2010 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 5-30-08

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, May 30, 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?

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 wondering about the difference between “Protected” and “Purchased” iTunes Store purchases in regards to burning them to a CD. I know I can’t burn “Protected” songs to a CD in MP3 format but what about “Purchased” or iTunes Plus songs? When I try to burn I get a message that only MP3 format can be burned to a MP3 CD. If I convert the song to MP3 format I get a second copy. Is this in fact a copy and what are the downsides or other ramifications in converting these AAC audio files to MP3?

- Mark

A:

The main difference between a “Protected” track as opposed to a “Purchased” track from the iTunes Store is the digital rights management (DRM) protection. “Protected” tracks, as the name implies, have DRM on them which limits what you can do with these tracks, including the ability to convert them to other formats or listen to them on devices that do not support Apple’s FairPlay DRM.

“Purchased” tracks, on the other hand, are “iTunes Plus” tracks which do not have any DRM protection, and are in fact normal AAC files, with the only minor difference being an embedded header which identifies the iTunes Store account that was used to purchase the item. As a result, “Purchased” tracks can be played on any device which supports the AAC format, or converted to any other format.

Standard Audio CDs can be burned from any track purchased from the iTunes Store, whether it is protected or not. “Protected” tracks have some fairly loose limitations on how many times they may be burned to an audio CD, but these limitations are based on playlists and not on individual tracks, and it is very rare for the average end-user to ever encounter this limit.

iTunes also provides the ability to burn MP3 CDs which can be played in certain CD players that can read MP3 files directly. Since “Protected” tracks cannot be converted to another format due to the DRM, these tracks cannot be burned to an MP3 CD at all. “Purchased” tracks can be converted to MP3 in the same way as any other AAC file, but unfortunately iTunes does not do this automatically when burning an MP3 CD—you have to do it yourself. In fact, even if you have AAC format tracks that you have ripped yourself or acquired from other sources, you would have to convert them manually before you could burn them to an MP3 CD.

You can convert the tracks using iTunes itself, or a third-party conversion tool. To convert a track in iTunes, you simply ensure that your default format is set to your preferred MP3 format under Preferences, Advanced, Importing and then select the track(s) you would like to convert and use the Advanced, Convert Selection to MP3 menu option.

Converting from one lossy format (ie, AAC) to another (ie, MP3) will generally result in a loss in audio quality in the converted file, which is probably why iTunes makes a copy when converting the file, rather than replacing the original. The higher the bit-rate of the original source file, the better the results will be, but there will still be a quality loss. Whether this is perceptible or not will depend on your equipment and your own ears. “Purchased” iTunes Plus tracks use a higher 256kbps bit-rate, so you may get reasonable results if all you’re looking for is a 128kbps MP3 file as the target.

Q:

My iTunes library is on my home computer where I sync my music and videos. I also have a MacBook Pro which I use at work and for travel. I dock my iPhone while at work (with my MBP) to charge it and sync my address book and bookmarks. I would like to be able to play the music on my iPhone while it’s docked either on my computer OR control the playing of music on the iPhone from my computer. Either way, I want to be able to control playback, music selection etc. from my MBP, not on the iPhone screen because it’s much easier. This does not seem to be possible from iTunes, is there a third party app that can do this?

- Brett

A:

The normal solution for this with traditional iPods is to set the device to “Manual” mode, which allows access to the music on the iPod from more than one computer. Unfortunately, the current implementation of “manual mode” for the iPhone seems to only apply on the original computer with which the iPhone was first synced. Attempting to enable manual mode on a second computer for the same iPhone will result in a prompt to erase and sync your iPhone, which is obviously not what you want to do.

Since manual mode support for the iPhone was only introduced in iTunes 7.6, hopefully this is merely a bug in the current version of iTunes that will be addressed in a future update.

In the meantime, however, a reasonable workaround for Mac users is a third-party application known as PhoneView ($20, http://www.ecamm.com) which evolved from products formerly known as MegaPhone and iPhoneDrive. PhoneView will allow access to your iPhone’s music library and other content from outside of iTunes, and doesn’t really concern itself with which computer your iPhone is synced to or whether it’s in manual mode or not. It merely communicates directly with your connected iPhone, and allows you to view and play your content on the device, and will even allow transfer of music and other media content to and from the device.

Unfortunately, PhoneView is Mac-only at this point. An alternative for Windows users is TouchCopy ($20, http://www.wideanglesoftware.com). Although TouchCopy is not iPhone-specific and therefore doesn’t provide the same phone-related features as PhoneView, it does provide for access to the iPhone (or iPod touch) media content in much the same way.

Q:

I just bought my dad an 80GB iPod classic as a gift and would like to load some songs onto it, from my computer, before I give it to him. Is this possible? Or will the iPod then only recognize my computer (G5) and not my Dad’s PC.

- Peter

A:

Generally, the problem with pre-loading an iPod on another computer is that the iPod will become “associated” to that iTunes library, which means that when the user connects their iPod to their home computer, they will be prompted to erase the iPod and sync it with their own iTunes library:

This will result in any pre-loaded content being lost in the process unless it has already been imported into the second iTunes library.

