iTunes ?

hey there

I just downloaded Itunes 8. My wife got a new iPod that'll only accept that version.

So here's my issue, and if anyone knows the solution I'll be really thankful. What does one have to do to be able to add tracks from audio CDs to this version? Before, I'd just slide a disc into the PC - it's a Vista computer - and, if iTunes was open, I'd get a prompt asking me if I wanted to import the songs, and the songs would appear on my iTunes screen, and I'd import them. Now when I slide a disc in, I don't get that prompt, and I have no idea how to import CDs.

Oh my god you're scaring the crap out of me. I don't want that version.

hey, it may just be something with my computer...

does the cd even show up as mounted outside of itunes?

actually it doesn't! which is weird.

have you tried another CD?

on my iTunes 8, when i put in a CD a button appears in the lower-right of my iTunes window that says "Import CD"

Me too.

it sounds to me like maybe vista has some driver issue with your cd drive.

The CD should show up in the iTunes source list over on the left, regardless.

i tried a bunch of CDs.

let me look for that button...maybe i was just missing it.

"The CD should show up in the iTunes source list over on the left, regardless."

True and you should be able to select and Convert to MP3 from there as well.

Eesh, yes this sounds like a Vista / CD drive problem.

I run iTunes 8 in Vista and have never had this problem.

Nor me, but a few months of using Vista and iTunes and nothing would surprise me.

jeez louise. i restarted the damn computer and now everything's cool. i can't believe i didn't just do that in the first place!

thanks anyway, everyone!

LOL

OK i have a question

iTunes keeps track of how many "plays" a certain song has, and it also keeps track of how many "skips" it has. i think so far i have this correct.

now:

if a song is 5:48 and you skip to the next song at 5:35, does it count as a "skip" and not as a "play"?

because that would be fucking ridiculous.

it's a computer program, not a fucking mind-reading machine

of the songs i actually listen to, i probably skip 75% of them just before the end, when i know the last verse is over and it's just the wind-down, or a 20-second fade-out, or 64 bars of beats so that it can be mixed into the next track by a dj.

I have a question: When I burn a CD using iTunes, the track information isn't always retained when I play the disc on a different computer. Why not? If it shows up on one computer, shouldn't it show up on all the others?

it's a computer program, not a fucking mind-reading machine

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, January 6, 2009 2:05 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

when you burn a CD, iTunes grabs the info about it from an online database, based on the number of songs on the CD and the exact length of each song. CDs themselves don't have any information about their tracks on them. another computer may be grabbing the info from a different database, or from the same database but a different entry in that database. the Gracenote database, which i believe iTunes uses, isn't perfect.

n/a i think you will agree that in my case - and probably many others - the skip count probably closer resembles the number of actual plays than the play count does.

when you burn a CD, iTunes grabs the info about it from an online database, based on the number of songs on the CD and the exact length of each song.
That's kinda what I figured. But I still don't get why the software can't just burn the text information to go along with each track, bypassing the online database altogether. I never have this problem when burning a data disc, which retains everything without looking it up on the web.

the CD audio standard was invented a looong time ago, computer-wise

tracer just ffwd the last 20 secs or whatever rather than track skip. I do that cause I have a playlist of stuff that hasn't been played or skipped in XX weeks, but if I skip a track on my ipod, it doesn't register as a skip and therefore stays in my list of "unplayed/unskipped".

A state of the art personal computer in 1980, the year the Red Book (audio CD standard) was published:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Trs80_2.jpg

Basically, almost no metadata (artists, track names, etc) is supported by Red Book.

n/a i think you will agree that in my case - and probably many others - the skip count probably closer resembles the number of actual plays than the play count does.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, January 6, 2009 2:31 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's because it's a computer program, not a fucking mind-reading machine

last.fm scrobbly thing counts it as a 'play' after two minutes or halfway through the track, whichever is shorter. far more sensible, no mind-reading involved.

