WTF Is This New iTunes SHITE!? DIE VILE ABOMINATION!

[Hank Venture]

You can if you're comfortable with piracy and fiddling about a bit. Search the pirate bay for something like "iPod", there's dozens of programs.

[BlodwynPig]

My default is to go to songs mode and sort by most recent first - I have far too many unheard albums/tracks to do anything else and just listen to the newest albums generally, then revisit favourites from time to time.

Mediamonkey looks good though-- will be considering this soon.

[Replies From View]

You can synch in a far easier way if your files on the iPod are all purchased legally.

Mine were purchased legally - on CD though.  For some reason these days "purchasing legally" seems to mean "purchasing numerous times".

[Johnny Townmouse]

Mine were purchased legally - on CD though.  For some reason these days "purchasing legally" seems to mean "purchasing numerous times".

In the future people will look back at this period and say "of course they pirated!"

Last month I went through my legally purchased DVD of The Office Season 7, and absolutely loved having to watch various copyright notices, plus a dour Australian segment about illegal downloading, EVERY SINGLE TIME I watched one of the twenty-four episodes.

Currently have my TV synched with my PC to watch illegally downloaded episodes of season 8 of The Office. Instantaneous, with no warnings or any delay.

I still don't understand why copyright and pirating shit is hardcoded into DVDs when it is obvious that they are pissing off the wrong people. And I think I have gone off-topic.

[Delete Delete Delete]

I still don't understand why anybody with Windows uses Itunes? But then again I like have my music organized in a folder structure so Foobar is good for that.

[Replies From View]

Slightly on-topic - the paid-for Final Cut has been changed to make it more like the free iMovie.

Very shit indeed.

[hedgehog90]

The most off-putting thing about Media Monkey is the name... It's fucking dumb.
I might listen to Chumbawumba on Media Monkey, but I'd listen to The Beatles on iTunes.
I'm not an Apple freak, but iTunes is the only dignified way of listening to mp3s on your computer.

Also, what about podcasts? You'd still need iTunes for podcasts wouldn't you?

[Puffin Chunks]

Nope, Mediamonkey handles podcasts just fine.

Although, I appreciate that I'm beginning to sound like an advert for Mediamonkey now, so I'm going to shut up.



It is great though.

[Noodle Lizard]

I was a bit peeved - mostly because it meant I had to get my head around a new system with not much gain.  Found a way to get it back to almost classic view, though.

A couple of niggles, but overall I'm just not arsed.  Then again, I never tend to get worked up over Facebook updates and the like - the only thing that bothers me about those is that my news feed will inevitably be filled with statuses going on about how shite the new update is and threatening to blow themselves up or whatever.

[Replies From View]

The most off-putting thing about Media Monkey is the name... It's fucking dumb.
I might listen to Chumbawumba on Media Monkey, but I'd listen to The Beatles on iTunes.
I'm not an Apple freak, but iTunes is the only dignified way of listening to mp3s on your computer.

You need to stare at the word iTunes for as long as it takes to see that it is objectively ridiculous.  You have been hoodwinked!

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

I can't fucking transfer everything from my old iPod to my new one! Or all my music from my backup on my external drive!

WHY WON'T THIS PIECE OF SHIT LET YOU DO ANYTHING

[Ignatius_S]

I can't fucking transfer everything from my old iPod to my new one! Or all my music from my backup on my external drive!

WHY WON'T THIS PIECE OF SHIT LET YOU DO ANYTHING

Would you be able to say exactly how you're trying to do this? Also, what OS you're running would be useful.

[Hank Venture]

I can't fucking transfer everything from my old iPod to my new one! Or all my music from my backup on my external drive!

WHY WON'T THIS PIECE OF SHIT LET YOU DO ANYTHING

Where did you transfer your music from to your old iPod in the first place?

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

Originally, it was a bit of a mess. A lot of it's in a folder on my laptop, but a lot of it also came from CDs and some of it I deleted from my previous laptop for space and therefore it didn't get transferred over to my current laptop. Once it was all on my iPod I made a copy on my external hard drive. iTunes will give me the menu option to import all my music from the drive to iTunes, but if I select it it won't actually do it, even if I go into the folder and select all the files rather than the folder itself. Of course going outside iTunes and simply dragging-and-dropping the music into the iPod's hidden folders doesn't work either, because God forbid you ever do something that wasn't exactly the way Apple intend you do it. I'm running iTunes 10 on Windows 7.

I think when I first plugged in my new iPod it mentioned something about applying my Apple ID, so maybe that lets you do it once you're logged in. Fuck knows what my Apple ID is though, I made it about eight years ago before I had the same few usernames/passwords for things.

