A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match

[stovetop6872]

Is there a way to use the metadata from iTunes store?

I'm also wondering this! This is why I signed up for iTunes match!

 

[gnasher729]

I'm going to my dad's house in December. Will I be able to access all of the music I just matched in iCloud on his personal computer (assuming I sign into my Apple ID).

Wouldn't that, in theory, give my dad access to all of my music in my library? Couldn't you just download the music to his computer and call it a day? What's to stop Apple from rampant piracy at this point? Is there something I'm missing? Since the music is DRM free, I don't see how Apple is protecting themselves from someone taking their library and loading it onto many other computers of people they know....

You do have a Time Machine backup, I hope. So what if you took your Time Machine backup with you?

I would honestly want to know what the trade off is for Apple with the music companies that would allow them to pull off something like this?

Perhaps I'm being paranoid but the music business has always been about greed I have a hard time believing that $25/yr was a great justification for the music industry to allow this.

They get $25 a year that otherwise they wouldn't have got, and they don't need to do anything for that money except signing a contract and taking a cheque from Apple every month or so. It's a good deal for them.

Man, I would caution against doing this, at least not with a lot of inspection first. People are having all sorts of match problems - different versions of songs, "clean" vs. "explicit" showing up, Beatles Mono box set being "matched" as Stereo, etc. You could screw up your library pretty well. At least make sure you have a separate backup, or maybe just do this an album at a time as you think of them, once you've check that all is good...

A good opportunity to listen to all your music! Might take you ages, but worth it!

 

[Katsu]

Greetings all, Noob here. How do you transfer/sync non-eligible songs and playlists to your devices when iTunes Match is on? Or can you?

Secondly iTunes will not let me manually download non-iCloud songs to my iPhone anymore? Please help.

 

[D.T.]

A good opportunity to listen to all your music! Might take you ages, but worth it!

I've probably listened to more music in the last 24-48 hours than I have the previous few months!

Since my iTunes is just a "front end" library/manager, even when I delete from my iTunes to replace with iC/iTM versions, I retain my old MP3s, so I've done a few comparison tests. Getting outstanding results from some of my really old ripped music (that used poor CODECs and was done to get the smallest file size possible).

 

[Kendo]

Is there a way to not keep the meta-data?

I've been burning my CD's for years since the iPod mini days so obviously older tracks are in 128kbps while newer tracks I ripped at 160kbps and the newest at 256kbps. I believe the meta-data would be different as well.

I want everything uniform in terms of file names and 256kbps so is there a way to keep the meta-data to default iTunes Store settings?

 

[geg]

Is there a way to not keep the meta-data?

I've been burning my CD's for years since the iPod mini days so obviously older tracks are in 128kbps while newer tracks I ripped at 160kbps and the newest at 256kbps. I believe the meta-data would be different as well.

I want everything uniform in terms of file names and 256kbps so is there a way to keep the meta-data to default iTunes Store settings?

I think the idea is that you're backing up your own music, not buying new stuff from iTunes, so you keep the data you had. Which I for one am thankful for, because I've edited data over the years to make things easier to organize, add notations, etc. If you want more standard data than you already have there are a number of programs that will sort through your iTunes library and clean things up...that's probably your best bet at the moment.

 

[Tinmania]

Is there a way to not keep the meta-data?

I've been burning my CD's for years since the iPod mini days so obviously older tracks are in 128kbps while newer tracks I ripped at 160kbps and the newest at 256kbps. I believe the meta-data would be different as well.

I want everything uniform in terms of file names and 256kbps so is there a way to keep the meta-data to default iTunes Store settings?

There is no way to do this other than album art (and even that doesn't work with all matched tracks).

I originally hoped we could use the iTunes store metadata but I see now that is definitely not the case. Would be nice to have that as an option, but right now no such luck. Looks like TuneUp or something similar is still needed.


Michael

 

[alecp763]

Is there a way to not keep the meta-data?

I've been burning my CD's for years since the iPod mini days so obviously older tracks are in 128kbps while newer tracks I ripped at 160kbps and the newest at 256kbps. I believe the meta-data would be different as well.

I want everything uniform in terms of file names and 256kbps so is there a way to keep the meta-data to default iTunes Store settings?

In my experience and from what I've read, iTunes Match doesn't touch your meta-data. If you edited something, uploaded it to Match, delete it locally, and redownload it, it should be just as it was before.

Try it with one song or one album and see what you find!

 

[apesmu]

PowerBook G4 w/ iTunes Match

hi all,

first post here on the forums. lots of great information and discussion!

