Tag: ipod

Music Management Alternatives: Characterized by a Lack of Information

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=white-ipodYesterday, one of the big pieces of news out of the CES show was Sony’s announcement of a $1,200 MP3 player. In addition to all of the sonic high-quality stuff that really boost the price, what caught my eye was this: “The NW-ZX2 features 128GB of memory — and can be expanded to 256GB — and a battery that’s expected to last up to 60 hours.”. Details are scanty, but I’ll note that you can currently get a digital Walkman that has 64GB onboard and the capability to support a 128GB Micro-SD card (for a total of 192GB) for $299. I’m not sure who is going to pay an extra $900 for the additional 64GB.

However, this got me thinking about my previous post on large-storage iPod Classic replacements. I’ve noted before one of the key drawbacks about moving away from the iTunes/iPod universe is… well… iTunes itself. Just like your electronic relationship with your bank makes it harder to change banks, so too does long-term use of iTunes make it harder to move off of iTunes. Just consider the potential loss of play counts, ratings, smart playlists, and potentially carefully crafted album art. What you would want is a solution that allows you to preserve that additional information. I did some musing and research over lunch yesterday and today. There appear to be two potential winning approaches:

  1. Figure out a way to make iTunes work with a non-iPod device, such that it can not only copy music to the device, but bring play counts and ratings from the device back into iTunes.
  2. Figure out a way to move iTunes data into a non-iTunes music manager — one that can handle all the iTunes capabilities and synch information bidirectionally from the non-iPod device.

Looking into the first option, I’ve found mention of two different solutions: Notpod and iTunesFusion. It is hard to find detailed information on either, although C|Net has a good writeup on using Notpod. It appears that both of these make your non-Ipod device appear as a playlist (not as an iPod). In particular, from the Notpod description, it looks like it just copies over the music files that are on a particular playlist. There’s no interaction with the player’s OS to retrieve play counts and changes to ratings. Further, Notpod does not seem to support syncing multiple playists or smart playlists — in particular, making it so that you have smart playlists on your non-iPod device. iTunesFusion seems similar — its description talks about syncing playlists to the iPod. Neither of these products have extensive screenshots or manuals online that permit further investigation.

Looking into the second option, there are tons of non-iTunes music managers out there. Most of the pages discussing them, however, focus on using a non-iTunes manager with an Apple iDevice — I don’t care about that. I’m curious about products that permit importation of an existing iTunes database (songs, play counts, ratings, playlists) into their own format, and that then provide the syncing ability with non-Apple players. I found one called MediaMonkey that looks interesting, but I need to investigate this further.

So, I’m curious…. has anyone out there in Internet-Land experimented with non-iTunes managers, or syncing between iTunes and non-Apple players?

[ETA: Here’s an interesting analysis of the need for dedicated Media players. I generally agree, but he missed one additional niche: players with sufficient storage to hold an entire music collection. Such storage is found on the high end audio players, but those looking for storage don’t require the high end audio — they are just stuck with it (just as those, to use his analogy, who require film and not digital are either stuck with cheap disposables or high-end SLRs — the mid-market affordable film cameras are gone.)]

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I Come Not to Bury the iPod Classic

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy3 Comments

userpic=ipodIn October, Apple discontinued the iPod Classic. Do you think that made the iPod Classic worthless? Hardly. In fact, the iPod Classic is currently the most expensive iPod out there, commanding almost double its original shelf price. This makes me very glad that I picked up a backup iPod when I did. However, I’ve only got 15GB left. So I thought I would do a post on iPod Classic replacements. To me, the biggest drawback on all of these replacements is that they don’t have iTunes. Music is installed by dragging and dropping it on the device. They don’t support playlist, and I doubt they would move over my ratings and play counts from iTunes. Here’s what I found in looking for devices:

As I said, the two drawbacks of the alternatives are price (the price of the player doesn’t include the SD card storage, making the overall price high), and the lack of a good music manager. You can move the music easy (but note that you’re moving MP3s or AACs, and these machines are designed for non-compressed music and high fidelity).

