iPod Info

**Bullseye** · 05-10-2006, 04:54 PM

OKay I've owned an Archos MP3 player in the past but am looking to invest in one of these iPods. Whats the best version available?

I'd like MPEG playback if possible.

**Vince-Vell** · 05-10-2006, 05:30 PM

I only used macs my whole life and have like 3 ipods.

Get the $299 30gig 7,500 songs one. it will play ipod movies/videos, has loads of room, much better design then my 3rd generation one. unless you have over 7,500 songs and want a lot of mpegs then you better get the $399 15,000 60gig one.

If you think of going cheaper get a nano, but i dont like them cause they are way to small and not enough room for songs.

They are all color screen now, which is pretty friggin kewl. As for the mpeg all thr new ones with color screen can play it. Download itunes (its free) and with a ipod you are golden with importing, organizing songs and mpegs.

Only thing about the ipods is 3rd party products. there is so many out there, take the time to search and review the best possible products to buy. There is some crapy items out there i wouldnt use for my ipod.

heres a site to check out on rumors and info.

http://www.macrumors.com/

Zurbaran1 · 05-10-2006, 05:52 PM

iPod is the way to go. We've got something like 6 different versions in the house and I love my iPods. I've got close to 7,000 songs on my main one and I will probably upgrade to the 60gb Video iPod sometime in the near future. Definitely download iTunes like VV says. It's great.

**Bullseye** · 05-10-2006, 06:04 PM

Cheers guys. I'm thinking along the lines of the 60gig version.

**Bullseye** · 05-10-2006, 06:09 PM

Guys read this review on amazon. Can any of you'es chime in on this?

1. Hard to use with more than one computer
2. Tedious and deficient computer interface to manage the iPod
3. Unreliable song playback
4. Ineffective Apple Technical Support

.... READ ON FOR ELABORATION OF THESE POINTS
-----------------------------------------------

1. If you have to reinstall iTunes onto your computer, you'll have to completely format the iPod device and reload it, for my 60GB which has 40GB of music (two thirds full) it takes approximately 6 hours to reload the songs.

2. iTunes is the only interface to manage the songs on your iPod and iTunes can't be used to manage the song file. In other words, if you want to move the song file on your hard drive, you can do so but then you have to find the listing in iTunes and point the song listing to the files new location. Windows Media Player has the capability to refresh its database... ITUNES HAS NO SONG OR SONG DATABASE RELOCATION FUNCTION, so if you ever have to manage the location of song files with iTunes you have to redirect the index entry to every file. If you move a whole directory, plan on spending some time inside iTunes.

3. Some songs on the iPod just stop playing at the same point every time, they play fine on the PC with iTunes or Media Player or any other music player, but they always stop on the iPod at the same spot and skips to the next song, no matter how many times I rip the song again, no matter how many formats. (two songs so far are Moby God moving over the face of the water and New Dawn Fades from his I Like to Score CD.

4. Apple Technical support is about as helpful as hemmorhoids, they're friendly and will sit there and listen to your problem, just to say "I understand" then tell you to reset your iPod back to factory settings (essentially a format and reinstall) and you get to.... reload the songs again.

In short, Apple is behaving as they did in the 80's and early 90's by assuming because they have the market share, their design must be perfect. Similar to how they lost the desktop to Micro$oft, they're going to lose the portable music player market unless they fix some basic issues.

Which is too bad, because it would be nice to Apple hold some aspect of the consumer electronics space instead of losing it to Micro$oft (again).

occulum · 05-10-2006, 07:00 PM

blah.
-never had any trouble with using more than one computer.
-if you want to rearrange your songs onyour hard drive then why would you do it outside of iTunes? he created his own problem.
-never had any song stop playback on any of the iPods Ive owned.
-the free Apple CS does somewhat suck from what Ive heard, but the paid for Apple Care is much better.

get an iPod ... or wish you had later.

**Bullseye** · 05-10-2006, 07:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by occulum

blah.
-never had any trouble with using more than one computer.
-if you want to rearrange your songs onyour hard drive then why would you do it outside of iTunes? he created his own problem.
-never had any song stop playback on any of the iPods Ive owned.
-the free Apple CS does somewhat suck from what Ive heard, but the paid for Apple Care is much better.

get an iPod ... or wish you had later.

Cheers occ. I think i will.

**Vince-Vell** · 05-10-2006, 08:09 PM

I never had any probs with my ipod except the battery, but its a older one thats not a color screen. So i replaced the battery and i never leave the house without it.

Virsago · 05-10-2006, 08:16 PM

Bulls, when you get an ipod, get this too.
Videora ipod converter
It makes converting all types of video files for the ipod super easy.

Zurbaran1 · 05-10-2006, 08:31 PM

I've never had any problems with my iPods or iTunes. If you do get iTunes and download music from their music store you had better backup everything you buy to a CD. A couple of years ago my computer died and took iTunes with it. If this happens and you haven't back up your purchased music you could be SOL. Apple wil not help you. This is a way to download everything from your iPod to your iTunes library on a new computer but, you have to be careful. If you unknowingly plug in a fully loaded iPod into a bare iTunes installation you can kiss everything good-bye.