Should I Totally Dump iTunes??

[Sheperd Jim]

Okay, I've had it with iTunes. For the umpteenth time I have triplicate song and book title listings and will have to spend the weekend finding and deleting duplicates -- not to mention getting rid of all the "missing" ("!") entries.

I'm pretty sure that Winamp will not have any trouble pulling in all the music I've created by ripping my CD's and cassettes. But, what about the music I've purchased from iTunes and Amazon, my Audible library and my podcasts -- they're all FREE but iTunes has done a fairly impressive job of keeping just the 5 most recent episodes available to me on my Nano.

Is there some where (a "guide"?) that will tell me the best way to move away from iTunes and into Winamp? ...where the dangers are ...maybe I continue managing podcasts in iTunes?

Help!

[pejay]

tunes from i tunes wont play properly on winamp unless recoded, but this is not your answer but i tried.

[Sheperd Jim]

Hi pejay!

Thanks for the info --

I know iTunes will show me all the music I've purchased from the iStore.

Does anyone have suggestions about the best method for "recoding" those tracks?

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by Sheperd Jim

Does anyone have suggestions about the best method for "recoding" those tracks?

Open the iTunes folder in Windows Explorer and search for *.m4p tracks. See how many you have as these are the only ones that will need conversion.

[Batter Pudding]

Simple. Install Winamp. Point it at your iTunes folder. Then look at the results.

Winamp will also handle your podcasts - but not the ones coming from the iTunes store.

All the actual music and podcasts are sitting in your iTunes folder. And Winamp can work with them in the same way as any other music program. Most of your music will NOT need converting.

Where the problem comes are with those few "copyright" tracks with DMA in them. Anything that has a filename that ends with ".m4p" is a "protected" file and needs converting. Everything else will just work. M4A, MP3, etc.

Ah - almost forgot. Do you have any ALAC files? This is iTunes own version of FLAC - Lossless codec. These need to be converted as well.


You cannot do any harm by pointing Winamp at the iTunes folder and looking. Try it, and see what you can and cannot see. Then come back here with your list of issues.

[Sheperd Jim]

Originally Posted by Batter Pudding

....<snip>...
You cannot do any harm by pointing Winamp at the iTunes folder and looking. Try it, and see what you can and cannot see. Then come back here with your list of issues.

Thanks Batter Pudding -- I have installed Winamp and had it import my iTunes Library. I can see everything (tho, I have not checked yet if I am, in fact, seeing everything) -- podcasts and Audible audiobooks are mixed amongst with the genres podcast and audiobook.

I'll have to do some scouting around to determine what issues I may have.

[Batter Pudding]

Check the track count in the two programs, that will give you a quick guide. (Yes, you could run them both at the same time)

And if you check my post above, just use the PC OS Search Tools and you will know if anything needs converting. Normal iTunes tracks are *.m4a or *.mp3 files. When you buy them from the store they are *.m4p only if they are old fashioned DRM tracks.

iTunes is pretty limited to the number of different audio types supported, whereas Winamp deals with just about everything you'd ever need.

[Batter Pudding]

Originally Posted by Sheperd Jim

Okay, I've had it with iTunes. For the umpteenth time I have triplicate song and book title listings and will have to spend the weekend finding and deleting duplicates -- not to mention getting rid of all the "missing" ("!") entries.

Just a quick FYI... iTunes gets confused when you rename folders and move tracks which is why it keeps loosing track of where the files were and added duplicate entries.

Always confused me that when working on a client PC. Why is there not a simple option to remove the missing files?

Winamp has it built into that Media Library button.... "Remove Missing Files from Library..." cleans up the database to only listing files that really exist.

[MrSinatra]

Should I Totally Dump iTunes??

yes.

[Batter Pudding]

yes.

Depends... are you a slave to the Apple Machine? You may be stuck with it.

1\ If you want to use the iTunes store, then you have to use the iTunes software. But that is not too bad as you can buy the track using iTunes, download it, then close iTunes and rescan with Winamp to pickup the new tracks.

2\ iDevices are often annoyingly locked to their mother program. A bit like the borg. The newer (gen4,5,6) iPods only sync via iTunes. Similar with the iPhone - to get the most from that bit of kit iTunes is required.

But even in those two cases, you can still keep iTunes dormant in the background, only being called into play when required by an iDevice or an iPurchase. And use Winamp for all your playback of music.

[Batter Pudding]

Double posted... and I can't find the delete button after all these years on this forum...