leonski

im going to be buying an ipod soon so i want to start building my itunes collection so its ready for when i get it. was just wondering how i put my cds on it. do i just put the cd in the laptop so it goes straight to i tunes or do i have to change it into mp3 first somehow?
Was thinking that if i just put the cd in it wont be an mp3 so surely will take up loads of ipod space?

scoob_babe

If you just put the CD into the drive, it will ask you if you want to import the whole lot. You don't need it as MP3 format - some of my stuff is MP3, some is just bunged on directly from a CD. Space is't really an issue for me (right now as I have the 80gb!

Daryl

You can select the quality in iTunes: preferences > advanced > importing > on cd insert > show cd (this enables you to select which tracks you want to import) > import using > apple lossless encoder (decent quality).

That's what I do, anyway.

ScoobyDoo555

Yeh, there's a few options on importing. As above, but in preferences, you can go into the advanced and change the import type. Try a few, hear them, and decide which on is nicer on your ears

DAn

Markus

First thing you'll want to do is launch iTunes and go into the Advanced options and look at the Importing options. I think the default format for files is AAC, which is ok if you're only ever going to play the music on an iPod, but if you want to use it on another computer/MP3 player you might want to change the option to MP3, then again if you have iTunes on another computer it'll play AAC. Really does depend on what you want to do.

Anyway, apart from that, you can simply put a CD in the drive and by default iTunes will connect to the internet to check the tracknames against the gracenote database, and then it'll automatically import the CD. If you prefer not to have it do that, pop into the preferences and change that option.

As for size, depends on the encoding. For example, Pink Floyd's "Division Bell" is aprox 95MB in size and that was encoded in MP3 format at 198kbps (VBR) @ 44.100kHz.

leonski

ok thanks but im still not sure which setting to use. i will be buying an alpine car head unit so will be listening to my ipod through that mainly. i want the sound quality to be good as possible really but worried about using up loads of space. is mp3 the best? ive never heard of the other ones
cheers

leonski

ok thanks but im still not sure which setting to use. i will be buying an alpine car head unit so will be listening to my ipod through that mainly. i want the sound quality to be good as possible really but worried about using up loads of space. is mp3 the best? ive never heard of the other ones
cheers

ScoobyDoo555

depends on what your Alpine will read - probably only MP3 (I don't know though!)
As to which one's best - I hate MP3 with a passion (but I'm an audio snob - must be something to do with my job )

Try them all (unless your alpine will only take MP3, then you know what to do!)

Dan

leonski

why do you hate mp3?

Dracoro

MP3 is fine. go for 192kbps and that'll be suitable for most songs.

Let's face it, you are listening in a car or on a walkman/mp3 player where there is that many outside noise/interference etc that you WON'T appreciate the difference in format/bitrate etc. You won't have £100 can type headphone that you'd need to appreciate higher bitrates/format anyway.

I'm an audiophile and love my music and want good sound quality and demand a decent sound from my home system where I can appreciate it. On a portable player or car you will NOT appreciate higher quality over a certain point. The law of diminishing returns is always a good thing to factor.

So 192kbps (mp3 or aac etc.) will be more than fine for 99.999% of people/uses.

leonski

whats the difference between mp3 and aac? why is that one default?

Dracoro

aac is the apple default. aac is poss better sound quality, howver mp3 is probably better in that you can play in on anything, anywhere. For a walkman/car you won't notice the difference anyway.

leonski

cheers mp3 it is then