(perhaps a) newbie question. i'm using a PowerBook G4 (17") and have been trying to load iTunes Match.

in the morning i boot up iTunes Match and it gets to about half way through Step 1.

i have to leave for work, and leave my PowerBook running (all sleep modes, etc., off).

i've done this for the past 2 days, and every time i get home it says iTunes "unexpectedly quit".

now, i've tried reading through the threads to see if anyone else can run iTunes Match on a PowerBook, and i think i saw some threads where it's possible.

any suggestions? has anyone else had any luck with a PowerBook G4?

thanx all!

 

[alecp763]

Play Counts Don't Sync

I don't mean to be that guy that double-posts, but I would really appreciate a second opinion on this...

I've got my entire library stored on my Macbook, and it's all either uploaded or matched to iTunes Match. I have an iPhone 4, an iPad 2, and an Apple TV 2 all reading from the Match library. I can access and play all of my music just fine on all of my devices. (which is awesome!)

Unfortunately, I've ran into an error. Play counts don't seem to sync back and forth between devices. I downloaded a new album to iTunes, put it on iCloud, downloaded it on my iPhone and iPad, and played it. I also streamed it to my aTV. Then I went back to iTunes and checked the play counts, and they still said 0. So I plugged my phone in and did a manual sync, and still nothing.

Is anyone else seeing this? Could you try it out - play a song and then check iTunes and see if the play count updates? Any opinions or advise would be greatly appreciated! It may not seem like a big deal, but I have a few playlists that rely on play counts. Thank you so much!

 

[78-bit]

What's the deal with some tracks not matching despite having accurate metadata and iTunes store availability?

I've even got a few albums with one or two songs, out of, say, ten, not matching.

Anyone found a solution?

 

[quickmac]

Decided to bite the bullet and try it out.

I own multiple Macbook Pros and an iPod Classic. So for me the whole allure to iTunes Match right now is the ability to "upgrade" about 80% of music collection to 256kbps AAC.

I don't consider myself a hardcore audiophile but as I've collected more music I've tended to look for downloads of higher audio quality, but a huge chunk of my collection is old, pulled from CDs and other formats as far back as 10-15 years ago and I discovered out of the 80% of the under 256 quality, about 70% overall are between 97kbps and 255kbps eligible for iTunes Match upgrades.


If it works decently, I'm willing to pay for this quality increase. I have no use for the iCloud syncing/streaming but maybe one day I will.

About halfway through Step 1 now.


And to those who have alluded to possible pirated music later being labeled and traced back to users keep the following in mind:

Apple somehow convinced the major labels to do this whole deal, apparently paid them a huge advance to do so and is sharing profits with them.

And technically wherever the music came from could still be hard to prove, and nearly all pirates in court cases were over the person sharing files over P2P networks, uploading not downloading.

So I'm taking off my tin foil hat for now.

 

[geg]

"Waiting" even after Match is complete?

Now I've got a bunch of songs that are still in "waiting" status even though Match says it's complete. Anyone come across this? Any solutions?

 

[hexonxonx]

Now I've got a bunch of songs that are still in "waiting" status even though Match says it's complete. Anyone come across this? Any solutions?

I believe it's waiting for you to upload your copies of those songs to the cloud.

 

[geg]

I believe it's waiting for you to upload your copies of those songs to the cloud.

Well, this is AFTER Match comes up with the message saying it's complete and asking me to click the "done" button. And there's no message in the status bar about any activity. It's weird...yet another bug, I guess?

 

[geg]

mismatches again

Just noticed iTunes "matched" the JSP versions of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives/Sevens with the Columbia versions...different mastering, sometimes even different takes. It uploaded a few but mostly matched, except it's not a match! I'm really wanting to like this but unless they open it up to allow us to occasionally force an upload, I dunno...the idea that we just CAN'T LISTEN to some of our music on our devices kind of defeats the whole idea of this! At least if I'm synching, even if everything doesn't fit, what does fit is actually what I intend it to be. I may end up turning match off on my iPhone and just using it for the year on my computer to upgrade a few albums...

 

[apesmu]

hi all,

first post here on the forums. lots of great information and discussion!

(perhaps a) newbie question. i'm using a PowerBook G4 (17") and have been trying to load iTunes Match.

in the morning i boot up iTunes Match and it gets to about half way through Step 1.

i have to leave for work, and leave my PowerBook running (all sleep modes, etc., off).

i've done this for the past 2 days, and every time i get home it says iTunes "unexpectedly quit".

now, i've tried reading through the threads to see if anyone else can run iTunes Match on a PowerBook, and i think i saw some threads where it's possible.

any suggestions? has anyone else had any luck with a PowerBook G4?

thanx all!

well, i've just checked my iPhone 4 here at work, and it seems that some songs have been uploaded, but only very, very few, (maybe less than 100) and i have about 20,000 songs - oh, and no complete albums have been uploaded (at the most 4 or 5 songs from 1 album).

i'm happy that at least there are some things there - i'll have to check my PowerBook when i get back home, and see if there are any new messages awaiting me.

so, at least this proves that those of us with older Macs can still upload (some) songs.

anyone else have a similar experience?

thanx all!