bought my eldest a cheap-n-cheerful laptop for crimbo/homework demands.
tonight he proudly told me that had installed iTunes on it.
10 minutes later that was no longer the case.
47Mb RAM useage as opposed to a much smaller memory footprint by the just as effective Media Player proved my case.
[1Gb RAM vs Vista = performance concerns]
not only that, but he hasn't got an iPod, so dont see the point when WMP will rip his 4 cds for him into mp3s for his phone.
someone convince me why he needs it ?
i suspect his reasoning is that classic case of 'everyone else has it'.
i feel like i am a bad bad dad for making his life iTunes free.

that's because it's a computer program, not a fucking mind-reading machine

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, January 6, 2009 1:31 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ profoundops.

XP: Its a nice interface for accessing the iTunes store, and now that iTunes is going DRM free I guess that's something. As with their portable devices, I guess its fashionable, if you value that above other virtues. If the kid doesn't care about performance issues, I'd let him get fed up on his own first.

But for almost any other purpose there are better alternatives. I'm a fan of MediaMonkey, which helps me effectively manage about 35,000 mp3s in a my own file hierarchy. Apple has joined my short-list of developers I associate with bloated resource use. As with everything MS other than the OS, there are useful alternatives for QuickTime codecs (though not development, AFAIK) as well.

my gonad for an iTunes/Media Monkey merger, where MediaMonkey redoes the iTunes UI, while iTunes keeps its proprietary store services

what is your major malfunction n/a? computers are able to do lots of amazing things, like measure how long you've been listening to a track. on your ipod, it even prints this information out on a constantly updated basis. i'm pretty sure it doesn't need to read your mind to do this.

Returning a "percentage played" figure instead of a boolean "played/not played" figure is pretty low not only on the Features Users Want list, but also pretty useless from a business standpoint.

Keep in mind that I'm talking strictly UI here. iTunes DOES keep track of how much of a track you played, because there is resume functionality per media item. This may be turned on for video only for now, but it could be turned on for audio as well. It's just not that useful from a User Interface standpoint to provide it, not point out if a track was fully played or not.

And as someone else pointed out, last.fm has a compromise system. Who knows what Genius is doing in the background.

(besides probably making iTunes less robust. oh snap.)

my gonad for an iTunes/Media Monkey merger, where MediaMonkey redoes the iTunes UI, while iTunes keeps its proprietary store services

― 909090909 Rivethed Brikkchin Reverk now DANZ (Mackro Mackro), Tuesday, 6 January 2009 22:10 (1 hour ago)

OTMFM <3 MM UI (but don't forget the internal file management, all it lacks is a built in power tagger)

Don't all of the OCD folks scrobble on last.fm anyways? The last.fm client gives you a full song listening credit 1/2 way thru the song.

If the freaking click wheel worked better on my iPod, that clip might be exciting, derelict, but until then, fuck 'em.

iTunes increments play count when you play THE END of a song. Skip to -0.02 from the end and play.

I think last.fm scrobbler just picks up the ipod play count from iTunes rather than listening for two minutes or whatever.

Jazzbo- what you'll want to do is check the button in your CD burning options menu that says "use CD Text." This will let other computers and some stereos and car audio systems to load artist and track title info, even on custom mix CDs and not just copied discs.

This will let other computers and some stereos and car audio systems to load artist and track title info, even on custom mix CDs and not just copied discs.

iTunes in still not reading CD-TEXT shockah?

47Mb RAM useage as opposed to a much smaller memory footprint by the just as effective Media Player proved my case.

that's not very much RAM usage at all, how much does the machine have?

maybe i'll reinstall media monkey, didn't really like it on first use. plus points = being able to change almsot all id3 tags with 'f2' rename shortcut, rather than tedious 'right click-->info'. minus point (which i didn't investigate too much, just a first impression) was folder structure in the left-hand pane. am very happy to let itunes organise all my folders and files based on the tags.

You know that you can edit multiple ID3 tags at once, right?

what? yes? probably? i just meant e.g. 'f2' when the 'year' field is selected for a single song. no can do in itunes.