2010 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 4-25-08

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, April 25, 2008
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?

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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:

The contents in one of my playlists have been duplicated somehow, not my doing. Do I manually delete each duplicate song or is there a better way?

- Valerie

A:

If these are just a few songs in a given playlist, the simplest way is just to clean them up manually. Although iTunes won’t automatically remove duplicates for you, it can help you filter out the duplicates by listing only those entries that have duplicate tracks.

To do this, select View, Show Duplicates from your iTunes menu:

Your current track listing will then be filtered to show only those tracks that have duplicates. For this purpose, iTunes considers a track to be a duplicate if it has the same song and artist name, so if you have the same track on two or more albums by the same artist, these will also show up as duplicates, even if they are different mixes or variations.

Once in this view, however, you should easily be able to select those tracks that are duplicates and remove them from the current playlist.

Note that the “Show Duplicates” option is stored with the current view in iTunes, so if you turn it on for a given playlist, it will remain on when you return to that playlist. This can be confusing if you forget to turn it off, however an indicator does appear somewhat prominently at the bottom of the iTunes track listing to remind you that you are currently only viewing duplicate tracks:

To return to showing all items, select the “Show All” button at the bottom of the screen, or choose View, Show All from the iTunes menu.

Note as well that newer versions of iTunes will warn you when you attempt to add a track to a playlist that is already contained in that playlist:

Q:

I just upgraded to iTunes 7.6.2.9 and now some of my music files that I have backed up on my computer appear to be M4P files (and when I click on them they attempt to open in Quick Time as video) instead of MP3 files. How can I undo or change this??

- Anonymous

A:

The M4P extension refers to an AAC format audio track that was purchased from the iTunes Store. M4A is used by iTunes for standard AAC audio tracks, and M4P for iTunes purchased tracks.

In this case, the M4P extension is correct, and should be left as is—these files are not MP3 files, so they shouldn’t have an MP3 extension. Quicktime is the underlying playback engine used by iTunes itself, and is used to play both video and audio files. In this case, the problem is simply that your default association for these files is set to Quicktime rather than iTunes, in the same way that a TXT file is set to open in Notepad (Windows) or Textedit (Mac).

If you’re simply concerned about importing these files into iTunes, you can simply drag-and-drop them onto the iTunes window, or add them using the File, Add to Library menu option.

If you would like to re-associate this file extension so that you can double-click on these files and have them open in iTunes instead of Quicktime, you can do this through your operating system’s file association settings. This will be different depending upon whether you’re using Windows or Mac OS X.

If you’re using Windows, simply go to the Tools, Folder Options menu from any Windows Explorer window, and choose the “File Types” tab. Scroll down until you see the M4P extension, highlight it, and click the “Change” button:

You can then select iTunes as the preferred application for opening this type of file.

For Mac users, simply highlight the file and choose Get Info from the Finder menu.

From the file info dialog box, under “Open With” simply choose iTunes instead of Quicktime, and then click the “Change All” button to change this to be the default for all files of that type.

Q:

Unfortunately my computer has had some serious probems and crashed several times necessitating reformatting the hard drive. Each time I have restored iTunes and reloaded my music tracks back from my iPod. I have serveral purchased songs which I now cannot play because iTunes tells me I have 5 machines already authorised. I cannot deauthorise these computers as they refer to the same machine that I have had to reformat the drives on. How can I now get this reformatted computer, which iTunes thinks is 5 other machines authorised, enabling me to play my purchased music?

- Norman

A:

The problem here is that when you authorize a computer, iTunes downloads a specific set of authorization keys to that computer in the current configuration. When you reformat the computer, as you’ve discovered, this authorization information is lost, and the iTunes Store thinks that you’re using a completely different computer.

The proper way to avoid this situation is to always ensure that you DEauthorize your computer before reformatting it or reinstalling Windows by selecting Store, Deauthorize Computer from the iTunes menu. This will remove the authorization information from your computer, and reduce your authorization count by one, allowing you to REauthorize the computer after you’ve reinstalled it.

Note that making significant changes to your computer hardware may also require your computer to be reauthorized, using up an additional authorization count. For this reason, always deauthorize your computer before performing major hardware upgrades (such as installing a new motherboard), or taking it in for service.

In this situation, however, since you’ve reformatted your computer, there is no easy way to DEauthorize the individual computer. For users in this situation, however, iTunes does offer the ability to reset ALL of your authorizations once per year. You can find this option on your Apple Account Information page in iTunes, which is found by clicking on your iTunes Store userid which appears in the top-right corner of your iTunes window when browsing the store:

The section under “Computer Authorizations” will indicate how many computers you presently have authorized against this iTunes Store account. If you’ve reached your limit of five computers, a “Deauthorize All” button will appear immediately to the right of this.  Clicking this button will reset your authorization count to zero, and you can then manually reauthorize any computers that you are using to play your purchased content simply by selecting Store, Authorize Computer in the iTunes menu.

