friggin' iPod

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101Walterton
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Re: friggin' iPod

Post by 101Walterton »

Follow the instructions for resetting the ipod which entails pressing a few things at once but I cannot remember what (I have the book somewhere if you dont ahve one) BUT download the latest itunes software. I had problems with mine until I updated the software and now it works fine.

rcs
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Re: friggin' iPod

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i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: friggin' iPod

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rcs wrote:i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
What'd you end up doing to solve the problem?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: friggin' iPod

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
rcs wrote:i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
What'd you end up doing to solve the problem?
went to iPOD support site, read through their docs... 5 Rs and all that crap....

started with #1, Menu+Center for 10secs

it all went blank (my heart skipped a beat)

then, i put it back in charger... a few hours later, she was all set.....
If you don't hate the Clash, you don't love them enough - Olaf

Dr. Medulla
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Re: friggin' iPod

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rcs wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
rcs wrote:i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
What'd you end up doing to solve the problem?
went to iPOD support site, read through their docs... 5 Rs and all that crap....

started with #1, Menu+Center for 10secs

it all went blank (my heart skipped a beat)

then, i put it back in charger... a few hours later, she was all set.....
So it ended up being pretty minor. That's good to hear. My first iPod died, leaving only a mysterious file folder icon on its screen as its suicide note. Curiously, I still sold its carcass on eBay for $100 to a guy with a working iPod hd but a damaged case. He was skilled enough to make a Frankenpod from my piece o' junk.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: friggin' iPod

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
rcs wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
rcs wrote:i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
What'd you end up doing to solve the problem?
went to iPOD support site, read through their docs... 5 Rs and all that crap....

started with #1, Menu+Center for 10secs

it all went blank (my heart skipped a beat)

then, i put it back in charger... a few hours later, she was all set.....
So it ended up being pretty minor. That's good to hear. My first iPod died, leaving only a mysterious file folder icon on its screen as its suicide note. Curiously, I still sold its carcass on eBay for $100 to a guy with a working iPod hd but a damaged case. He was skilled enough to make a Frankenpod from my piece o' junk.
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101Walterton
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Re: friggin' iPod

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rcs wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:
rcs wrote:i got the unit sorted out... thanks for all the tips and directions....
What'd you end up doing to solve the problem?

started with #1, Menu+Center for 10secs

it all went blank (my heart skipped a beat)
Thats the thing I was trying to remember, always seems to do the trick.

Flex
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Re: friggin' iPod

Post by Flex »

Hey, has anyone used the Rockbox jukebox firmware for ipod (and other players)? I'm getting so fucking sick of the default ipod firmware and I'm thinking of switching over. But I assume that when I do I'll have to rebuild my ipod library from scratch, so if I'm gonna spend all that time (I have way too much music to just do a straight sync) I wanna be sure it's worth it. It seems like a pretty tasty bit of firmware, and the support for ogg, flac, etc. is killer... but if anyone has any experience I'd appreciate any insight.

Now if I can only figure out a way to purchase itunes library tracks without actually having to use itunes I could completely purge myself of apple's shitty software and firmware.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: friggin' iPod

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Flex wrote:Hey, has anyone used the Rockbox jukebox firmware for ipod (and other players)? I'm getting so fucking sick of the default ipod firmware and I'm thinking of switching over. But I assume that when I do I'll have to rebuild my ipod library from scratch, so if I'm gonna spend all that time (I have way too much music to just do a straight sync) I wanna be sure it's worth it. It seems like a pretty tasty bit of firmware, and the support for ogg, flac, etc. is killer... but if anyone has any experience I'd appreciate any insight.

