onto the iPod at a rate of about a track a second. So when you initially put the stuff on your iPod it can take 10-15 minutes, but after that if you're just updating to put a new album on it'll take about 10 seconds.

DrJ

I probably don't need to tell you this (or if I do it's probably too late), but make sure all your tag data is accurate before copying the files to the iPod or you'll never be able to find anything.

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:07 pm

This is true, but when you stick a CD into iTunes just go to the "Advanced" menu and choose "Get CD Track Names" and it goes online and fills all that out for you.

DrJ

wehitandrun · Post by **wehitandrun** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:42 pm

DrJ, your icon is dancing to this live version of "Let Them All Talk" from 1983 in Philly (I'm sure of it).

LessThanZero · Post by **LessThanZero** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:22 am

We just bought an Ipod. I've been putting songs onto itunes, but I cannot FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THE IPOD WORK! It just keeps flashing "do not disconnect", and this little circle in the upper left hand corner of the screen keeps spinning.

Even when it's connected, there's nothing on the itunes page showing that I have an ipod connected...ugh...

Who Shot Sam? · Post by **Who Shot Sam?** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:10 am

LessThanZero wrote:We just bought an Ipod. I've been putting songs onto itunes, but I cannot FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THE IPOD WORK! It just keeps flashing "do not disconnect", and this little circle in the upper left hand corner of the screen keeps spinning.

Even when it's connected, there's nothing on the itunes page showing that I have an ipod connected...ugh...

Have you downloaded the iPod software to your Mac/PC? You need to have the iPod software installed for the device to be recognized. Once you do that, you should see the iPod on your desktop and in iTunes. There is a button at the bottom of iTunes that you need to select in order for the iPod to synch. You can also set the iPod to synch automatically every time it is connected to your dock.

laughingcrow · Post by **laughingcrow** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 8:23 am

So...maybe Im being dumb here, but do you need to have the music on your desktop as long as you wanna keep it on ypour ipod?

Does it use a firewire or a USB?

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:05 pm

Well, as I said before, the music has to on a computer before you can put it on an iPod.

If, once you've "sync'd" the tunes on your computer and iPod you disonnected your iPod and then wiped all the tunes off your computer, the tracks would still stay on the iPod, but the next time you connected the iPod to the computer, the tracks would be wiped off your iPod too.

The connection is by Firewire or USB 2 (Not USB 1)

LTZ: That "Do Not Disconnect" and the swirling arrows mean that stuff is going onto your iPod. Is there not a little iPod logo in the column on the left in iTunes underneath the icons for the Library and Music store? Click that to see what's on your iPod. Furthermore, when connected, in the bottom right of the iTunes window is a little grey button with an iPod on it. Click it to fix your iPod settings. I'm assuming your using a PC and that iTunes is working fine on it.

DrJ

DrJ · Post by **DrJ** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 7:36 am

Problem is that Sony are sticking to the ATRAC sound format which is (1) Very protected and limits what you can do with the file and (2) isn't compatible with any online music store.

As with Sony's other players, the NW-HD1 plays songs in the company's proprietary ATRAC format only, meaning it is not compatible with other online stores and cannot play tunes in the popular MP3 format.

Which is really cutting off your nose to spite your face, a machine by Sony which played all formats which pushed down the price of these players could really make a difference. But it's a sacrifice Sony have to make as they own a records label too, and have to protect that investment.

DrJ

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