iLounge

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!

Q:

With iTunes 8 I have recently begun taking advantage of the new HD TV content that is now available from the iTunes Store. At first, I really liked the way that it downloaded both an SD and HD version of the show so that I could watch it both on my Apple TV and my iPod. However, recently new shows that I’ve been downloading a showing up as duplicated on my Apple TV, and I’m getting errors syncing them to my iPod that the format is not supported. All of the shows I purchased the first week are still fine, but every new episode seems to be having this problem. Any ideas why this is happening and what I can do to fix it?

- Rob

This seems to be a problem with the content coming from the iTunes Store itself. The issue is that for these newer episodes the HD and SD versions are no longer properly “linked” in iTunes itself, so it is treating them as two distinct episodes and syncing them both.

In the case of the Apple TV, you are seeing two entries because you are getting both the HD and SD version syncing to the Apple TV (since it is capable of playing both formats). In the case of your iPod, the error pertains to the HD version (which the iPod cannot play), although you’ll probably find the SD version will have transferred to your iPod and plays just fine.

Another key indicator that these episodes are not properly linked is the play count tracking. With the properly linked episodes, playing either version will mark both as played, but with the problem episodes, only the track that you actually play is marked as played. You can also test this by right-clicking on one of the two versions and selecting either “Mark as New” or “Mark as Not New”—if the versions are properly linked, both will be updated with the new status, if not then only the selected episode will change.

While this is ultimately a problem that Apple needs to fix in their iTunes Store library or perhaps in an update to iTunes 8, the good news is that there is a simple workaround that may work for some users: Simply UNcheck the SD episode in your iTunes library, and it will not appear on your Apple TV at all. Unlike the iPod, the Apple TV sync preferences do not have a setting for “Sync only checked items” however this actually is the default behaviour—unchecked items will never be synchronized to the Apple TV or even appear on the Apple TV from the back-end iTunes library. In this scenario, if you still want these SD episodes on your iPod, you can put them in specific playlists or Smart Playlists that select only the SD versions (file size is usually a good way to do this in a Smart Playlist), set your iPod TV Show sync preferences to selected playlists rather than shows, and ensure that iPod is not set to “Sync only checked items.”

The downside to this approach is that the episodes will still be treated as separate files in terms of play count information. In this scenario if you watch an HD episode your Apple TV, the SD version will remain on your iPod unless you either remove it from the playlist, watch it again, or mark it as watched manually.

For slightly more experienced and adventurous users, there is actually a way to fix each of these “broken” episodes manually, however…

Media content purchased from the iTunes Store normally contains a number of identifying tags that contain store-related information such as your iTunes Store account ID. One of these tags, cnID, appear to represent a form of iTunes Store “catalog” number, and is generally unique for each item. In the case of the HD/SD versions of the same show, this catalog number should be the same in each version, and for episodes that were purchased the first week of the iTunes HDTV release, they are.

However, the newer episodes that are exhibiting this problem have different cnID values. These can be viewed with a tool such as Atomicparsley, but unfortunately Atomicparsley does not provide any way to actually change these values. For that, you’ll need to take a more brute-force approach by digging into the file with a hex editor and changing the HD version’s cnID value to match the SD version.

Once you have made a backup of the HD and SD versions of the affected episode, simply open both versions in your favourite hex editor and search for the ASCII string “cnID”

After the cnID tag, you’ll see the word “data” which represents the data portion of the tag. Eight bytes after the end of the word “data” is the actual cnID value. Compare this between the two files and set the HD version to match. Note that in all of the episodes that we have observed this problem with, this involves changing the first byte from a hex “51” to a hex “11” as highlighted above, although this may not be true in every case, so you should compare to the SD version just to be certain.

Once you have done this, save the HD version and exit the hex editor. Note that saving will take a couple of minutes as HD episodes are large files.

If you have overwritten the original HD episode, rather than creating a new file, you’re done. If you have created a new file instead, you will need to import that into iTunes and delete the original HD episode instead.

Note that on Mac OS X, if your hex editing application is set to make a “backup” file, the iTunes library entry may point to the backup file instead, since in many cases the application renames the original file (which is tracked by iTunes) and saves the changes to a new file with the same name. In this case, simply reimport the episode back into iTunes, or turn off the “backup” feature in your hex editor (since you’ve already backed up these files yourself anyway).

I have a pair of Shure SE210s and will soon have a second-generation iPod touch. I was wondering if the Shure Music Phone Adapter’s music controls worked for the iPod touch. I heard that double clicking the call button is used for skipping songs. Also, if you could recommend any other inline music control solutions for my iPod touch and Shure earphones I’d greatly appreciate it.

- Luis

The MPA-3C adapter will work as expected with the new second-generation iPod touch, fourth-generation iPod nano, and the updated 120GB iPod classic in much the same way as it does for the iPhone—pressing the button will pause and resume playback, double-tapping the button will skip to the next track, and triple-tapping the button will skip to the previous track.

As an added bonus, the inline microphone on the MPA-3C should also work for any third-party applications that provide voice recording or other audio input support. The 2008 iPod classic and the fourth-generation iPod nano both include built-in voice recording capabilities that support the MPA-3C and other inline microphone solutions that were designed for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the second-generation iPod touch does not include a built-in voice recording application, and at this point voice recording applications developed for the iPhone cannot be installed on the iPod touch (although this appears to be due to nothing more than an “iPhone-only” compatibility flag in the application itself which will hopefully be resolved in updated versions from the various third-party developers).

While there are also third-party microphone solutions available from Griffin and Monster, if you’re using any of the SE series Shure earphones such as the SE210’s, the MPA-3C is probably the best solution due to the manner in which it simply replaces your existing extension cable with a mic-enabled option. Other inline music control headphone solutions are generally designed to be added to earphones with full-length cables and therefore may still require that you use your existing Shure extension cable and add the inline mic adapter to the end of that.

Suppose I’ve synced my iPod with a particular iTunes installation on a PC. If the PC’s hard disk crashes and I need to buy a new hard disk and reinstall iTunes and sync my iPod to it, won’t I lose all the existing songs in my iPod? Is there any workaround for this problem?

- Pappu

iTunes keeps track within each specific library database of which iPods have been associated/synced to that library. If you connect your iPod to a fresh installation of iTunes with a completely new iTunes database, it will recognize that you have not synchronized your iPod to this particular database before, and will prompt you with a warning message similar to the following:

As the name implies, selecting “Erase and Sync” will in fact erase all of the content on your iPod and replace it with the content of the current iTunes library (in the case of a new iTunes library, that would be no content at all). However, in the scenario described, you would instead select the “Cancel” button. This leaves the iPod connected to your computer and accessible through iTunes, but does not perform any kind of synchronization operation.

The only situation in which iTunes would erase all of the content on your iPod without prompting you is if you had actually manually deleted all of your tracks from your existing iTunes library. In this case, in the same manner as removing a single track from iTunes removes it automatically from your iPod during the next sync, removing all of your tracks would remove them all from your iPod. This is rarely a problem for most users, however, since the track entries have to be specifically deleted from within iTunes in order to be removed from your iPod (simply erasing the underlying files will not remove them from your iPod if they’re still listed in the iTunes database).

Note that if you have content on your iPod that has been purchased from the iTunes Store, and you have already authorized your computer for the same iTunes Store account, the “Erase and Sync” warning will offer an additional option:

In this case, selecting “Transfer Purchases” will transfer any purchased content that your computer is authorized to play from your iPod back into your iTunes library. This will not include content transferred to your iPod from sources other than the iTunes Store, however.

Although iTunes doesn’t provide any method for transferring any other type of content from your iPod back to your computer, the good news is that there are ways to manually recover the content on traditional iPod models (ie, iPod classic and iPod nano) and many third-party developers have stepped in to fill this gap in iTunes as well to provide comprehensive software solutions for recovering not only media files, but also metadata such as ratings, play counts, and playlists. See our iPod 201 article, Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer for more information on the methods and tools available for recovering content from an iPod back into your iTunes library.

