Rush my money to the record shops

[venta]

I'm at work, I've fortified myself with my morning dose of tea and toast-and-evil, and I still don't quite feel like taking on the kernel locking primitives which are waiting for me.

So instead, I think I'll wax gently wrathful about iTunes.

Those of you who follow the minutae of my life (a) should get out more, and (b) will be aware that I recently downloaded iTunes just to get hold of their exclusive Pixies' single. (Incidentally, apologies to those I to whom I offered an mp3, the continued delay is because bastard Evesham still haven't given my laptop back.)

Although iTunes does offer itself as an all-in-one music solution, I decided I'd prefer to continue using Winamp as my main music player. iTunes' format is proprietory, so I can only listen to Bam Thwok with iTunes, but that was pretty much the only thing I intended to use it for. I played around briefly with it, failed to be able to work out how to generate a playlist, and shut it down.

I'd unset all the "make this my default player" options, but it still started up every time I put a CD in the drive. I closed it every time. One time I failed to close it swiftly, and as I watched, my open directory of mp3s all changed icons. Away went the little orange zigzags of Winamp, and in came the blobby green notes of iTunes.

A quick glance through file associations confirmed it - all my audio format did indeed belong to iTunes. I've got them all back now to where I want them, but it took a while. iTunes was very much in disgrace.

But I thought its online music-purchasing aspects deserved a fair chance. Unfortunately it didn't do what I'd hoped - the music it offers for sale is mostly the mainstream things you could find in any record shop anyway, not the obscure stuff which I'd have thought it would make sense to offer. After all, deleted albums which are now unavailable should be cheap to offer, and people would want them. Fair enough, I suppose, but it was disappointing. As it was to discover that with a popular album, the "known" single is often only available as part of the album, not as an individual download.

Now, every Tuesday iTunes mails me to tell me about their newly available stuff, and to let me know what the free-to-download single of the week is. Two weeks ago, the free-to-download single didn't actually exist when I searched iTunes for it. Last week, clicking on the link from the mail displayed me a crashed page of XML. When I tried later, I got a popup saying the store was unavailable.

This week's mail listed a Barenaked Ladies album among their new releases. Now, a new Barenaked Ladies album is the sort of thing that one could get quite excited about on a Tuesday morning, so I followed the link - only to be told the album wasn't available in the UK store, and they had no details.

So. I am in all ways officially unimpressed. I dunno where the online music revolution is, kids, but it's not hanging around at iTunes.

And now - I realise as I come to fill in the 'current music' field that I'm not listening to anything. So I hunt out a suitable morning album, and discover that once again all my .m3u playlist files are displaying the iTunes icon. Bastards. Fortunately, the Winamp context menus seem stronger, and I'm still offered the 'play in Winamp' option. So I am doing.

And by the way, don't put St Ivel Gold low-fat edition on your toast. Work usually provides us with some form of butter-substitute-for-the-gullible, but this week we have St Ivel. It's an odd texture, and it doesn't melt properly, and it sits on your toast and mixes up with whatever else you're trying to spread on it in quite an unpleasant way. Bah.

Comments

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks. I had a hungering for an iPod while on holiday (a sudden desire to listen to Led Zeppelin) but a less-than-glowing technical review of iTunes helps soothe that itch ;-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

For comparison, you should talk to zandev - he uses it as Mac intended us to use it, as an all-in-one solution and seems reasonably impressed with it.

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I also want to keep my winamp playlists (Unless you can run Geiss from iTunes?) and portable MP3 collection for other devices - and I really hate obnoxious bullying software that mucks about with things...

WinAmp is your friend

[wimble.livejournal.com]

My Winamp (5.03c) has a couple of useful options under "Preferences" -> "File Types".

Restore File Associations at start up. This'll do the same thing that iTunes is doing to reset all the associations, but back the way you want :-) (I imagine iTunes has a similar setting, somewhere, and you really want to clear it!)

And "Winamp Agent". Normally, I disagree with running agents, as I don't believe they really do useful things. But this one says:

Winamp Agent can maintain your Winamp file associations and show an icon in the system tray.
Disabling this feature may result in other applications launching when you open media files from Windows Explorer.

I, personally wouldn't run it. But then I don't have a too cooperative iTunes.

Re: WinAmp is your friend

[venta.livejournal.com]

Restore File Associations at start up

You think I don't already have this set ?

That's why iTunes annoyed me so much :(

I'll try running the agent, and see if it helps. Out of interest, is there any reason you say you wouldn't run it, beyond "I don't need to" ?

