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Ask iLounge 10-26-07

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, October 26, 2007
Category: Ask iLounge

Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.

The most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I copy music from my iPod onto my computer?

Click here for the answer.

The second most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I put DVDs on my iPod?


For converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and home movies to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, we have a three-part series outlining the best formats, settings, and various tools to use for converting all types of video content for use on these devices.

The Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Mac)

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Windows)

Top five questions most recently asked by iLounge readers:

Q: What are the best speakers to use with my iPod? (15, 76-79, and 90-92)

Q: What are the best headphones to use with my iPod? (10, 72-75, and 90-92)

Q: I really want to get a nice case for my iPod. Do you have any suggestions? (36-37, 54-67, and 90-92)

Q: How can I connect my iPod to my car stereo? (14, 32-35, 68-71, and 90-92)

Q: Are there any batteries that I can use to extend my iPod's battery life? (82-83 and 90-92)

A: Answers to these and many other questions can be found in two places. Our Free iPod Book 3.3 provides a complete report card to all of the iPod accessories we've reviewed as of summer 2007, as well as over 125 iTunes and iPod tips & tricks. Further, our new 2008 iPod & iPhone Buyers' Guide has accessory tutorials at the page numbers listed in parentheses above. These and other publications in our Library are free downloads, developed by the editors of iLounge!

And now, for this week's Ask iLounge column:

Q: I heard that iTunes Store allows you to download songs from the iTunes Store at a higher format? How do you set a higher quality format for downloading tracks from the iTunes Store?

- Jane

A: The iTunes Store does offer certain tracks from specific artists or labels in a higher format known as “iTunes Plus.”

The iTunes Plus format is encoded at 256kbps AAC and is free from any digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, meaning that you can use these files on any computer or other audio device that supports the AAC format, or you can freely convert them to another format such as MP3 to playback on virtually any software application or hardware device.

iTunes Plus content was originally released this past spring, and sold for a premium price of $1.29 per track as opposed to $0.99 per track for the standard 128kbps DRM-protected version of the same song. Recently, however, iTunes has lowered the pricing on their iTunes Plus content to the standard $0.99 per track pricing.

You can identity iTunes Plus tracks by looking for the small “+” symbol that appears next to them in the iTunes Store track listing:

Further, you can get a listing of all tracks that are available in the iTunes Plus format simply by clicking the “iTunes Plus” link found in the “Quick Links” on the right-hand side of the main iTunes Store page:

Once you access the iTunes Plus page, you will also see an “Upgrade My Library” option in the top-right corner, providing you with the opportunity to upgrade ALL of your existing iTunes tracks to iTunes Plus, possibly for a small fee:

At one time iTunes also provided an iTunes Plus preference setting in your account settings page to allow you to choose whether you would prefer to see the normal iTunes tracks or the iTunes Plus tracks when browsing the iTunes Store. This has been removed with the recent price drop, since there is no longer any advantage to purchasing the older 128kbps DRM-protected tracks at the same price.

It should be noted that despite the lack of DRM restrictions on iTunes Plus tracks, they still contain information embedded within them identifying the name and account from which the track was originally purchased.

Q: I have an iPod nano and I can’t for the life of me figure out how to play the slideshow of my photos. i know I have the photos on there I just can’t start it. Can you help me, please?

- Emily

A: Actually, the answer to this is simpler than you may expect:  Simply go into your photo library on your iPod nano, select the photo to start viewing, and while the photo is shown full-screen, press either the centre SELECT button, or the PLAY button. No specific visual feedback will be given, but the slideshow will simply start.

When you first select a photo from one of your photo albums, you can also use the click wheel to scroll through your photos rapidly by moving your finger around the wheel. However, once the slideshow is running, you will not be able to do this, although you can still advance to the previous or next slide by pressing the previous or next track buttons on the click wheel. You can also pause the slideshow simply by clicking the PLAY/PAUSE button. The display will show a pause symbol and the slideshow will remain paused until you resume it by pressing PLAY/PAUSE again.

Note that this works in the same way on ALL generations of iPod nano, although the on-screen symbols may be slightly different. Further, the first and second generation iPod nano models do not support TV output of slideshows, so you will only be able to view your photos as a slideshow on the iPod screen itself. The third-generation iPod nano does support TV output, although technically only with the purchase of a specific TV output cable that connects via the Dock Connector (see further below for possible workarounds to this, however).

Note that you can also further customize your slideshow settings by visiting the “Settings” menu under the iPod Photos menu. This will allow you to set such options as music for your slideshow, shuffle or repeat your photos, transition effects to display between photos, time per slide, and to enable the TV Output feature in the case of the third-generation iPod nano.

Q: I have found your site very useful in getting answers, particularly regarding the newest iPod Classic. I do have one simple question: You have mentioned that the new iPod has a workaround to play video (TV-out) on third party players by enabling video out and starting video playback on a compatible video output accessory. What accessories can I use to start this process? 

- Ken

A: The short answer is that any device with an Apple authentication chip contained in it can be used to start this process, at least with the current firmware version. Note that this does not even have to be a video playback specific device.

The Apple authentication chip concept was actually introduced with the fifth-generation iPod models, although at the time most basic accessories did not require this chip for audio or video playback.  WIth the 5G iPod, the authentication chip was only used to enable specific advanced functions on the iPod when a compatible accessory was connected—for example displaying the “Speaker” menu for the iPod Hi-Fi. The most common type of third-party accessory that required the Apple authentication chip were the iPod voice recording devices such as the Belkin TuneTalk Stereo and Griffin iTalk Pro.