 

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Saturday News Chum Stew: It’s On The Radio

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=masters-voiceToday’s weekly news chum stew leads off with a few items related to radio and items on the radio…. and goes rapidly downhill from there:

  • Living By The Clock. This is an article from a few weeks ago, but it’s still interesting: On November 18th, NPR changed their news magazine clocks. Now you probably have no idea what this means. The clocks are the second-by-second scheduling of what happens when during the newsmagazines, including newscasts, music beds and funding credits. They also affect when stations can insert their own local content. In announcing the date for implementing the clocks, NPR also said that it will not impose limits on stations’ ability to replace newsmagazine segments with programming from other producers. That proposal had prompted criticism from station programmers, who argued for control over programming choices, and producers, whose programs would be excluded under the rule. This directly relates to the next article: some of those producers are podcast producers, whose segments are often included in NPR news magazines (and thus, it brings them in money).
  • The Podcast Is The In-Thing. If you listen to podcasts (as I do), you know we’re in a new era of podcasts. The “This American Life” podcast has spun off a new #1 podcast, “Serial“. Roman Mars, of 99% Invisible (who was very concerned about the above clock change) used his Kickstarter success to create Radiotopia, and expanded it with this year’s Kickstarter to add new shows. Producer Alex Bloomberg left Planet Money to found a new podcast company, Gimlet Media, and is documenting the process in a new podcast. The Verge has an interesting article on this phenomena: “The New Radio Star: Welcome to the Podcast Age“. Never mind the fact that the “pod” has been discontinued, and no one really “casts” anymore. That’s like saying television is confined to networks over the air.
  • You Can Get Anything You Want. Traditions are funny thing. Who would think a TV show would span a tradition that revolves around a pole? Here’s another one for you: A tradition of listening to a particular song on Thanksgiving, simply because the event described in the song happened on Thanksgiving. This latter one, of course, is referring to Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant”. Here’s an interesting article about Arlo looking back on the song, which turned 50 this year.
  • Shaming and Discrimination is Never Acceptable. The events in Ferguson and in New York have finally started to make people aware about White Privilege, and being aware is the first step to doing something about the problem. But there’s another type of privilege people aren’t talking about: Thin Privilege. Our society is biased towards the thin — all it takes is one airplane ride or sitting at a booth in a restaurant to realize that. Thin Privilege can also be life threatening. Here’s an interesting article that explores that aspect of fat hatred: the particular fact that the auto industry refuses to make large-sized crash dummies, and so crashes are more likely to be fatal to the obese than the thin.
  • Fighting Antisemitism. Here’s an interesting Indiegogo project: Yaakov Kirschen of Dry Bones is fundraising to turn Dry Bones into an antisemitism fighting engine. If you’re not familiar with Dry Bones, look here. I haven’t yet decided if this is an effect tool in the fight, or an attempt by Yaakov to obtain steady funding (after the success of his Dry Bones Haggadah). Still, anything that fights is a good thing.
  • Your Username is Invalid. We’ve all been taught in security that you shouldn’t give away information in the login error message, and so you don’t indicate whether it was the user name or the password is bad. But here’s an article that points out that such care doesn’t buy you anything. It’s an interesting point of view.
  • Should I Upgrade? For years, I’ve been using Paint Shop Pro. I’m currently on the last JASC version, Paint Shop Pro 9. PCWorld has a very interesting review of the current Corel Paint Shop Pro X7,  and I’m debating upgrading. Thoughts?

 

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Is A Puzzlement?

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=recordMy wife recently picked up an Israeli CD at an estate sale. While importing that CD into my iPod, my thoughts turned to a puzzlement from many years ago, where I had another Israeli CD. That time, no amount of searching could find me the artist name, album name, or track information. I tried again tonight, and still no luck. So I’m asking you. Below are scans of the front cover and back cover (click on the images for the full size versions). Can you help me figure out album artist, album name, and the track names so I can import this into my iPod?