Note that you can only do this after you’ve reached your limit of five computers, and only once per year. This method is provided as a convenient emergency fix, but should not be considered a substitute for manually DEauthorizing your computer before reinstalling, servicing or upgrading it.

Q:

Is it possible to update the firmware on my first generation iPod nano to make use of voice recorders to record audio/voice memos?

- Igor

A:

Unfortunately, no. Current voice recording accessories are only supported on the second-generation iPod nano, iPod nano (with video), fifth-generation iPod and iPod classic. The fourth-generation iPod also supported voice recording, but used a different type of recording accessory.

iPod firmware replacements such as Rockbox offer some voice recording capabilities for otherwise-unsupported iPod models, but these are complete replacements for your existing iPod firmware, and are recommended only for advanced users who understand what they are doing. Some compatibility with iTunes will definitely be lost in the process, and not all of the iPod’s other built-in features have necessarily been ported to Rockbox. Further, not all existing recording accessories are necessarily compatible with Rockbox. You can find more info about the Rockbox project at http://www.rockbox.org.

Q:

I have a fifth-generation 30GB iPod, and my iTunes library has just exceeded 30GB. I tried syncing my ipod, and iTunes told me it couldn’t fit everything on the iPod. A popup dialog asked me if I wanted it to automatically load as much content as it could fit, but at that time I said no. Now I want to load the iPod with whatever it fits, but I cant find a way to do it. How do I get iTunes to ask me this question again, or otherwise automatically load my iPod to maximum capacity with only part of my library?

- Rafi

A:

Depending upon the model of iPod and version of iTunes, you can reset any iPod-related dialog box prompts that you may have missed by right-clicking on your iPod in the iTunes source list and choosing the Reset Warnings menu option.

However, all this option actually does is automatically create a playlist with the name of your iPod and then set your iPod sync setings to only sync this playlist. The selection of content that goes into this playlist is not particularly intuitive, and it remains a static playlist.

A better option is to create a smart playlist or series of smart playlists to provide a better selection of your preferred content, and simply limit the smart playlist(s) to the total capacity of your iPod. For example, you could create a basic smart playlist to fill your 30GB iPod with your highest-rated content:

In this case, “Name does not contain (blank)” is used as a palceholder since there must be at least one criteria. However, no song title should ever be empty in iTunes, so this will by default match ALL items, subject to the 29GB limitation.

Note, however, that you can provide much more detailed criteria, and even create several smart playlists. For example, a smart playlist such as the following could be used to select 4GB from your “Rock” genre that you hadn’t listened to in at least one week, with priority given to the older tracks in your library (“Least recently added”):

Another useful tip is to use the “Rating” of a track, which can be set on the iPod itself, to automatically exclude tracks from being synchronized to your iPod. For example, the following Smart Playlist would exclude all tracks rated with only one star:

Then, as you’re listening to tracks on the iPod itself, if you come across a track that you don’t like and want it removed from your iPod, just go to the rating screen and give it a one-star rating. On the next sync, that track will be automatically removed from your iPod, and replaced with another higher-rated or un-rated track

Multiple Smart Playlists could be created to add up collectively to the capacity of your iPod. You would then tell iTunes to only synchronize these specific playlists to your iPod by connecting your iPod, selecting it in iTunes, and choosing the “Music” tab from the main window:

Choose “Sync Selected Playlists” and then just specify the playlists that you’ve created for transfer to your iPod and click the “Apply” button. Your iPod will be synced to ONLY include those specific playlists. However, since these are Smart Playlists, as information in your library changes, the content on the iPod will automatically be updated after each sync to reflect the new smart playlist content.

Q:

I sometimes have two or three of the same album cover in my iTunes library with several tracks on each (i.e. if the album consists of more than 1 CD). This makes it difficult to locate tracks. Is there a way can I get them all to appear under one album cover?

- Suzanne

A:

iTunes and the iPod group tracks based on their album and artist entries. Tracks with the same artist and album name are normally grouped under the same “cover.”  In the case of multi-disc albums, however, often the information contained in the track’s album title will include a disk number for the album as part of the album title. In this case, the tracks will be treated as separate albums since the album title is in fact different.

Unless you actually want each disc to be treated as a separate album, the proper way to group multi-disc albums in iTunes is to set the album title for all tracks to only the album name, and then use the “Disc #” tag to identify each disc:

This will cause all of the tracks on both discs to be grouped as a single album when using Cover Flow or Grouping views:

Likewise, the tracks will also appear under a single album heading when viewed on the iPod itself.