With the release of the iPod classic and iPod nano, the requirement for an authentication chip was extended to video playback devices as well. However, as of the current firmware, these models do not require a video-specific authentication chip, merely the presence of an Apple authentication chip. Most 5G accessories manufactured directly by Apple included this authentication chip, so just about any of these that use the Dock Connector will provide this functionality. Further, any third-party 5G iPod voice recorder will also trigger this, since the Apple authentication chip is required in order for the voice recorder itself to function.

Therefore, in addition to the obvious video-specific accessories released for the new models, there is a surprising list of other accessories that will enable the video-out feature, simply because they too contain the necessary Apple authentication chip:

  • Apple Universal Dock
  • Apple iPod Hi-Fi
  • Apple iPod FM Radio/Remote
  • Apple Nike+iPod Sport Kit (Nano only)
  • Belkin TuneTalk Stereo Voice Recorder
  • Griffin iTalk Pro Voice Recorder

(the above list represents those accessories that we have specifically tested—there are quite likely a number of others that will also work, particularly in the voice recorder category)

To play video output through an older video accessory, simply connect one of the above accessories, turn on the TV output function, and then start the video playback on the device, while the original accessory is still connected. Once the video (or photo slideshow) is playing, simply disconnect the iPod from the original accessory and connect it to your video playback device.

While it may seem odd that devices such as the Nike+iPod Sport Kit and FM Radio Remote provide TV output compatibility, the reality is that at this point the iPod is simply looking for the presence of the authentication chip in general, not whether or not there is specifically-identified video support in the device. This of course could easily change with a future firmware update that would cause the iPod to look specifically for video capabilities before enabling the TV output function.

Q: An iPod Nano was given to me apparently loaded from an Apple computer with a Mac OS software and with songs. I wanted to copy those songs using Music Rescue in my Windows XP-based computer but it does not recognize the iPod and it says that the iPod has to be formatted. What can I do?

- Alejandro

A: Unfortunately, a Mac-formatted iPod cannot be read directly by Windows due to incompatibilities with the file system format. Essentially, the iPod is presented to the computer as a removable hard disk, and Windows simply cannot natively read Mac-formatted disks.

If you’re not concerned about retrieving any content from the iPod, you can simply perform a “Restore” on it via iTunes, which will reformat it for Windows, but will erase everything on it in the process.

If you do want to recover data from it, you will need to purchase an additional software package to allow you to read Mac-formatted disks from a Windows computer. MediaFour’s MacDrive ($49.95) is the most commonly-used solution for this.

The other alternative would be to find somebody with a Mac computer and retrieve the information using that machine and then simply burn the information to a CD or DVD.

Q: I’ve been adding TV shows that I own on DVD to my iTunes library. Is there a way to add a show description for shows not purchased from the iTunes store?

- Liz

A: Absolutely. This information can be added through a variety of third-party tagging applications such as TV Tagger for Windows, or Lostify for Mac. Further, if you are using a Mac, there are also a couple of AppleScripts that can be found at Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes that will do this directly through iTunes itself.

Be sure to check out our article, The Complete Guide to Managing iTunes Videos for more information on this subject.

Q: When I connect my iPhone to my computer, Picasa automatically opens. How do I change the association so that iTunes opens instead? I am running a Dell XPS with windows XP.

- Anonymous

A: The situation here is that the iPhone actually presents itself to your computer both as an iPhone and as a digital camera device. This allows you to use a software application such as Picasa or the Windows Scanner and Camera Wizard to transfer photos that you have taken with your iPhone to your computer.

In this case, Picasa is likely set as your default photo management application, and will therefore open whenever a digital camera is detected that contains photo content. Removing any photos you have taken with the iPhone’s camera should prevent Picasa from opening, since by default Windows should only open a photo transfer application when it detects a digital camera that actually contains photos.

Despite this, however, iTunes should also be opening as well, so the problem is not so much that Picasa is opening instead of iTunes, but simply that iTunes itself is not detecting the iPhone properly. To resolve this, you should check your iTunes preferences to ensure that it is set to open when you connect your iPhone. There are two places in iTunes that you can check this setting.

First, with the iPhone connected, select it in the iTunes source list and then look for the setting on the iPhone’s “Summary” tab in iTunes that says “Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected” and ensure that it is selected.

The second location can be found under iTunes Preferences, on the “iPhone” tab, and is labelled “Disable automatic syncing for all iPhones.” This option should not be selected.

If these options are in fact both set correctly and iTunes is still not opening when you connect your iPhone, then you may want to simply try uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes to ensure that the necessary services are properly installed. You can do this without any risk of losing your library data, as the iTunes uninstallation procedure does not remove any personal data files in your “My Music” folder, but only the iTunes application itself.




Ask iLounge Archives:

5-9-08: About iPod battery life and charging, Using Apple FM Radio remote on older iPod models, Scan and Fix dialog using iPod on Windows Vista, Preserving iTunes metadata when reinstalling Windows, Importing multiple tracks into iTunes, About iTunes and ID3 tags

5-2-08: Transferring digital camera movies to iPod, Reordering and shuffling playlists, Transferring playlists between iTunes libraries, Importing audiobooks, Correcting tags on CD import, Burning CDs with longer gaps

4-25-08: Finding Duplicates in iTunes, Setting files to open in iTunes automatically, Resetting authorizations, 1G iPod nano and voice recording, Syncing a library larger than your iPod capacity, Grouping multi-disc albums

4-17-08: Ripping CDs to external hard drive, Zeppelin speakers and USB port, Bluetooth stereo on iPhone, Converting TV shows to iPod, Audio recording on iPod touch, Wireless security on iPod touch

4-10-08: Transferring LPs to iTunes, Movie Rentals and 5G iPod, New iPod models on older Macs, Maintaining Playback Position on iPod, Importing CDs on multiple computers

See the rest of the Archives...

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Previous: Ask iLounge 10-18-07

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