Unknown Album Cover

Unknown Album Back

[ETA- 11/24/14:]

For those in the future finding this message, my step-brother-in-law transliterated the song titles for me:

  1. Ve Begin | Because of (Aramaic)
  2. Raza Dae Shabat | The Sabbath secret (Raza is Aramaic)
  3. Techiyat Ha’Metim | Resurrection
  4. Ha’Mehara | The Cave
  5. Berich Shemayah | Prayed to God
  6. Eilat Eilat | (like the southern city)
  7. Adam Holech | A person walks
  8. Zevagim | (No such word in modern Hebrew, probably Aramaic)
  9. Zakif | (It has a  double meaning : 1) stalagmite 2) a guard)
  10. HIlulah | (In free translation as there is no specific word for it in English)
  11. Asher Barah | (That he has created)
  12. Hineni | (Here I am) (public celebration in memory of a saintly rabbi)

The album’s title is “Sod Ha-Echad” (Secret of the One), and the artist is Adam. It is a product of the Kabbalah Center, and appears to have something to do with the Zohar.

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I Come To Mourn a Click-Wheel…

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=ipod…not to praise it. During its revamp of the Apple Store this week, Apple quietly and without ceremony removed the iPod Classic from the line up. There have been wistful reminiscences, but most have just been nostalgia. The belief from much of the world — especially the connected and early adopters — is that one no longer needs to carry all your music in your pocket. Who needs storage when you can have streaming. In my opinion, these folks have “drunken the kool-aide” of the music industry. Here’s why this is deluded thinking:

  • Not every location can stream. You can’t stream music when you’re on an airplane, in a subway, or far away from modern communications. Often, these are the times when you most want your music.
  • Not everyone has unlimited free bandwidth. Streaming often uses limited cellular bandwidth or requires you to pay for wireless (if free wireless is not available, such as on an airplane). This is one reason why the cellular providers don’t want phone manufacturers to put lots of storage on phone and to have bandwidth heavy apps. They make money off you.
  • You don’t physically possess your music. When your music is in the cloud or streamed, you don’t own it — you lease it. The cloud storage provider could delete that music at any time, and you would have no recourse. When you have the music stored on your device you possess it. You can copy it. You can make backups. You can make CDs or cassettes or other physical media. It is yours to edit and play with.

Further, the death of the iPod Classic is a movement away from the single purpose device. Single purpose devices can be devoted to doing one thing very well. Multi-function devices, such as phones, often do multiple things at varying levels. The 128GB of storage on your phone may sound large, but it means your music is competing for space with your photos, text messages, videos, and applications. So why don’t they give you more storage? They would rather you back up your data to the cloud (using bandwidth, possibly using storage you pay for, and making it susceptible to security breeches).

The iPod Classic was a simple device. It played music, video (and a few games). It had a simple interface which was notable less for the click wheel, and more for the fact that you didn’t have to look at it to use it. This made the device usable by the visually impared — something that is not true for smart phones today, which have no tactile feedback

Did the iPod Classic have its problems? Sure. There are those that complained about the hard disk, but the hard disk is suitably reliable if you realize it is a hard disk and treat it carefully. SSD may be more robust to vibrations, but it has more significant wear issues over time. There are iPods from its first introduction that are still being used. How long does your SSD device last?

There is a complaint about sound quality, but that comes from people who want lossless audio. You could store lossless audio on the iPod, but space limitations rapidly hit you. There is the Pono player coming out that encourages lossless, but it has a horrible form factor and doesn’t solve the space problem: you have 64G internal, and up to 128G on an SSD card that you can swap for different libraries.

Apple has written off the true music collector. Had they come up with a simple update to the iPod Classic that moved it to the lightning connector and a 500GB or 1TB drive, they would have had a significant sales bump as all those people currently owning Classics replaced them. They opted not to, because they see their future in streaming and leasing music, not selling music and supporting the listener.

As for me? I truly love having my entire music collection with me at all times. It allows me to listen to all of it — and to all of it I do (I have playlists that help). My iPod is with me on the van in the morning, in the background playing while I work, providing podcasts on the way home, and playing music to put me to sleep. It plays and is used in environments where a phone cannot stream — on the LA Metro underground, on an airplane, and in other isolated locations. As such, I’ve already got a backup iPod Classic 160GB in the shipping stream — I’ll alternate it with my current player, which I play 8-10 hours daily, and which has 34,606 songs (and 34,899 tracks overall). I’ll look into other players if they offer the same storage and can move my iTunes metadata. Of course, I could always just upgrade the drive to 240GB. Once I have a backup, that might be an option. That might just do me for a while…

…a few months, at least  :-).