Re: WinAmp is your friend

[wimble.livejournal.com]

It takes memory and CPU cycles :)

At least it's an improvement over the RealAgent "agent", which, as far as I can tell is the majority of RealPlayer masquerading as a small, innocuous system tray icon. With associated spyware facilities.

[diffrentcolours]

iTunes' format is proprietory

And that's why I won't use it. I can just about tolerate MP3, though I find Ogg Vorbis to be technically and legally preferable, but iTunes means I have to jump through hoops to do perfectly reasonable things with music, like play it on a Linux box or a non-iPod portable player, or burn it to CD. I've heard many tales of woe from Mac-otaku about how the DRM has caused them to lose access to hundreds of dollars worth of music, and I don't think that's a risk I want to take.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'd agree - I was only suckered in by a song which was unavailable elswhere, and because I thought something like iTunes had a potential to be a good thing.

Once I get my laptop back, I think I'll be burning Bam Thwok to a CD (alledgedly simple from iTunes), and uninstalling the whole lot.

[diffrentcolours]

I might have to obtain a copy of Bam Thwok from a convenient p2p network. It might be illegal, but it seems to be my only recourse.

[zandev.livejournal.com]

I should clarify that the iTunes format for the music isn't particularly proprietory in that AAC is an mpeg standard. iTunes will also quite happily rip to various other formats including MP3.

However, the DRM system wrapping this (used by the iTunes Music Store, not by tracks ripped with iTunes directly) is indeed proprietory. It's also extremely restrictive.

I'm generally very happy with iTunes as a music player. However, I've not bought anything from the Music Store, and I'm unlikely to in the future. It just isn't competitive with just buying the CD, particularly as HMV and Virgin keep having sales.

[diffrentcolours]

True, I should have specified the iTunes Music Store format, rather than the iTunes Media Player format. Out of interest, will iTunes rip to Ogg?

I'm told that mplayer on Linux will play non-DRM'd AAC files, at least. Doubt we'll see iTunes for Linux any time soon...

[venta.livejournal.com]

.m3u playlist files are displaying the iTunes icon

They still are :(

According to the "file types" dialog (I'm running Win2K), .m3u is a "Winamp Playlist File", to be opened with Winamp. According to Winamp's options, it owns .m3u files, and has the icon set as a grey and black version of the Winamp zigzag.

If I right-click on the icon, I get the Winamp context-sensitive menu. If I double click on it, it opens in Winamp.

So why the bloody hell is it displaying the iTunes icon ? Eh ?

[wimble.livejournal.com]

F5? To refresh the display?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm not a muppet[*]. I tried that.

Also Ctrl=F5 in case it helped. Also closing the directory and opening it again, closing Winamp and starting it again. Changing the icon in Winamp and changing it back. Cursing. Spitting. Threatening. Glowering.


[*] Mostly.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

> I'd unset all the "make this my default player" options ...

I really want to like Apple but this kind of thing just isn't on. Their **** QuickTime thing does it as well; consequently I won't let it anywhere near my PC.

Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[condign.livejournal.com]

Sony's finally brought out a new answer to the Ipod, the Walkman NW-HD1. Unlike the VAIO version (why Sony made both is beyond me), it's sleek, small, has great user controls, and apparently outstanding battery life. And it doesn't look like a baby-toy Mac.

Downside? It uses Sony's proprietary format, ATRAC. Supposedly sounds better, and it sure did to me in a side-by-side comparison. But you have to convert your entire media library to ATRAC, which then lives on your hard drive, and according to the techies I know over here doubles the hard drive space you use for music. Oh, and downloading copyrighted music from Sony's miserable music store will only play using their player.

I'm sure someone at Sony will get a swift kick and the NW-HD2 will play MP3s, but this first version--if you're tempted, don't.

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Well, it does look pretty.

I wouldn't have thought there was really space in the market for machine that was so limited, though... guess I'll wait and see :)

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

A decent MP3 player is about the only piece of tech I'm craving at the moment. I want one that has a big ol' chunk of space on it though, so I don't have to keep uploading and changing playlists and tracks.

There's a few about, but most of the time I read reviews they tend to be along the lines of: "It's great apart from X".

Has anyone got a hoofing big MP3 player than doesn't require proprietary formats, or obscure operating systems, or the blood of a chicken sacrificed at midnight on under a full moon?

In essence, has anyone got such an MP3 player for which they'd give the review: "It's great"?

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[wimble.livejournal.com]

For big, I had my eye on a Creative Zen, since you can get them upto 60Gig, and I was mainly wanting one I could put my entire collection on. I *believe* it's the largest you can get, although Archos might prove me wrong.

