Making The Move From CD to iPod

New Jersey.com ^ | September 18, 2005 | Allan Hoffman

[SamAdams76]

I am giving up CDs. Within the next several months, I expect most of my family's CDs will be converted for playing on our iPods and personal computers. The actual CDs will either be sold or given away. As more people connect their digital music players to their home stereos and car stereos, they realize they have no use for the racks of CDs taking up space in their homes. If you no longer play CDs, why keep them? That is the conclusion my wife and I reached, and that is why I am completing the arduous process of moving the music to more compact computer storage from the CDs.

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

HELP!

I have an ipod, but cannot connect it to our computer (hard drive) -- in the USB port....have itunes software downloaded on the computer, put a cd in (old Dionne Warwick songs on cd), BUT could not get the itunes softward to recognize the (plugged-in) ipod....tried two USB ports on our hard drive -- neither worked....it seems the itunes software is not recognizing the (plugged-in) ipod....someone at work told me it could be that the USB port is not plugged into the hard drive. Could this be the (simple) explanation to all this? How does one "plug" the USB port into the hard drive? Open the hard drive and...? I'm good at the Internet and such, but am a bit of a klutz (I admit it) when it comes to the "hard drive thing"...any and all information in this regard would be greatly appreciated -- and I'd be glad to elaborate a bit more on the situation in succeeding postings on this thread...

FReegards, FRiends,

ConservativeStLouisGuy (up here in Toronto)

[SamAdams76]

An iPod is nothing like a cassette player. It is essentially a computer hard drive that can hold thousands of songs that can be played in any order you like (through playlists you create) or you can just hit shuffle and hear them in random order. Also, if you have an entire album, you can hear the songs sequenced in the order the artist intended.

Lower end iPods are flash-memory based but they do the same sorts of things. They just don't hold as many songs. Yet.

Since Apple replaced their popular mini with the nano, I suspect they will have newer nanos on the market by the holidays with even more capacity (up to 10gigs).

I believe they will also release an 80gig full-size hard-drive based iPod by that time.

Anyway, you CAN hook your iPod up to just about anything. I have an FM transmitter attachment that allows me to play it on my car stereo. I also like "taking over" other people's stereos when I visit! Sometimes they get a little freaked out by it.

I can also plug my iPod into my home stereo and it is absolutely awesome. There is simply no more need to mess around with CDs. They have been relegated to storage as emergency backup devices.

[Fledermaus]

Heck, I still have a couple boxes of albums in a closet.

[antiRepublicrat]

They're doing a lousy job of it... you can download programs like DVDShrink straight off the web.

They'll never be able to completely stop it, but they did stop DVD XCopy, DVDDecrypter, and now DVD Shrink is now no longer being developed. The MPAA is going after them. And where the laws don't allow the MPAA to go after people, they get the laws changed so they can (as happened in Britain with DVDDecrypter). But, luckily, not every country is within their grasp, nor is every country under the jurisdiction of U.S. laws (as they tried to stop a Czech guy from posting DeCSS).

[Uncle Meat]

If you do not have a car stereo with auxiliary input, you can try to use one of those little FM-radio transmitters that plug into the iPod. You have to look for a clear frequency band to transmit on. I didn't have much luck with this, the sound suffered from interference and static. This works better in rural areas where there are fewer FM stations.

I put up with one of those transmitters for a while.All the freq's were being used in the Savannah area where I work.The ol'Cd plyer was cutting out anyway,so I bought a new one with an auxillery input in the front.It's a step up JVC like the old one,,cost more,but damn if it wasn't worth it.I can plug my Nomad Zen Xtra in and ,tada,no more skipping or cutting out,1200 or so songs on shuffle.Don't use the CD player much now,don't have to.

[SamAdams76]

Let me ask you something as I have not gotten into downloading music yet. You download/purchase music files to your computers hard-drive or rip songs from CD that you own or borrow, and store those files on your computer's hard-drive, and then you choose which ones you want on your iPod and load them from the computer's hard-drive onto the iPod. Right? Is that right, or do people download / buy songs from websites right onto their iPods?

Yes, I download music files to my computer's hard drive from the iTunes music store. I also ripped all the songs from the CDs I own (but I never borrowed CDs from others for this purpose). You can select which ones go onto your iPod by simply removing the checkmark in iTunes. Typically, I might keep only 3 or 4 songs from a CD for my iPod.