Since the latest update to my first generation iPhone software to 2.1 I get a nag screen when I update an application telling me that “This discounted price is only available to customers who own a previous version of this item. To purchase this item at the full price, click OK.” This happens with all updates even if they are free apps. Any thoughts?

- Carl

The most common cause for this error message is that you are not logged in with the iTunes Store account that was actually used to purchase/download the app in the first place.

When you update applications via iTunes or the iPhone App Store, the list of eligible updates is generated based on the applications that are physically on your computer, regardless of which iTunes Store account they were purchased with. When you go to actually perform the update on the application, the list of applications is checked against the purchase history for whatever iTunes Store account your are currently logged in to. If you did not previously purchase the application using that particular iTunes Store account, then you will not be eligible to update that particular application, since iTunes cannot find a record of you actually owning that particular app.

If you are having this problem in iTunes itself and have more than one iTunes Store account, simply ensure that you are logged in with the iTunes Store account that was used to purchase the app initially. You can check which account was used for the application simply by going to the iTunes “Applications” section and choosing File, Get Info in the same way you would for a music track. The “Summary” tab will identify the iTunes Store account that was used to purchase that particular track:

For the iPhone, you will need to sign in to the proper account on your main iTunes computer, and then synchronize the iPhone to update the account information on the device. The iPhone itself does not provide a means to switch iTunes Store accounts directly on the device—it simply inherits the account settings from your main iTunes library.

If you are certain that you are logged in to the correct iTunes Store account and are still having this problem, then there may be a problem with your iTunes Store account itself or purchase history. In this case, you will need to contact iTunes Store Customer Service for assistance.

I’m looking for a third party application for use on Mac OS X (Leopard) that allows me to add songs to my iPod from an external hard drive without making copies of those songs onto the computer’s hard drive. I have over 150GB of music and a MacBook with a 120GB HD, so I have no room for storing libraries of copied MP3 files. As far as I can see iTunes always makes copies of the songs. If there’s a way of managing it so it just retains a link with the files on the external drive, that would be a solution I guess.

- Mark

Actually, iTunes can take care of this for you without a need for any third-party applications. Specifically, there are two different ways you can handle this, depending on how you prefer to manage your music files.

The simplest solution is just to set your “iTunes Music folder” location to the external drive within your iTunes preferences. To access this setting, simply open your iTunes preferences (select Preferences from the iTunes menu), and choose the Advanced tab:

At the top of this screen, simply click the “Change” button and browse to the new location for your iTunes Music folder—in this case on the external hard drive. Once you have updated this setting, any music files you add to your iTunes library will be copied to this location, instead of your MacBook’s internal hard drive. Note that your iTunes library database will still remain in your Music/iTunes folder on the MacBook itself (although you can also move this using a separate procedure if you so desire), but all of your actual media files will be stored in the “iTunes Music folder” location specified here. Only iPhone/iPod touch applications and Click-wheel iPod Games will remain in the MacBook’s “iTunes” folder.

Note that if the external hard drive is not available when you start iTunes, the iTunes Music folder setting will revert back to the default location on your MacBook. This is a temporary change, however, and if you connect the external hard drive and then restart iTunes, it will remember your specified iTunes Music folder location on the external hard drive and automatically switch back to it.

The second approach if you would prefer to keep your iTunes Music folder on your MacBook and simply leave the files on the external hard drive in whatever location you’ve already put them is to turn off the “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” setting found in the Advanced preferences. With this setting off, iTunes will never copy an imported file into your iTunes Music folder—instead it will simply link to the original file. If you take this approach, however, you should ensure that you have placed your files where you want them before importing them into iTunes, since iTunes will be pointing to each file in its specific location.

Keep in mind also that even if you turn off the “Copy Files” setting, any tracks you import from audio CDs or download from the iTunes Store are still placed in the iTunes Music folder, since they are created by iTunes rather than being imported from another file location.

You can find more information on using an external hard drive with iTunes in our iPod 201 article, Managing your iTunes Library on an External Hard Drive.

