OK question for the Apple crew here.

My mate has a lot of CDs, an iPhone and a Microsoft PC.

He wants to add all his CDs to an iTunes music library on his PC, but has some questions I can't answer.

1) If he adds them to his PC based iTunes library how will be evntually move the library to a new iMac (he wants to purchase this some time next year and ditch the PC)?

2) Should he or can he add them in a high quality format to his iTunes library and does iTunes automatically lower the quality when syncing them to an iPhone/iPod etc. ?

3) If he has more material in his iTunes library than will fit on his phone what happens? Can he choose what to sync? Does iTunes realise it is bigger than the device's capacity?

Thanks in advance!

 

1) Copy them over and import.

2) You can choose to have lower quality versions on your iPod/phone.

3) iTunes will let you know and allow you to choose.

 

I copy them onto hard drive of pc, then there, there forever and transfer over when I get a new pc etc.
Then select what music I want on iPhone and transfer to iTunes then sync.

 

You can set to auto sync all music, or what I do is tick in the sync section which albums I want.

 

Thanks for your replies.

Copy them from where? Where does iTunes store them in the file system?

Is there not an export option to export them for import to another iTunes library or a backup? The only time I had any experience of trying something like this with iTunes was years and years ago and I seem to remember it lost all the track/album/artist names, but I maybe mistaken!

 

Easiest way is to copy your iTunes music directory from the old PC to a USB drive then in iTunes use the Import option directly from the external drive. iTunes will then reconstruct your iTunes music directory on the new machine for you. Couldn't be simpler really.

 

OK sounds a doddle, cheers

I think I am tainted by that episode years ago where it lost everything, but that was a long time ago now.

 

Sorry to resurrect this thread again, but my mate is doing my head in. Just because I work with computers I should know everything about iTunes

Anyway can one of you iTunes gurus tell me simply:

a) how to set iTunes to rip CDs in the highest quality

b) how to then set iTunes to lower the quality when copying them to an iPod

Are there settings you can click that leave these as the defaults rather than having to set them every time?

Basically he wants his CD collection on the PC so he can play it back via his hi-fi in CD quality and his iPod to have the same CDs in AAC or whatever the iPod uises for compression.

Thanks in advance.

Oh and if it makes any difference the iTines is on a Windows 7 PC.

 

a) itunes preferences.



b) under sync settings when its phones connected

 

Cheers, presume Apple lossless is the way to go yes?

 

Depending on hardrive space.

Apple lossless is the best for audio quality assuming everything you intend to play it on supports it (some steaming devices may not). Its very space consuming so bear in mind it needs to be re-encoded to fit it on to the average iPhone. So syncing stuff between devices will need a second copy stored locally (itunes does this for you, but keep in mind it takes even more drive space doing this)

But if space is of a concern and its played on mobile devices or streamed to non-Hifi devices anyway (that includes "lifestyle Hi-Fis" ) Then may as well rip to AAC. I prefer to set it on custom; @ 320kpbs 44.1Khz VBR.

Best thing to do is rip it on both and take a blind listening test. I doubt the average person will be able to tell.


Edit: personally, as a new user I would not reccomend letting iTunes automatically search for media, as it can make a right mess. Best to import stuff on your specific say so IMO, so you know what it has and where its is.


Default PC storage location is usually x:\users\user\music\itunes . You shouldn't need to mess with this unless backing up.

 

I encode 320 AAC always enough quality for my tabs.

But that's what I put my iPhone , I store flac on my nas for home use

 

Sorry to hijack this thread.

Some songs on my iPod the volume is so low you have to have the volume level on the iPod on max just to hear it.I've ticked the Sound Check box and turned up the slider on Volume Adjustment but still make's no different's.

 

That'll be the source you've ripped from or downloaded from.

All my tracks are the same , it's normally the illegal 128kbps rips sound the crappest or YouTube mp3 rips

 

The tracks I have problem's with are bought from Itunes

 

Scuse the ignorance but does iTunes support FLAC?

 

Ahh just checked I don't have sound check on , I turned it on and made the song quieter. Turn it off

 

Sadly no, have to rely on my media player for that.

 

If you need to convert from FLAC to something else and you're using OS X, then there is an app named Max you should look at. Can convert to / from quite a few things.

 

also xact to that list, brilliant app

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14246/xact

 

Cheers for the help Ant, just seen him and he is now happily importing in Apple lossless and syncing at 192. I did ask why not sync at 256 if you are going to change from the default 128, but he reckons that will be a good trade off between quality and file size on his iPod Anyway he's happy

 

Once the music is on the ipod (assuming it can hold it all, mine is 60gb) it becomes a USB drive that will allow you to move the music to a new computer in the future.

The trick is to copy the music off the ipod onto the new computer (mac or pc) before you install Itunes, then import them to the new Itunes when you install it.

 

First post says iPhone not iPod

 

My fault probably as my revived post says iPod when you're right ... it should say iPhone..doh!