Due to the “Disc #” field being filled in, the tracks will still be sorted in the proper order, since the disc number takes precedence over the individual track numbers when sorting.

Note that if you have multi-CD albums that have more than a single artist on them, they may still appear under separate album entries, since again iTunes uses both the artist and album name when deciding which tracks belong together. The “Album Artist” field can be filled in with a single artist name for albums with featured artists, but this does not work consistently on all models of iPod. Your better option is to use the “Part of a Compilation” tag to identify those tracks that belong to the same album.  When “Part of a Compilation” is checked, and the “Compilations” setting is enabled in iTunes or on the iPod, the “Artist” tag is basically ignored when grouping tracks into albums. See our Dec 7, 2007 Ask iLounge column for more information on how the “Compilations” feature is used.

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Ask iLounge Archives:

10-30-09: Authorization problems with iPod touch, Changing Grid View background in iTunes, iTunes library and Music Folder are different sizes, Older iPods and firmware updates, Reconciling two different iTunes libraries, Syncing multiple devices to one iTunes library

10-23-09: Using a laptop with an iTunes library on an external hard drive, Transferring YouTube videos to iPod, iPod touch accessibility settings, Disabling Shake to Shuffle on iPod nano, Purchased songs fail to download from iTunes Store, Charging and powering off iPhone

10-16-09: Moving iTunes to a new computer, Transferring contacts from Blackberry to an iPhone, Disabling iPhone Backups, Using AV cables for audio only, Problems syncing photos to iPod touch, Memorex iFlip and iPhone compatibility

10-9-09: iPhone OS and external keyboards, Adjusting ratings in a remote iTunes library, Excluding tracks from Genius Mixes, Moving iTunes library out of My Documents, Playlist folders on iPod touch, Refreshing random Smart Playlists

9-25-09: iTunes 9 and Shopping Cart, Restoring iTunes to an external hard drive, Using an HTTP Proxy over 3G, Problems transferring movies from iTunes to IPhone, iPod touch shuffle mode, Using an iPhone without a SIM card

See the rest of the Archives...

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Comments

1

Just a minor quibble:

You don’t “reformat the computer,” you reformat the disk or the drive.

Thanks for a great column, week after week.

Posted by orgel in Falls Church, VA on April 25, 2008 at 2:56 PM (PDT)

2

Is there any way to record dvd audio only onto a 4 g nano?

Posted by Dino on April 29, 2008 at 3:15 PM (PDT)

3

The screen on my classic ipod 80g says NOW PLAYING, but it is frozen. No matter what button I touch, the screen remains the same. please advise…

Posted by jen on May 1, 2008 at 10:12 AM (PDT)

4

Is there any way to hook up an external video monitor or display to an ipod touch? So you cna see o na minotr whatever is o nthe iPod touch’s screen?

Posted by patrick myers on May 1, 2008 at 2:02 PM (PDT)

5

After our computer crashed, I have downloaded Itunes again and have have restored all of my music files back on to my computer (Itunes and all of my music files were saved onto an external hard drive).  Is there a way to upload my original playlists back onto my computer?  It would be nice not to have to recategorized my 3000 songs again.

Posted by Elise on May 17, 2008 at 10:03 AM (PDT)

6

I have an 80g ipod that I put podiobooks, music, movie trailers and pictures into. How do I keep all of these in one place, ie the podiobooks only in the podiobook section, music in music section, trailers etc, etc.  Also with the podiobooks, there seems to be no way to seperate one ending from another’s beginning. Is there a way you can put like a line between different books?

Posted by tony Harrington on May 28, 2008 at 9:15 PM (PDT)

7

Similar to Elise above, I have had to delete my Library and then add specific playlists from an external HD to my specific playlists in ITunes. When I do this, the same song that is in several playlists gets added to the Library duplicate times instead of just once.

How can I avoid going through the Library and manually eliminating hundreds to thousands of duplicates?

Posted by John on July 27, 2008 at 2:42 PM (PDT)

8

I have an older 80G Ipod Classic with iTunes on a Windows XP.  I’m using “Overdrive” software to download audiobooks from local library.  Books download just fine onto “Overdrive”, but fail to transfer into iTunes or onto the Ipod.  I’ve set iTunes to “Manually manage music ..”.
The audiobooks download as MP3’s.  Should I be converting those to MP4’s?  Tried this, but even that didn’t work.

Any suggestions would be welcomed and appreciated.

Posted by Tom Robertson on March 30, 2009 at 7:18 AM (PDT)

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