If you are pre-loading the iPod exclusively with content that has been purchased from the iTunes Store, the user will have the option to transfer that purchased music back to their own iTunes library, provided that they have authorized their computer for the same iTunes Store account (using the Store, Authorize Computer option in iTunes):

In this case, selecting “Transfer Purchases” will transfer back any iTunes Store purchased content, and you could then select “Erase and Sync” to erase the iPod and re-sync it to the new library, which would now have that content available in it (so it would be re-copied back up to the iPod).

As another alternative, you could connect the iPod to your computer and set it to “Manually manage my music and videos” and then load the content onto it manually rather than synchronizing it with your own iTunes library. In this case, the iPod would not really be associated with any iTunes library, and could be used and loaded from any computer. Note, however, that if your dad wanted to begin automatically syncing the iPod with his own iTunes library, any content will be erased when turning the manual option off.

Note that if you pre-load the iPod in manual mode, there are third-party tools available that could be used to access the iPod and copy the information from it into the second iTunes library so that it could be resynced with that library. See our iPod 201 article on Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer for more information.

Another important consideration: From your question it appears you’re using a Mac (G5) and your dad is using a PC. In this case you’re going to have a problem with disk formats. A PC cannot read a Mac-formatted iPod at all. In this case, you’ll need to make sure you set the iPod up on a PC first so that it’s Windows-formatted before connecting it to your Mac. A Mac can access and sync information to a Windows-formatted iPod, so you could still load it from your G5, but you need to make sure it is formatted for Windows before doing this.

Q:

Is there a work around to get my iTunes Music Video playlists to shuffle or play in sequence on my Apple TV.

- Mark

A:

Unfortunately, this is still not available on the Apple TV, and aside from hacking the Apple TV there are no workarounds. Video playlists will synchronize and appear on the Apple TV alongside your normal playlists. Although you can play videos from these playlists, however, the Apple TV will only play the selected video and then stop.

You may also note that, as compared to an audio-only playlist, the “Shuffle Songs” option at the beginning is not present, since there’s no point in shuffling a video playlist.

If you create a playlist with both audio and video mixed, the “Shuffle Songs” setting will appear, and the audio tracks will play sequentially (or shuffled), but any video tracks in that playlist will be skipped over. These can only be played if they are selected directly, and will still return to the menu after playback, despite the presence of audio tracks in the same playlist.

The ability to play multiple music videos from a playlist definitely seems like a good feature to us as well. You can let Apple know you’d like to see this by submitting a feature request at http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html.

Q:

I have an iPod nano - the older, tall, skinny one, not the new square one. Does mine play music videos? There’s a music video choice under the menu on the iPod, but I can’t figure out how to transfer a music video that I purchased from iTunes to the nano.

- Chuck

A:

The older first and second-generation iPod nano models did not provide any support for video playback. In this case, the “Music Videos” option you’re seeing is likely a default playlist from iTunes that is being synchronized to your iPod nano and simply appearing with your normal playlists:

In fully automatic sync mode, iTunes will transfer all of your playlists to your iPod nano, regardless of whether or not they contain playable content (or any content, for that matter). In this case, the “Music Videos” playlist will likely be empty, since the default “Music Videos” playlist in iTunes is a Smart Playlist which selects only actual music videos. Since these cannot be played on your iPod nano, they do not get transferred, but the playlist entry itself does.

Note that iTunes does not perform any conversion on music videos to an audio-only format either. Newer iPod models do allow you to play only the audio portion of a music video, but this is based on the iPod itself simply not displaying the video, not on any kind of conversion process done by the iPod or iTunes.

Q:

Is there software that will convert MP3 format to iTunes format? I had a Creative Labs ZEN Nomad Jukebox and my music library is in MP3 format and now I have just purchased an iPod and need to convert my songs to iPod format.

- Michael

A:

There are a number of software applications, including iTunes itself, that can be used to convert MP3 files into iTunes’ default AAC format, but there is absolutely no reason you should do this. iTunes and the iPod fully support the MP3 format, so you should be able to use your existing MP3 music library without any conversion being required. In fact converting one lossy format to another is generally a bad idea as it will result in a loss in audio quality.

To use your existing MP3 files, you can simply import them into iTunes by dragging and dropping them into the iTunes window, or using the File, Add to Library menu options in iTunes.

Note that if you have Windows Media Audio (WMA) files in your music library, you will need to convert these before you can use them in iTunes. If you’re on a Windows computer, iTunes can handle this conversion for you automatically as long as they are not protected WMA files. Simply import them as you would any other file, and iTunes will convert them on-the-fly to your default format (MP3 or AAC), which you can set under iTunes’ Preferences, Advanced, Importing dialog box.

Keep in mind, however, that if these WMA files are from CDs that you ripped yourself,, then you are better off to simply import the original CD directly into iTunes as an MP3 or AAC file rather than converting the WMA file, since you will get a better quality result.

If you have protected WMA files in your collection, these cannot be converted directly due to the DRM protection. The only way around this is to burn these tracks to CD using Windows Media Player (assuming your DRM license permits this), and then re-rip the resulting CD as if it were any other audio CD.

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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...

Next: The Complete Guide to iPhone Service Providers

Previous: Free Music for Your iPod or iPhone

Comments

1

When trying to sync my gen 5 I get an error message 1417 and it wont sync   many thanks       Chris

Posted by chris hill on June 4, 2008 at 4:34 PM (PDT)

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