[Famous Mortimer]

Mediamonkey is great, but it's not available for Mac yet (well, there's some sort of port, but it's no good). I use Swinsian for the Mac, it's paid-for but it has a function I've found valuable – organising your music by file path. I've got about 1 terabyte of music, and some bands would appear all over the old iTunes (especially when you had a band that did things under different names). Also, it never played FLACs.

Swinsian does the trick though – organising by file path means I can change the names of folders to have the year first, so I can listen to stuff in chronological order, and it keeps the files of bands all together (even those with missing tags). Talking of tags, that's something it doesn't do, and it's not perfect, but it's about as good a solution as there is until Mediamonkey comes to the Mac.

[Ignatius_S]

.... Of course going outside iTunes and simply dragging-and-dropping the music into the iPod's hidden folders doesn't work either... I'm running iTunes 10 on Windows 7...

I've moved this bit of your up as from the sound of things as it'll address the immediate problem (i.e. getting the old music onto the new device) quickly and it may be best forgetting iTunes altogether.

There are quite a few third-party apps (e.g.  CopyTran Manager), as Famous Mortimer suggests, that lets move files in that kind of way between your iPod and computer. I'm afraid I can't particularly recommend one so just do a Web search (but the one I mentioned is usually well regarded), plus they'll be plenty of 'how-to' step-by-step guides.

Using this kind of app will let you easily and speedily transfer all the music files from the computer/external drives onto the new iPod (and transfer any music on the old one onto the computer, if missing).

At the same time, it'll be worth looking into music manager software -  these kind of apps are often related (I think CopyTran Manager is part of a software suite). There's no reason to stick with iTunes if you don't get on with it or find it limiting.

...Once it was all on my iPod I made a copy on my external hard drive...

How did you make that copy?

... iTunes will give me the menu option to import all my music from the drive to iTunes, but if I select it it won't actually do it...

So, none of this music is actually in your iTunes library? How are you trying to import this?

....I think when I first plugged in my new iPod it mentioned something about applying my Apple ID, so maybe that lets you do it once you're logged in...

If it's a straight case of accessing music that you've added yourself, then that shouldn't matter.

.... Fuck knows what my Apple ID is though, I made it about eight years ago before I had the same few usernames/passwords for things.

https://iforgot.apple.com/iForgot/findAccount.html

I think the ID is always an email address.

[Hat FM]

i'm guesssing this is a no but if i moved all of my music to mediamonkey would it import my play counts?  They are very important to me!  also how is it to update your iphone on that?

[Ignatius_S]

i'm guesssing this is a no but if i moved all of my music to mediamonkey would it import my play counts?...

Actually, some software will be able to import that sort of information but I don't know off the top of my head if Mediamonkey does (I would guess yes, though). That kind of information might not be imported automatically (I suspect in most cases it wouldn't). Your best bet is to do a Web search for all this and/or a be a workaround solution.

...also how is it to update your iphone on that?

Do you mean updating the iPhone iOS via Mediamonkey? If so, that's an easy one to answer – you can't. However, you don't need iTunes to update the iOS – you can do it over a WiFi network. 

[Hat FM]

Actually, some software will be able to import that sort of information but I don't know off the top of my head if Mediamonkey does (I would guess yes, though). That kind of information might not be imported automatically (I suspect in most cases it wouldn't). Your best bet is to do a Web search for all this and/or a be a workaround solution.

Do you mean updating the iPhone iOS via Mediamonkey? If so, that's an easy one to answer – you can't. However, you don't need iTunes to update the iOS – you can do it over a WiFi network.

oh no, I just meant to put new songs on and stufff. that should work then?  thanks for the info.

[small_world]

I started using MediaMonkey soon after replying to this thread a few months ago. But the interface is just too different to what I'm used to (Windows Media Player). Can much be done to get it to look like WMP? OR should I spend the time getting used to it?

[Ignatius_S]

oh no, I just meant to put new songs on and stufff. that should work then?  thanks for the info.

Ah, I see - sorry! Yup, absolutely, you can use it with an iPhone.

[Famous Mortimer]

I started using MediaMonkey soon after replying to this thread a few months ago. But the interface is just too different to what I'm used to (Windows Media Player). Can much be done to get it to look like WMP? OR should I spend the time getting used to it?

I reckon the place to go for this would be Mediamonkey's support forums / website. I don't remember what the skin situation was like, but they're bound to have something.

[BlodwynPig]

Just grabbed MediaMonkey - wow, its excellent but like small_world it might take some getting used to the environment.

It's still only on C whilst adding music to the library, so I will be interested to see if it laggy with 200000 tracks like itunes.

Also, I noticed some anomalies whilst its adding - like it said I had an Andre Rieu EP in my library and clearly I don't. Is it continually trying to tag labels to music and is iterating until it gets the right album?

