UKC

Got my daughter an iPod touch 16gb 4th gen. Never tangled with Apple or iTunes since the days when they used to want to DRM your whole music collection.

She's 12, so apparently can't get her own Apple ID

She likes audiobooks, films and to a lesser extent music.

Can I rip DVDs with iTunes? Any other hints or tips?

In reply to iksander:

I'll be following intently any advice (I've not touched one of their products since an Apple II, but will have Pad, Pod and Phone in the house very soon).

In reply to iksander:

Tips seem in short supply. I've just installed iTunes in preparation for the mayhem ahead

In reply to iksander: Good luck! Bought my wife an iPod and it decided to duplicate our entire ripped music collection doing away with useful things like album covers and the like. A long step backwards if you haven't come to iThingies a-fresh.

In reply to iksander:

Be careful when ripping DVDs for use on a media server - NAS, i.e. using DLNA, as not every device can cope with all formats. My TV can cope with MKV files but not MP4 - (not tried AVI format). Also due to licensing issues (almost) all the media players on the Apple App Store were withdrawn recently and replaced with versions that don't support the AC3 audio format - Dolby want $20K+ per annum from the developers plus royalties. You might need different ripping S/W but should be able to find suitable programs for either Windows or Mac. Be prepared to spend a lot of time ripping and streaming the files to the media server.

A lot of people moan about iTunes but I've never had any problem with it, either on Windows or Mac. Then again I suppose I'm not a "power" user.

ALC

Had the same stuff recently just lie about the age thing also set up own user account on laptop/pc which makes things easier

Would also suggest the latest version of iTunes a bit better to use

In reply to EeeByGum:

Do you use iTunes? There an option on it to search for album covers.

In reply to juggins:

This is interesting - I've read conflicting views on using the same Apple ID for all devices, or creating separate ones (and lying) for the kids.

In reply to Kipper:
I've ended up with multiple purchases spread over multiple accounts and all I can say is that its a real PITA.

What you choose to do should be influenced by how many devices (iPads, iPods, iPhones) you'll have, where and how your using them and also how many computers you'll have 'controlling' them.

That might sound overly complicated but trust me when it come to Apple it isn't!

In reply to iksander:

I've never really understood why so many people hate itunes. It's fine. The latest version is even quite good.

In essence, all it is is a database program to access media files. The SONY one a few years ago was much much worse.

Perhaps if you want to do more than store your music somewhere and listen to it then you run into problems but I have had no dramas (even importing music downloaded from outwith the Apple store) in quite a few years (macbook pro and iphone user). It even syncs via wifi with my phone if I plug the phone in to charge. Pretty good in my book.

It has also found all my album covers etc and I think the 'genius' function is excellent.

I don't use it for visual media because I have a WDTV and a large amount of content stored on an external hard drive which would take about three days to copy to itunes and I don't see the point because I don't use itunes to watch it.

In reply to iksander:
I have an Ipod touch, my wife has an Ipad. We both use our own instance of Itunes and a common Apple ID. So long as you're not worried about all the bills going to one place, it's fine.
We use a windows 7/64 machine. Itunes by default will create each user a separate Itunes library under their windows user ID. You can if you like move this library to an external hard drive but for some weird reason it can't be on a NAS.
You can access an Itunes library from a DLNA client, if you set your PC up as a DLAN server, which is quite cool.
Also Airports are worth looking at if you have Wifi - you can stream Itunes music to any room in the house, using the Ipod touch as a remote control.
And I don't know why people hate itunes and i-thingies either.

Paul

In reply to Fickalli:

Essentially your correct the problem comes when you want to do something a touch bit more technical then say play some music.

In reply to iksander:

Having been a MediaMonkey user for some time now for my music library, I finally installed iTunes to connect the my iPad. And, by comparison with MediaMonkey, iTunes sucks.

Basically, the difference is that, like all Apple products, Apple/iTunes is in control, the user is not. You work the way iTunes tells you, or do what it allows you to do.

The other thing to remember is that Apple is primarily a media vendor, and the devices you buy are portals to their shop, which they very graciously allow you to pay lots of money to buy; it's a bit like having to buy a checkout to shop in Tescos... So iTunes is geared up for you buying music from iTunes, and not so keen to help you use media you've obtained elsewhere; it will do it, but somewhat reluctantly.

With MediaMonkey, the user is in control; it will do what you tell it, including fetching music back from an iThing, whilst undoing the filename obfuscation that iTunes applies when transferring music to the device.

MM4 will allow you to create multiple sync lists from your music library, and will recognise and sync your devices individually, with level of automation that you choose; you plug the iThing into the PC with MM running, and it will appear in the browser, and auto-sync, or not. These devices can be iThings, USB-interface music players, disk drives, etc.

MM will transfer cover artwork (in the album folder) to the iThing, and it will be visible on the iThing. iTunes did not.

MM can be installed as a 'portable' installation, which means it will run from whatever disk it's installed on; this means you can have your media library and MM on a portable disk, and take it with you, provided you have a Windows computer to plug it into to run on; MM is Windows-only.

MM will integrate with Amazon's Downloader, and even with iTunes, if you purchase music online. You can tell it to scan the download folder every time you start MM, or do it manually. You can tell MM where to find music, and it will listen to what you tell it, unlike iTunes, which 'helpfully' ignores your instructions, and goes off and puts everything it can find into your library, from places you haven't asked. So, if you have uncompressed and compressed libraries, it will include both. If you then delete the unwanted music from the library, it will actually delete the music from your computer (fortunately, I spotted what it was doing before my waste basket filled up); MM gives you up to four choices of 'remove'.

MM4 also handles video, but I have no experience of it. Oh, and it will handle FLAC for good audio quality; on an iThing, you'd have to go proprietary ALAC. MM comes with the LAME MP3 encoder, but with a 30-day limit: easy to get around; simply download and install a new version of LAME over the top, and it will never complain again.

MM is free, or you can pay a one-time fee for a 'Gold' version, which includes some extra features, like adding genre filters on the Auto-DJ. I've managed without paying so far, but, given how well it works for me, I may just pay up out of gratitude...

I'm sorting out a mate's music library at the moment, which has moved from WMP to iTunes (and now to MM). And it's a mess, with lots of copies of music created by iTunes, often to get around the fact that iThings won't play WMA or other formats. As an example of the idiotic inefficiency, I found its cover artwork library, also obfuscated like the music, and with a proprietary 'tweak' to JPEGs so they're not visible as pictures on the PC. Having removed this tweak, I discovered that, of the 3000+ pieces of artwork, there were about 330 unique pieces of artwork; all the rest were identical duplicates.

I still have iTunes installed (reluctantly), to provide the device driver for the iPad, which MM relies on to communicate. It's a bit galling to have to install nearly 0.5GB of crap software just to provide a device driver; iTunes is also bloatware.

Phew; that was a bit of a rant, and I'm sure other people will point out lots of errors and misunderstandings on my part. But it's not just me...

https://www.google.com/search?q=i+hate+itunes

In reply to Paul Evans:


MM will happily talk to a NAS.


MM4 will do this, too. You can control MM from your phone, etc. Even an iThing...

http://www.mediamonkey.com/information/free/

In reply to Indy:

I ve ended up with the same- bloody nightmare!
M.