iPOD Users, I Need Help!

[liberalpragmatist]

Okay, so I recently bought a 20GB iPod - it's supposed to hold around 5000 songs and in this newer model, also pictures. Mine, however, is saying that my library of 1700 songs is too big to fit.

I've tried a number of things - since I have album artwork for most of my albums, the current iPod automatically includes it. But I deleted all my album artwork and it made a negligible difference in the amount of memory being used.

I deleted a bunch of playlists (but kept the library intact) - still it doesn't fit that many.

What could be wrong? As it is right now, it's holding 1300 songs and about 2/3 of the hard-drive is being used.

I actually think I may know the reason why. I converted a bunch of my songs over to the new Lossless format, but now the songs take up upwards of 30-60 MB. Is Lossless supposed to do this? I thought Lossless was just a new format and shouldn't take up significantly more space than AAC or MPEG formats. Is there something wrong with my settings or am I just not supposed to use Lossless on the iPod?

[SeveneightyWhoa]

1. "5000 songs" is just an advertising gimmick.

An estimate, if you will. It really depends on the size of your files (length, encoding). I know that I wouldn't be able to fit 5000 songs.

[liberalpragmatist]

3. But only 1300?

I realize I probably wouldn't get that high, but only 1300? My brother has the same model, about 1000 songs but his only take up 5 GB. With 1300 songs, mine's taking up something like 16 GB.

[Avalux]

2. I don't know much about Lossless -

however, if you've converted your music to that format and the file sizes are 30-60 mb, there's your reason. Those files are 10x bigger than the regular mpg format. I probably wouldn't use Lossless; or see if you can reduce the file size in your settings. :hi:

[liberalpragmatist]

4. I figured

What I'm not sure about is whether my setting is just wrong. Is Lossless supposed to encode at such a large file size?

Obviously, as you said, you don't know much about Lossless, so my question's more directed at someone who would know. But thanks, I figured the file size was the problem.

[Tallison]

7. But isn't Loseless music quality much higher?

I haven't compared the formats, but quality is a big issue.

[liberalpragmatist]

10. My guess is lossless is for burning CD's

I, not realizing that, set everything to Lossless, but the result is that my music files are 10x larger. And honestly, I couldn't notice much difference coming out of my computer or my iPod.

Anyway, I'll get around to converting them back to AAC. Otherwise the file size is just too large. If I burn CDs I'll probably use Lossless (although I'll probably lose a little quality from in the future importing with AAC and then converting to Lossless.

[Tallison]

14. Can you convert to AAC from Loseless

once the music is already downloaded to iTunes? Do you know how?

[liberalpragmatist]

17. Yeah

That's actually probably preferable - if you go to settings under preference and importing, select AAC instead of Lossless and you can go back, left-click the song and select "convert to AAC" (if under preferences, Lossless is selected, the option on left-click will be "convert to Lossless").

As someone below pointed out, converting from AAC to Lossless would be pointless because all that sound data is already junked.

So I guess in the future if I'm burning a CD I don't have and want to burn myself a copy, I'll use Lossless to burn the CD but also make AAC files for my iPod.

[kohodog]

5. You don't have to import your whole library

In itunes preferences (I think...this is from memory), you can click on the ipod pref icon and manually import songs or playlists by dragging them onto or off the ipod icon. My library is way to big no matter what compression I use. Obviously the type of compression will determine the number of songs you can store.

I use the ACC encoder and it sounds fine for my purposes.... mainly car, computer or headphones.

[Deja Q]

8. But I thought that was the point to the iPod!

[kohodog]

19. I think the point of the ipod is "music to go."

I have an 80 gig hard drive with music and part of a 60 gig. I will never need all that on an ipod. I have a 20 gig ipod with nabout 10 gigs of aac encoded music, a couple of books and a bunch of podcasts vthat renew themselves. I swap out a couple of aqlbums depending on my mood.

[Tallison]

9. How's the ACC encoder for

disc burning quality? I heard it's in this transaction that quality takes the biggest hit (and I burn a lot of CDs for people).

[Deja Q]

5000 songs on 20gb? What a joke, I get 500+ in 1gb.

What's 20x500 again? That's right, 10000!

BTW: Use MP3 format, not WAV. :D WAV will reduce the # of songs by a factor of 10 (a 3 minute song is appx 3mb MP3@128kbps or 30mb WAV)

320kbps is CD quality MP3.

Most people won't hear (or care about) the degredation of sound in 192 or 160kbps.

128kpbs is where quality starts to take a hit. Anything less is pointless for music, IMHO.

To make a long story short, Apple is ripping consumers off.

[Tallison]

6. The song capacity claim is bullshit

At 5,750 songs, the size of my iTunes library reached 111.81 Gb (15.9 days' worth) before I stopped downloading stuff (My Mac's hard drive is only 160Gb). Was quite disillusioned to learn the facts of music file sizes. Ideally they'd market 200Gb iPod, but I imagine a portable hard drive of this capacity would be quite sizable at this point in technology.

And yes, I use Loseless.

[Guy Fawkes]

11. You *can* fit 5k songs on a 20gb iPod...

but you need to use variable bitrate mp3s, which take up less space then CD quality or lossless.

[xultar]

12. If you like remixes they are much larger.

[targetpractice]

13. Lossy vs. Lossless compression

AAC and MP3 compression achieve very small file sizes by discarding sound data. These are called lossy formats because of the data loss. The compression methods are optimized to preserve sound quality as much as possible within the limits of normal human hearing.

Apple Lossless and AIFF files do not discard any sound information and therefore are the best quality and faithful digital masters. Importing music from a commercial CD into Apple's Lossless format is a good way to preserve the quality of the original CD with some compression. But, the files are still large and probably overkill for the iPod's audio capabilities.

Remember, once you convert music to a lossy format (AAC or MP3), you can never get the discarded data back. So converting AAC or MP3 files to a lossless format is pointless because it will only increase the file size and not improve sound quality.

[liberalpragmatist]

15. Ah, okay

Gotcha. Thanks!

[Tallison]

16. Good to know

iPod's audio capabilities are a little disappointing. I use a Monster converter to radio wave format in the car, and the sound quality is like that of an analog tape if not worse.

[barackmyworld]

18. use AAC 160 kbps

It's better quality than an mp3 at the same bitrate and uses less space.