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A Milestone Crossed

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=ipodThis morning, a milestone was crossed: the 33,000th song was added to my iPod. Although I can’t identify exactly which song that was, I can identify the 33,000th song that moved from the unplayed playlist to the Music playlist: Crazy by Patsy Cline, from the album “The Definitive Collection” (Patsy Cline). What prompted crossing the line was an email this morning announcing a large number of $5 digital albums. I went through the list and identified a number of potential albums (including multiple Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Glen Campbell, and others), but for pocketbook reasons, settled on six:

  • Endless Summer (Beach Boys)
  • When Country Meets Dixie (The Dukes of Dixieland and The Oak Ridge Boys)
  • The Definitive Collection (Patsy Cline)
  • Blonde On Blonde (Bob Dylan)
  • Rock Of The Westies (Elton John)
  • Surrealistic Pillow (Jefferson Airplane)

[What were the “near misses”? 11-17-70 (Elton John); 20 Greatest Hits (Glen Campbell); All The Best (Glen Campbell); At Folsom Prison (Johnny Cash); Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits (Vol. 1) (Bob Dylan); C.W. McCall’s Greatest Hits (C.W. McCall); Heart Like a Wheel (Linda Ronstadt);  Live in Australia (Elton John); Love Has Come for You (Steve Martin); Monterey International Pop Festival;  Greetings from Asbury Park NJ (Bruce Springsteen); Nebraska (Bruce Springsteen);  Best of the Irish Rovers (Irish Rovers)]

I’ve still got a few LPs to record (including some big band, Willie Nelson, and Julie London); once those are in and I get the “5 or fewer plays” playlist back down to zero (0), I’ll devote some more energy to getting the “10 or fewer plays” playlist to somewhere around 29,000 songs before binging on music again. (well, at least that’s what I’m telling myself). Oh, and if you’re curious, I still have 27GB free on the iPod — this is why I love the iPod Classic, and have no desire for a modern iPod or iPhone with significantly less storage. Apple — if you want us iPod Classic folks to move over to the new ecosystem, you need to make an affordable iPod with at least 160GB of storage after accounting for the operating system and a typical app load (i.e., go for 256GB).

Current Music: “Feed Me” – Rock Of The Westies (Elton John)

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To the Surprise of Pundits, the iPod Classic Survives Yet Again

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy1 Comment

userpic=white-ipodYesterday, the great Apple in Cupertino spake, and the good news was… no, not the iPhone 5c… no, not the iPhone 5s… and no, not iOs 7. The good news was the fact that the iPod Classic remained for sale in the Apple Store. You see, shortly before the Apple announcement (and even shortly afterwards) there was story after story after story after story … after story about how Apple would kill the iPod Classic this year. Even the few stories (here and here) that acknowledged its non-death seemed surprised that it was still around, and that people still use it. The assumption seems to be that everyone wants multipurpose phones, that everyone doesn’t care about music storage, and that everyone wants to stream their music.

The iPod Classic does not require an Internet connection to play music. It is ideally suited for the person in environments without such connections (such as government workers in sensitive environments, people in isolated environs). It is also ideally suited for the people in environments without the necessary bandwidth, or who cannot afford the necessary bandwidth. I’d imagine that the iPod Classic does quite well in countries and areas with less developed Internet infrastructures.

The iPod Classic also does well for people who love music. It has the space to be able to store your music in a loss-less format, if that’s what you want… or to store lots and lots and lots of music (I’m coming up on 32,000 songs, and I still have about 60 GB free). The largest capacity of the iOS devices is 64 GB, and that’s quite pricey ($399 for 64 GB, vs. $249 for 160 GB). I, along with many others, enjoy having my full music collection with me at all times.

The iPod Classic, together with the remaining click-wheel device (e.g., the Shuffle) are also the only devices suitable for the visually impaired. The iOS devices not only disenfranchises the poorly connected, they disenfranchise those who require tactile feedback and cannot maneuver a touch screen.

The only drawback for Apple (but not for consumers) is that the iPod Classic is also well-made, and people are still using their devices purchased in 2001. When treated well, these devices last. Of course, Apple does have iTunes to screw up the ecosystem (which is why I’ve stayed at iTunes 10.7, and will not purchase a newer Apple device that forces me to a newer iTunes).