In the end, because I wanted something I could use in the car, I got a Dension. Which is, in essence, a normal 80 gig hard drive, with a very small circuit board. And I can swap in another drive if I want to (which is good, 'cos my mp3 collection is 64 Gig at the moment). Its downside is that it is not battery powered. Either the mains, or hooking into the car's electrics are required (obviously, in a car, this isn't too bad...)

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[edling.livejournal.com]

Think I can do that: I got a Creative Zen at Christmas, and it's lovely. Battery life is good (I think it's quoted as up to 18 hours), sound quality is also good (well it is made by people that specialise in that sort of thing). It plays common-or-garden mp3s, and the ripping software that comes with it works well.
Not sure about playlists and such- I tend to either listen to albums, or just let it browse round my entire collection at random (and hit the forward button if it comes up with something I don't like), but I assume they work.
It's also got a couple of fun features, such as the ability to change the speed tracks play at without messing up the pitch (the Creaming Jesus version of 'A Forest' at 150% speed is mighty fun...), and it's got disk space for an awful lot of stuff (mine's currently got ~4000 tracks on it, backups of my Zim collection and a fair chunk of season 3 of 24, and a few other bits and bobs, and it's still less than half full).
For in-car use (on the rare occasions I drive a car), I got one of those tape deck converter widgets, so when driving anywhere I can just hook it up and not worry about anything for the rest of the journey.
Searching really hard, the only things I can think of that make it slightly less than perfect are 1) The driver software isn't Microsoft certified, so XP whines when you install it. Seems to work perfectly though, and 2) Windows can't talk to it directly as a removeable hard drive, so you can't just plug it into any computer and grep stuff off it. The software does come with an explorer type app that you can use though, so that's only a problem if you need to plug it into any computer without putting the driver software on.
All in all, I'd deeply recommend it. Some might say it's not as cute as an IPod, but I actually quite like its look (it matches my Palm Pilot case), and you can laugh at them for getting something that costs more and doesn't sound as good...

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

My MP3 player isn't as good as great, but it's close to meeting my requirements.

I have an Archos 20GB Jukebox, which is 2 1/2 years old and died on me a couple of weeks ago. The problem with Archos is that their build quality sucks - my previous 6GB Jukebox died after a year, so I got a refund and spent about the same amount of money on the 20. In both cases "dead" means "won't switch on no matter what you do".

However, I very cleverly bought a 3 year warranty on the second one. So once I get round to taking it in either it'll be fixed (unlikely, I reckon), or I'll get my money back (in which case I've had 3 1/2 years free use of an mp3 player), or else they'll replace it (possibly with this, which is the updated model currently running at 150 quid (i.e. significantly cheaper than an iPod or Creative player of the same capacity).

So I think I'd recommend the Gmini, with the reservation that you may have to be a bit patient with it at times (both my Jukeboxes occasionally had mornings when they had difficulty getting out of bed), and that you really want to buy it from somewhere that'll do you an extended warranty, because you could well need it. The other downside is that it's a bit chunky, because it's basically a laptop hard disk in a box with a screen stuck on the front.

The upside, though, is that it's a USB 2.0 storage device that can browse music files and playlists fairly happily. It plays MP3, WMA and WAV. Mine supports M3U playlists, which is really useful to me, and personally I'd want to check before getting a replacement that the new one does too. It's a reasonably open platform, and I've seen (but never tried) a number of different amateur firmware versions. It doesn't do the exciting iPod thing of listing all your music by artist, but then that seems to me to be a dumb way to list a large music collection anyway.

Archos do various more exciting models that record sound, play videos, etc. They're about to release an all-singing thing that has some kind of TV-in so that it can record video, with a 100GB hard drive. That should be enough for most music collections, but will cost lots.

Re: Oooh, wow, you guys won't like the new Ipod Killer, then

[lambertbehnke.livejournal.com]

why Sony made both is beyond me

The viao is the laptop people's attempt, the NW-HD1 is the portable CD player people's attempt. I think they are competing businesses under the sony umbrella or something like that.

[condign.livejournal.com]

Incidentally: anyone know how to get music downloaded through MusicMatch to play on a Pocket PC 2003 PDA? I keep getting an error every time WMP (which plays them just fine) tries to copy them over.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

The 'auto copy' facility provided by WMP is just creating .wma files really. As such, you could always try creating a suitable .wma file yourself on your PC and copying it to the target location manually.

(Aside: This is why I don't like "closed box" apps such as Apple and Microsoft favour - if something goes wrong, you're screwed.)

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. iTunes - as a default Mac application - is just what I need for storing and playing and burning MP3s. The iTunes Music Store is b0rken in exactly the ways which matter to me, and some more you've listed above.

It's *good* to have reasons not to spend hundreds of pounds on an iPod and tunes (-: