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arn

macrumors god
Original poster
Staff member
Apr 9, 2001
16,362
5,795
For the last minute rumors... RandomAccess posted that an iTunes 3 reference was temporarily revealed on Apple's QT Streaming Server page:

The page promoting the new version may have also leaked the imminent release of a new version of iTunes. "Build a playlist of MP3 files," the page reads, "and serve them to MP3 clients such as iTunes 3..." (Update: as of this writing, the reference to iTune's version number has been removed.)
 

dsamsa

macrumors newbie
Jun 2, 2002
18
0
Fairbanks, Alaska (USA)
I bet with iTunes 3 you can convert your MP3's into MP4's so there smaller, and higher quality. Add a firmware upgrade to your iPod, and a 10GB iPod could be 10,000 songs to go. Am i wrong? This would be good for me, because i only have a crappy iMac 400DV SE with a 13GB HD. And my MP3's take up like 25% of my drive! :eek: MP4's as i've herd are smaller then MP3's with better quality, and better compression. Am i wrong?
 

bobartig

macrumors newbie
Dec 24, 2001
8
0
Middle America!
it's gonna be a pretty good update

From what I've seen and read, iTunes3 really fixes a lot of UI problems that ppl complained about with previous itunes, like:

- improved visualizer playback (I think it's finally HW accelerated, or bypasses quartz), especially while multitasking

- lets user display, position, and search _any_ columns in the main interface window, including a few new catagories I can't remember. Has a smart search and smart filtering that lets you set "favorites" in your library with a point system

- simplifies "reconstructing" playlists and libraries when you remove files from your hdd, and lets you move playlists across machines easily.

- allows importing to ANY directory, along with numbered imports, joined imports (importing several tracks as a single mp3)

I didn't really see anything about MP4/AAC, but its bound to be in there as well, since QT6 has it built in.

Not only is there new itunes tomorrow, but a BIG point update to iPod firmware, v. 1.2, (havn't seen anyone else mention this one), with updates for itunes3 features, along with lots of new date and time features (i.e. clock and calendar) that inches EVEN closer to making the iPod a PDA, although I still don't think apple's releasing one any time soon. I'm HOPING they prove me wrong, and soon! (my PalmV is looking rather long in tooth these days.)
 

theranch

macrumors 6502
Jan 3, 2002
300
0
Atlantic City area
Re: it's gonna be a pretty good update

Originally posted by bobartig
From what I've seen and read, iTunes3 really fixes a lot of UI problems that ppl complained about with previous itunes, like:

- improved visualizer playback (I think it's finally HW accelerated, or bypasses quartz), especially while multitasking

Who even uses the visualizer? I don't see a use for starring at the visualizer on my computer while listening to music.
 

szark

macrumors 68030
May 14, 2002
2,886
0
Arid-Zone-A
I wonder if Quartz Extreme will have enough power to eventually allow the Visualizer to be used as your desktop background...

That would be awesome! :)

(And no, I don't listen to Pink Floyd.)
 

TyleRomeo

macrumors 6502a
Mar 22, 2002
888
0
New York
dear dsamsa,

While AAC files (MP4s to you) are higher in quality and are smaller in comparison to MP3s, they are not backwards compatible (which sucks). So you have re-import your Cds to AAC audio instead of just converting MP3s to AACs.
 

ibookin'

macrumors 65816
Jul 7, 2002
1,164
0
Los Angeles, CA
Originally posted by szark
I wonder if Quartz Extreme will have enough power to eventually allow the Visualizer to be used as your desktop background...
The sad thing is you can actually do this on a PC with Winamp. Pretty cool, but it gets annoying after a while.
 

evilpenguin21

macrumors member
Jul 16, 2002
31
0
Mp3 to Mp4

You can go straight from Mp3 to Mp4, I just did that with quicktime 6 today. Took a 9 mb MP3 down to 5 mb with no noticeable loss. And i'm talking a good MP3. 192 kbs live acustic guitar. I was very impressed.
 

Macette

macrumors 6502
Mar 5, 2002
472
0
Melbourne
Re: Mp3 to Mp4

Originally posted by evilpenguin21
You can go straight from Mp3 to Mp4, I just did that with quicktime 6 today. Took a 9 mb MP3 down to 5 mb with no noticeable loss. And i'm talking a good MP3. 192 kbs live acustic guitar. I was very impressed.

You might be able to convert with no loss, but you don't make any quality GAINS by doing it that way. AAC is capable of much better quality than MP3, and I want to make the most of it. I've set aside a couple of weeks to reimport all my tunes - all 3000 of them...hoping iTunes 3 improves the import speed!
 

szark

macrumors 68030
May 14, 2002
2,886
0
Arid-Zone-A
Originally posted by ibookin'@mwny

The sad thing is you can actually do this on a PC with Winamp. Pretty cool, but it gets annoying after a while.

Didn't know that -- I'll have to play around with it...
 

eyelikeart

Moderator emeritus
Jan 2, 2001
11,897
1
Metairie, LA
Re: visualizer

Originally posted by foofan
People who listen to a lot of old Pink Floyd like the visualizer

he he he....I wouldn't say a lot of it....but it definitely helps out when feeling the need for creative influence...

iTunes 3.0....who would have thought?! ;)
 

madamimadam

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2002
1,281
0
Re: Mp3 to Mp4

Originally posted by evilpenguin21
You can go straight from Mp3 to Mp4, I just did that with quicktime 6 today. Took a 9 mb MP3 down to 5 mb with no noticeable loss. And i'm talking a good MP3. 192 kbs live acustic guitar. I was very impressed.