Edit: Ah, no it was just the artwork that was incorrect - but I like how it automatically adds artwork from the folder location.

[Puffin Chunks]

To answer some MediaMonkey questions...

Mediamonkey is highly scriptable and there's a lot of scripts out there generated by users to extend it's functionality if it doesn't do what you want out of the box. Specifically, importing play counts from iTunes; it should do this by default when importing an iTunes library, but any problems and a quick google search will present solutions.

Skinning: There's a tonne of skins out there for MediaMonkey, some better than others:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/addons/browse/skins/

Here's one that attempts to replicate WMP11:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Skins_for_MediaMonkey_v3.0_and_higher#WMP11

You will need to get used to the tree-view on the side, but I'd say it's worth sticking with as it does make for a logical way to navigate (particularly when looking at external devices or the exceptionally useful 'Files to Edit' tree, which highlights files that have potential problems). Truth be told, you may only ever need to click on the 'Music' tree to list all your music. You can turn off what appears in the tree-view in Options > Library > Media Tree.

Finally, if you like MM then I highly recommend purchasing Gold. Free MM is good, Gold MM is exceptional... adding support for on-the-fly format conversion for syncing to devices, Autoplaylists etc.

[olliebean]

Oh, bloody hell.

MediaMonkey 4.0.7 can sync with:

    all iPods/iPhones/iPads running iOS 3 /4 / 5 /6 that are available as of Sept 2012, except for the iPad mini which is not yet tested, provided iTunes 10.7 is installed

Well that defeats the object, doesn't it?

[Puffin Chunks]

It syncs with my iPod 5th Gen without iTunes just fine.

You can also sync the iPhone etc. without iTunes, you just need some of the drivers.

From here (http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Guide_to_ipod_sync):

It is possible to sync certain iPods without iTunes installed. The iPod touch, iPhone, iPod classic, and iPod nano 3rd/4th generation all require certain iTunes components to be installed to sync to them. These files are usually located at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support and you could uninstall iTunes as long as you kept the files at the location above. However, there are disadvantages to not keeping iTunes – for example, you can't update the device firmware or restore it without iTunes. You will also not be able to sync pictures or video without iTunes since MediaMonkey currently does not handle these file types.

    iTunes comes with the device driver for iPhone/iPod Touch that is required by many third-party media players to detect and access the database of the iPhone. As soon as you install iTunes, you will be able to use Media Monkey to sync your music.

    For those who don't want to install iTunes, there is a hack:

        1. Download the iTunesSetup.exe (or iTunes64Setup.exe is you're using 64-bit) file
        2. Rename the .exe to .msi
        3. Get 7-Zip to extract only what you need from the iTunes installer archive.
        4. Open up the zipped file (right click 7-zip -> Open Archive, open .rsrc directory) and extract AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi (AppleMobileDeviceSupport64.msi for 64-bit), and QuickTime.msi (Quicktime lite recommended instead)

            4.1 iTunes v9.1 - In the .rsrc directory, opend the RCDATA directory and extract the CABINET file. Rename it to amds.cab, open that file again with 7Zip, and then extract the .msi files as above.

        5. Install these files.

You can then sync your iPod with Media Monkey without iTunes.

UPDATE: The above "hack" is no longer necessary. You can install the needed drivers for your iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad by using the Copy Trans Drivers Installer. It is a free product from the makers of Copy Trans Manager, and it can be found here:

http://download.cnet.com/CopyTrans-Drivers-Installer/3000-18546_4-75300288.html?tag=mncol

WARNING: If using the CopyTrans Drivers Installer product with any iTunes installer from version 10.5 upwards then you will need to install Quicktime manually (if it isn't already installed on your system), without Quicktime installed the MediaMonkey iPod/iPhone plugin will not operate correctly. From iTunes 10.5 onwards Apple no longer bundles Quicktime as part of the iTunes installer (see http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3772 for details). As of V1.013 the Copytrans Drivers Installer product does not warn you if it cannot find/install Quicktime from the iTunes installer set being used.

[olliebean]

Yes, what you need is Apples mobile device service running constantly in the background. I was hoping for something that could be run more portably than that.

That link seems to imply you need Quicktime as well, which can fro. Quicktime was always a massive pita and even iTunes does without it these days.

[Puffin Chunks]

In fairness to MM, it's due to Apple's inherant desire for control over every aspect of your device rather than a fault with MM itself that it is so difficult to sync to Apple devices with 3rd party media centres.

[olliebean]

Fair enough, but that's no excuse for needing Quicktime.

[Johnny Townmouse]

Did AVG fuck anyone else's iTunes in the mouth this week?

Playlists, podcasts and songs (exceot for iTunes purchased music) all gone (not deleted though). Basically a reset iTunes.