Anyways, you come home some night and someone broke into your house and your computer is gone. If you didn't back up those music files somewhere, will the music download sites let you download those songs again if you tell them about the break in? If you loaded songs directly onto your iPod and it gets stolen, or you lose it, you are not getting them back, right, or does one continually back up the files stored on their iPod too?

You will NOT be able to re-download your purchased songs if somebody broke into your house and stole your computer. I might add that if somebody broke into your house and stole your CDs, you wouldn't be able to waltz into your local record store and get free replacement either! So it is incumbent upon you to back up what you by. I keep my purchased songs in four different places. My main computer, my iPod, on my laptop and on CD backups that I keep in a safe place. I still have my original CDs so I can always restore those if I had to. Eventually, I am going to get an external hard drive and maintain a mirror image of my music database on backup.

Do you back up all your music files?

Absolutely.

[antiRepublicrat]

I saw the TV ad's for it and you are right.. it probably will be the new thing for the iPodofiles.

It's the next new thing for mp3 players, period. Nobody cares what Creative comes up with.

Soon the "old" iPods will be on Ebay cheap.

I just looked, can't find any that cheap, not even first generation, at least not the "buy it now" price.

[Myrddin]

Plug the iPod into the USB port, then hold the up arrow and center button on the wheel down for about 10 seconds. The iPod will reset and chat with the USB port. My wife had the same problem. There is a checkbox in the advanced section of the iTunes preferences that allows you to expose the USB hard disk subunit of the iPod to Windows as a removable disk. My wife uses her iPod to offload pictures from her digital camera while we are traveling. The files are available directly from the iPod USB disk.

[humblegunner]

I think must be the only person left who doesn't have an iPod

I don't have one and I'm not gay either. Draw the obvious conclusion!:-)

[antiRepublicrat]

People who like Apple products are not nearly as weird as the handful of folks that feel somehow threatened by the iPod's popularity.

They'd be bowing down if Microsoft had been innovative enough to come out with them.

Wait a minute. Microsoft innnovative? What was I thinking?

[wedwo]

birkenwhat??
oh you must mean one of them black bedsheets muslim women wear all day.....

[CFC__VRWC]

Can you connect other USB devices besides the iPod to your PC and have the machine recognize them? If not, then you do have a problem with either the USB ports or drivers on your computer. You can check the status of the USB devices on your PC by (assuming you have Win XP) -

Click Start, then select Control Panel. Select the System icon, the click the Device Manager button. You should see listings for Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers. If the listed devices have yellow exclamation marks next to them, then there is some kind of problem with the device. You right click the device and then select Properties to see what's wrong.

If other USB devices work on the computer, then you have a problem with your iTunes installation or maybe with your iPod. Did you run the latest iPod Installer when you bought the iPod? Is the iPod formatted to work with a Windows PC? If it was formatted on a Mac, then a Windows computer will not recognize it without special software such as XPlay.

[dennisw]

I was busy rolling in my XKE

[JSteff]

Yes. In detail please. Don't leave anything out.

[glorgau]

I am amazed at the people who cannot spend QUIET time with themselves.

I just got off the a 5 hour bus trip - on Southwest Airlines ;-). It was either plug my in-ear earphones (a bit like ear plugs) into the iPod or listen to screaming babies while going cross country. I chose the iPod.

[SamAdams76]

When listening to symphonies, et. al., I set my iPod to shuffle by Album, so I still get a random work, but I'll hear all of the movements (in the case of a symphony) in their proper order.

I take this a step further. I make each work it's own album. For example, on Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, I make each of the six Concertos it's own album even though three of them will fit on one disc.

[goodnesswins]

Hey....I can't blame you with THAT!!! I'm referring to a walk around the neighborhood or such, not screaming brats on an airline....IF I ever FLY again, I guess I'd admit an Ipod would BE REALLY GREAT!

[SamAdams76]

Anything I've gotten from the iTunes store (typically through free credits from the Pepsi promotions), I back up to physical media. I do find the fact that you can't re-download from iTunes an annoyance -- if they have a record that your account purchased a particular track or album, your account should be able to download it multiple times.

You shouldn't blame Apple for this. All these restrictions on music that you purchase are imposed by the recording industry.

[SamAdams76]

CD's were supposed to be almost "indestructable," but I've got many of them that are unplayable after 10 years.

Really? I've been buying CDs since 1985. I've bought over 1,000 of them since and every single one of them plays just fine today.

[Auntie Mame]

Thank you for the info!