Now if I can only figure out a way to purchase itunes library tracks without actually having to use itunes I could completely purge myself of apple's shitty software and firmware.
I'm curious what frustrates you about the iPod firmware—is it just lack of support for some other formats? Also, there are third-party apps out there for ripping music off your iPod and storing it on your hd. It's come in very handy when I've upgraded iPods.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: friggin' iPod

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Dr. Medulla wrote:I'm curious what frustrates you about the iPod firmware—is it just lack of support for some other formats? Also, there are third-party apps out there for ripping music off your iPod and storing it on your hd. It's come in very handy when I've upgraded iPods.
The lack of file type support is a big one, and I've had continuous problems with album art not loading properly (both by using the wrong album art for albums as well as not centering on album art properly in menu mode). The lack of diverse video codec support is also sort of infuriating. And then there's the fact that the firmware just isn't especially feature-rich (I'm using an ipod classic, the touch does more, obviously). Check out the various features rockbox sports: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/M ... Comparison

In any case, it's a moot point because rockbox doesn't support my gen ipod yet. Eh.

Addendum: iPod Linux may be a solution, but I've heard less than rave reviews about it. If I'm gonna switch over, I wanna be sure it's worth the time and energy.

Addendum II: Oh, iPod Linux doesn't support 6th gen iPod classics either. Oh well. Friggin' substantial hardware architecture changes, always keepin' me down.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: friggin' iPod

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Flex wrote:
Dr. Medulla wrote:I'm curious what frustrates you about the iPod firmware—is it just lack of support for some other formats? Also, there are third-party apps out there for ripping music off your iPod and storing it on your hd. It's come in very handy when I've upgraded iPods.
The lack of file type support is a big one, and I've had continuous problems with album art not loading properly (both by using the wrong album art for albums as well as not centering on album art properly in menu mode).
I've never been able to get iTunes' automatic album art to work. Never. (Actually, not quite true. I think when the feature was first introduced, it worked, but subsequent updates killed it for me.) So I just do it myself. Minor pain in the ass, but it is annoying.
The lack of diverse video codec support is also sort of infuriating. And then there's the fact that the firmware just isn't especially feature-rich (I'm using an ipod classic, the touch does more, obviously).
Agreed. That's all part of Apple's caretaker god mentality—we know what format is best for you. It hasn't affected me because my use doesn't really demand that many options, but I fully understand why others are annoyed. Apple is going down the dumb ass Sony road and it'll bite them hard if they aren't careful.
Check out the various features rockbox sports: http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/M ... Comparison

In any case, it's a moot point because rockbox doesn't support my gen ipod yet. Eh.
Yeah, I can see why you'd want to switch.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Flex
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Re: friggin' iPod

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Dr. Medulla wrote:I've never been able to get iTunes' automatic album art to work. Never. (Actually, not quite true. I think when the feature was first introduced, it worked, but subsequent updates killed it for me.) So I just do it myself. Minor pain in the ass, but it is annoying.
I've gone through and manually made sure all my album art is correct in tags, but some albums the ipod still insists on loading the wrong artwork. I also don't think ipod firmware differentiates between "artist" and "album artist" fields, or it doesn't implement those differentiations very well, which is annoying as hell because tracks from an artist's album that feature another musician or artist gets grouped as a "compilation" while the rest of the album shows up in the artists->albums branch. I have to go into the full master-list of "albums" to get the entire album to play. Which means, for example, basically every one of my hip-hop albums are effectively broken on my ipod.

It's also extremely twitchy when it comes to album and artist names. I have albums that split into separate folders for no discernible reason, each called the same album with the same artwork, artist, etc. Very bizarre behavior that I can't quite root out.

As you said, it's just that I like to have my shit show up and be organized in a certain way, and apple isn't very accommodating in that respect. I originally bought an ipod because of the superior peripheral support, but I'll probably look elsewhere next time I'm picking out an mp3 player.
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Re: friggin' iPod

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Flex wrote:I've gone through and manually made sure all my album art is correct in tags, but some albums the ipod still insists on loading the wrong artwork. I also don't think ipod firmware differentiates between "artist" and "album artist" fields, or it doesn't implement those differentiations very well, which is annoying as hell because tracks from an artist's album that feature another musician or artist gets grouped as a "compilation" while the rest of the album shows up in the artists->albums branch. I have to go into the full master-list of "albums" to get the entire album to play. Which means, for example, basically every one of my hip-hop albums are effectively broken on my ipod.
I've never had those kinds of problems, but I also omit the "album artist" field completely. I don't fully understand its use when there's already an "artist" option, as well as a "compilations" toggle. The few times its had contents things seemed a bit weird in terms of the folders created on my harddrive.
It's also extremely twitchy when it comes to album and artist names. I have albums that split into separate folders for no discernible reason, each called the same album with the same artwork, artist, etc. Very bizarre behavior that I can't quite root out.