I recently created an account in iTunes for myself, and now my wife has an iPod as well. However, when I created an account for her in iTunes on the same computer and same iTunes Store page, all my music that I had was downloaded over to her account. This is fine, but it seems we have a shared account. All the music I originally have in iTunes all came from my years of collecting CD’s. I was told that if I did not buy my music from iTunes Store that all our media regardless would be shared. However, we just want seperate acounts with our own media content without having to filter and change everything back and forth. Thanks in advance for help.

- Tim

It sounds like you’re referring to an iTunes Store account, which actually has nothing to do with how content is organized within the iTunes library on your computer or synchronized to either of your iPods.

An iTunes Store account is used only to purchase content from the iTunes Store and access certain other Store-related features such as automatically retrieving album covers and the new iTunes 8 “Genius” feature. Setting up an iTunes Store account on your computer merely allows you to use these features, and authorizes your computer and any associated iPods to play music and other media content purchased with that particular account. iTunes Store accounts are not user or iPod specific, and in fact if you have set up two iTunes Store accounts in a single iTunes library, then all of the iPod devices that you synchronize with that library will be authorized for both accounts.

If you want to control which content is synchronized with each iPod, you will need to either set up a series of independent playlists for each iPod in the same iTunes library, or create different iTunes libraries entirely.

Generally, if you and your wife share the same general musical tastes but don’t necessarily want all of the same music, your best option is to create separate playlists for the music that you each want on your iPods, and then set each iPod to synchronize only those playlists. You can find the setting to synchronize selected playlists by connecting your iPod to your computer, selecting it from the iTunes “Devices” list on the left-hand side of the screen, and then choosing the “Music” tab:

Simply choose “Selected playlists” and then place a checkmark beside each playlist that you want on your iPod. Only music contained in those specific playlists will be synchronized to that particular iPod. These synchronization settings are configured independently for each iPod, so you can then perform the same process for your wife’s iPod to select her playlists for synchronization to her iPod.

You can also use Smart Playlists for this purpose to easily collect larger quantities of music, favourite tracks, or recently-added tracks. Simply create the Smart Playlists with the criteria you would like, and then select them for synchronization in the same manner as any other playlist.

Note that in this scenario, since you are still sharing a single iTunes library, information such as ratings and play counts will be shared between both iPods. If this is a problem, or your music tastes vary more widely, you can create completely separate iTunes libraries instead, and then just sync your iPod to your own personal iTunes library, and have your wife sync her iPod to her library.

The easiest way to do this is to create separate user accounts in your Windows or Mac operating system. By default, each user gets their own distinct iTunes library and preferences, although you can share the same media files to save disk space by setting the iTunes Music folder for each account to a common shared location on your computer.

This latter configuration can be more cumbersome to manage if you want to share most of the same music, however, as you will need to import it into each library separately; even if the iTunes Music folder itself is in a shared location, new tracks must still be added to the iTunes library database manually. However, if you want complete separation of your music libraries, using two computer accounts and two completely separate iTunes libraries is generally the better solution.

Ask iLounge Archives:

6-26-09: Recovering a dead iPod touch after 3.0 update, Battery Percentage Display on iPhone 3.0, Options hidden after 3.0 update, iPhone locked after 3.0 update, Managing videos on iPhone, iPod classic accessory compatibility

6-12-09: Conserving power on iPhone, Syncing iPhone Notes, Syncing Apps on new iPod touch, Block pop-ups in Safari, Syncing new iPhone, Playing multiple albums

5-29-09: Sorting tracks in iTunes, iPhone Bluetooth Headset Dock, Recovering Mac-formatted iPod on Windows, Screen damage on 4G iPod nano, Syncing purchased tracks back to iTunes, Managing a class set of iPods

5-22-09: Syncing iTunes content between computers, Importing music into iTunes, Re-transferring apps from a new iTunes library, New iPods and charging accessories, Using multiple iTunes libraries

5-15-09: Starting out with an external hard drive, Syncing playlists manually, Recovering lost iPod serial number, Music count vs Playlist count, Multiple iTunes Store accounts on the same computer, Optimizing album artwork

See the rest of the Archives...