I think you are neglecting to remember that programs like QT and iTunes do a lot of the work for you. Sure you can convert them in QT but QT, and similarly iTunes, converts the file to another format then into the format you want it in. You see it in iTunes when it says "extracting", I think, and then says converting.
 

madamimadam

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2002
1,281
0
Originally posted by mymemory
All I want in iTunes is to be able to sync the visuals to external audio surces.

Just get the standalone version of G-Force... kicks the iTunes visualiser and works from your audio in source. Of course, this is a problem on OS X.1.x and below due to a lack of Audio In option but would be good under X.2 or 9.x. G-Force also has an iTunes plug-in.
 

Geert

macrumors 6502a
May 28, 2001
513
0
.be
Originally posted by szark
I wonder if Quartz Extreme will have enough power to eventually allow the Visualizer to be used as your desktop background...

That would be awesome! :)

(And no, I don't listen to Pink Floyd.)

I agree, that would be insanely great!
but not just the visualiser, but other stuff as well. perhaps a trailer or ... you name it.
 

barkmonster

macrumors 68020
Dec 3, 2001
2,134
15
Lancashire
I hope it's got a lot of the bad/lack of features sorted out this time !

Here's what's wrong with iTunes right now, it's just my opinion but they're all obvious points only a fool would defend as acceptable compromises because it's a free product :

Example 1 :

Open a streamed playlist on mp3.com. It doesn't open as a seperate playlist, just adds it to the library and doesn't play them in order.

Example 2 :

Add an album to the playlist, not only won't it play them in order but sorting by artist will throw the play order off even more. If you've encoded several albums by an artist, it won't keep them in album order or track order.

I've got over 10Gb of MP3s, all in folders named by artist and album, they have the track numbers in the file name too, nothing plays back in the correct order, absolutely nothing. I've tried adding the folders using the menu and it's just as disorganised as dragging them over the iTunes window.

Example 3 :

Encode some random audio files :

Select one or 2 audio files from a folder, let it encode them, wait for the encode menu item to stop being greyed out so you can encode more. You can't even create a simple playlist to encode multiple files from different sources. Dragging files over the encoding files list while it encodes the ones you've added with the menu isn't as easy as simply creating a playlist and then encoding from it.

General problems / missing features :

No record audio input option, this is a pretty basic feature and it's hardly a way of organising you're music library if you can't transfer from tape/vinyl and other sources easily. Obviously even if you could, the concept of "Organising" by any means in iTunes is laughable to say the least.

larger than necessary and fairly slow interface, 9 point text in the geneva font would be better, you could scroll faster too without the large smoothed typeface in the playlists. (the search field is cool though)

What they need to enhance in iTunes :

Sort out that damn interface, at least add the option of changing the font playlists use.

Add mp4 support now QT6 is out.

Add a "create new playlist for new files" option like soundjam had so that streamed playlists don't infest you're library playlist.

Play files back in the correct order, it's a joke right now, sorting by any field related to title or artist is hopeless, We need a "keep album tracks together" option aswell.

It's just soundjam with a lot of it's ease of use and organisation features stripped out and given a crappy brushed metal cranky interface, iTunes compared with soundjam is like Sherlock compared with Sherlock 2, with all the extras in the world it still isn't as good because of the awful interface.

For a freebee it's okay, as it's the only option now Soundjam is dead it needs a lot of work before it's totally useful.

On the subject of Mp4...

by my ears, a 128Kbps Mp4 is easily on a par with a 192 or 256Kbps mp3, better even. If you try encoding any lower than 128, it drops to 32Khz, this makes perfect sense to me but i'd love it if they're implementation of mp4 in iTunes allows you to choose the Khz instead of choosing it for you like quicktime does. It slightly lowers the quality of the audio while lowering the lossy effect of the compression, 32Khz makes a lot of sense for lower bandwidth files anyway, infact for low bandwidth streamed media it's perfect.
 

peterjhill

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2002
1,095
0
Seattle, WA
For those who can not understand why converting an MP3 to AAC makes no sense, here is a good analogy (that i just came up with).

Compare music to photos.

A JPEG is better than a GIF, but if you take a GIF, no matter what you do, when you convert it to JPEG, you will have a picture that is worse than if you took an original TIFF and converted it to JPEG.

Once the data is lost (MP3 is lossful compression) it is gone forever.

So yes, you will need to re-rip all of CDs again. Or else try to find .aac files in your P2P programs.

Me (not that you asked), I will wait until Jaguar is released, back up my data, and reinstall everything from scratch. I will also throw CLASSIC out the window. I use VPC more than Classic.
 

Edge100

macrumors 68000
May 14, 2002
1,562
13
Where am I???
Here's a question:

Will iTunes 3 be useable even if you dont have QT 6 installed? I am reluctant to install QT 6 because it breaks Divx playback, even when using VideoLan. I'm not really willing to sacrifice Divx playback for AAC audio, the latter of which isnt widely available yet (in terms of files available for dl).
 

eyelikeart

Moderator emeritus
Jan 2, 2001
11,897
1
Metairie, LA
5 star ratings...
playcount lists...
same volume playing...
audible.com support...
smart playlists...

the smart playlists is probably the coolest part of it...

he he he...I can't wait to get my hands on this one!! :D
 
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