As you said, it's just that I like to have my shit show up and be organized in a certain way, and apple isn't very accommodating in that respect. I originally bought an ipod because of the superior peripheral support, but I'll probably look elsewhere next time I'm picking out an mp3 player.
Could be an issue with the Windows version of iTunes because I don't recall any problems like that. Which doesn't help you much, I know. Tho you could try blanking the "album artist" field and see if that alleviates confusion.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: friggin' iPod

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Dr. Medulla wrote:Could be an issue with the Windows version of iTunes because I don't recall any problems like that. Which doesn't help you much, I know. Tho you could try blanking the "album artist" field and see if that alleviates confusion.
Well, these are ipod-specific problems, not problems software side. I actually use mediamonkey to play stuff whenever possible (itunes doesn't even have the option of spreading out its music folder over multiple drives, ugh) but I've confirmed that the problem albums sort normally in itunes. It's definitely occurred to me that using third party software has made things goofy, but I can't think how it would have, exactly. The whole point of these music tags is that they're universal standards and multiple platforms and programs read them the same way.

None of it is objectively a big deal, its just that ipods ain't cheap and it's infuriating that a) they aren't feature rich and b) they still fuck up, which is sort of contrary to the whole point of not being feature rich.

As for the usefulness of album artist is when you have individual tracks on album that might be by other artists (pete seeger's track on woody guthrie's album about sacco & vanzetti for example), or when the album artist has guest artists on individual tracks. Then you can tag the individual track artists as including both (use semicolons to separate artists and the track will show up under each artist when you sort by artist) and still have the album artist be the single artist whose album it is. then when you search albums by album artist, it includes the whole thing and when you search just by regular artist it shows those tracks under multiple artists.

This method works great under mediamonkey and moderately well in itunes. It completely breaks down on the ipod tho.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: friggin' iPod

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Flex wrote:Well, these are ipod-specific problems, not problems software side. I actually use mediamonkey to play stuff whenever possible (itunes doesn't even have the option of spreading out its music folder over multiple drives, ugh) but I've confirmed that the problem albums sort normally in itunes. It's definitely occurred to me that using third party software has made things goofy, but I can't think how it would have, exactly. The whole point of these music tags is that they're universal standards and multiple platforms and programs read them the same way.
Things may have changed in the last couple years, but I believe that non-flash memory iPods have their drives formatted differently in Windows versus Mac. That is, if you have a Windows machine and an iPod, then decided to switch to Mac, you'll need to wipe your iPod completely and reformat. If so, that might be part of the issue (well, the issue being that Apple is more attentive to making iPods work with Macs than Windows).
None of it is objectively a big deal, its just that ipods ain't cheap and it's infuriating that a) they aren't feature rich and b) they still fuck up, which is sort of contrary to the whole point of not being feature rich.
Unless you move up to a Touch/iPhone. Features up the wazoo. Way more shit on there than I need. The 32GB Touch I got was also a couple hundred bucks cheaper than what I paid for 15GB 2G iPod several years ago.
As for the usefulness of album artist is when you have individual tracks on album that might be by other artists (pete seeger's track on woody guthrie's album about sacco & vanzetti for example), or when the album artist has guest artists on individual tracks. Then you can tag the individual track artists as including both (use semicolons to separate artists and the track will show up under each artist when you sort by artist) and still have the album artist be the single artist whose album it is. then when you search albums by album artist, it includes the whole thing and when you search just by regular artist it shows those tracks under multiple artists.
Ah, I see. I just cheat and bracket the song title with the guest artist's name in those cases.

If I have a bitch about iTunes, it's the limitations in the frequency rate when converting in AAC. The choices are 44.100 or 48.000. Now, when I rip audio books from cd, I prefer a lower frequency rate and sample rate (16.000 and 16 kbps is what audible uses). So I basically have to rip at a high rate than convert that using another app that, while versatile, works at 4X speed at best.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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