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Read the comments on the Entertainment Weekly post on the subject. People love their iPod Classic, both for its capacity and the fact it is not a streaming device. Streaming, despite what you hear, is not the way of the future.

Perhaps Apple has realized that there is a niche that isn’t always connected, or work in places where continuous connection is not possible. Perhaps Apple has realized that prices on SSD have not yet come down to the point yet where a solid state device (SSD)-based replacement for the iPod with sufficient storage will sell. I’m sure one day the iPod Classic will be replaced by an iPod Touch equivalent with more storage, 256GB SSD minimum, but that hasn’t happened yet. I’m sure there are those that would jump for an iPod Touch or iPhone that had not only enough space for all of their music, but all of their apps. A 1TB SSD iPhone. Wow. But that’s not affordable yet.

So the iPod Classic will continue to do what it has always done. Keep reliably running in the background, doing what it does superbly. Apple will keep it around as long as it is still selling in sufficient numbers to keep it manufactured… or they will manufacture sufficient numbers  to have anticipated supply for 5-10 years, and just quietly sell from that stockpile. As long as they do, I’ll be happy.

When the day comes that Apple finally removes the iPod Classic from the Apple Store, I’ll be sad. I’ll also run right out and purchase a second iPod Classic to replace mine when it goes. Well, unless that 1TB iPhone or iPod Touch is announced.

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iPod Achievement Unlocked

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

userpic=ipodA few minutes ago, another iPod achievement was reached — all of the 31,452 songs on my iPod have been played at least 8 times. That’s over 545 days of continuous music, 24 hours a day. Given that I started with the iPod back in 2008, this has been a long time coming. I’ll note that, all told, I currently have 31,652 “music” tracks on the iPod (that includes standup comedy and bonus interviews), plus a fair number of podcasts.

So what is the most popular music. According to iTunes:

  1. Boom Ditty Boom / 70 Girls 70 (1971 Original Broadway Cast) … 26
  2. In the Same Boat Completed / Curtains (Original Broadway Cast Recording) … 22
  3. Mr. Pinstripe Suit / Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy)… 20
  4. I Wanna Live Each Night / Miss Spectacular – The Concept Album … 20
  5. Ain’t Misbehavin/ Lookin’ Good But Feelin’ Bad/’T Ain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do / Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978 Original Broadway Cast) … 20
  6. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida / In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (Iron Butterfly) … 20
  7. You’ve Got Possibilities (Bonus) / It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman (1966 Original Broadway Cast) … 19
  8. Soap / All-Time Top 100 TV Themes … 19
  9. Run Away! / Monty Python’s Spamalot (2005 Original Broadway Cast) … 18
  10. Now! / The Brain From Planet X … 18
  11. 236-6132 / Drum Hat Buddha (Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer) … 18
  12. Breakdown / I Robot (The Alan Parsons Project) … 17
  13. You Know Your Wrong / Live (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) … 17
  14. The Will-Bent News / The Brain From Planet X … 17
  15. Three-Five-Zero-Zero / Hair (1968 Original Broadway Cast) … 17
  16. The Brain’s Song / The Brain From Planet X … 17
  17. The Plan (Reprise) / The Brain From Planet X … 17
  18. Lullaby of Broadway / 42nd Street (1980 Original Broadway Cast) … 17
  19. Danger Waters / In Concert (Joan Baez) … 17
  20. Totally Fucked / Spring Awakening (2006 Original Broadway Cast) … 17
  21. Pie-in-the-Face Polka / The Great Race: Music from the Film Score … 17
  22. Kittens In The Snow / Radio Gals (1995 Original Cast) … 17
  23. Fork, Knife, Spoon / Dear Edwina (World Premiere Recording) … 17
  24. Shalom Ba-olam / American Jewish Summer (Rick Recht) … 17
  25. The Creation of Man / The Scarlet Pimpernel: The New Musical Adventure (1998 Original Broadway Cast Recording) … 17

Now to rejigger this list to 10 plays, and start over. But first, a while of just being able to listen to the entire catalog again… oh, and I can buy more music! After all, I’ve still got 35.6 GB free!

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