 

[milo]

Just noticed iTunes "matched" the JSP versions of Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives/Sevens with the Columbia versions...different mastering, sometimes even different takes. It uploaded a few but mostly matched, except it's not a match! I'm really wanting to like this but unless they open it up to allow us to occasionally force an upload, I dunno...the idea that we just CAN'T LISTEN to some of our music on our devices kind of defeats the whole idea of this! At least if I'm synching, even if everything doesn't fit, what does fit is actually what I intend it to be. I may end up turning match off on my iPhone and just using it for the year on my computer to upgrade a few albums...

Yep, wrong versions with no way to fix it is a big problem that needs fixing.

They should add a feature to iTunes to force upload of a file, and include an option to send a message to Apple that it's a wrong match to help them try and fix their matching software.

 

[vrDrew]

What's the deal with some tracks not matching despite having accurate metadata and iTunes store availability??

That is the weirdest thing I've noticed too. A store-bought CD you ripped, often of a quite prominent band, and it matches 9 out of ten tracks and makes you upload the tenth. Examples:

Bush: Sixteen Stone, recognizes everything except for Alien

Bob Marley:, Exodus, it matched everything except for the track Exodus, for pete's sake!

And the biggest shocker of all, the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper, it freakin' uploaded - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

What is going on? I could only guess, but it could be:

Very popular songs, like the ones I listed, could somehow get overloaded with queries on Apple's servers. Causing a delay in recognition, causing it to default to "upload."

Or - it could just be Apple wanting to take a sample of where people are getting their music from, so they get you to upload a track from very popular albums.

Or some other weird thing I haven't figured out yet.

But either way - its annoying.

 

[teerexx52]

Is it possible after matching your iTunes music to the cloud to delete the music on your computer to save space? I assume you could then stream your music? Thanks

 

[thezazz]

I don't mean to be that guy that double-posts, but I would really appreciate a second opinion on this...

I've got my entire library stored on my Macbook, and it's all either uploaded or matched to iTunes Match. I have an iPhone 4, an iPad 2, and an Apple TV 2 all reading from the Match library. I can access and play all of my music just fine on all of my devices. (which is awesome!)

Unfortunately, I've ran into an error. Play counts don't seem to sync back and forth between devices. I downloaded a new album to iTunes, put it on iCloud, downloaded it on my iPhone and iPad, and played it. I also streamed it to my aTV. Then I went back to iTunes and checked the play counts, and they still said 0. So I plugged my phone in and did a manual sync, and still nothing.

Is anyone else seeing this? Could you try it out - play a song and then check iTunes and see if the play count updates? Any opinions or advise would be greatly appreciated! It may not seem like a big deal, but I have a few playlists that rely on play counts. Thank you so much!

Play counts are not updating for me either. Not good since, like you, a lot of my playlists rely on play counts. I'm also seeing playlist issues on my iPhone and iPad along with some missing artwork. Hoping this gets sorted out soon or that perhaps someone else knows of a way to resolve these issues..

 

[repete7]

Now I've got a bunch of songs that are still in "waiting" status even though Match says it's complete. Anyone come across this? Any solutions?

If you select the tracks, right click on them, select add to iCloud, Match will start running again. Don't know why it does this.

 

[Jony Mac]

You know what would be sweet. If you have say a bunch of CDs laying around, rather than rip all of these for iTunes match, is if you could insert the CD and iTunes realize yeah you have a legit copy and just match it / download it for you. That would save me days of ripping CDs. I would imagine that would be just as valid as iTunes scanning files on your machine.

 

[Hunter9]

That is the weirdest thing I've noticed too. A store-bought CD you ripped, often of a quite prominent band, and it matches 9 out of ten tracks and makes you upload the tenth. Examples:

Bush: Sixteen Stone, recognizes everything except for Alien

Bob Marley:, Exodus, it matched everything except for the track Exodus, for pete's sake!

And the biggest shocker of all, the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper, it freakin' uploaded - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

What is going on? I could only guess, but it could be:

Very popular songs, like the ones I listed, could somehow get overloaded with queries on Apple's servers. Causing a delay in recognition, causing it to default to "upload."

Or - it could just be Apple wanting to take a sample of where people are getting their music from, so they get you to upload a track from very popular albums.

Or some other weird thing I haven't figured out yet.

But either way - its annoying.

I get the same problem.. Most of the tracks in a particular album match, only 1 or 2 do not match, I know they are present in iTunes store.. I do not understand why this problem occurs..

Also, on what basis iTunes matches the song; the song name, album name, artist etc or all of this..

Can anyone who knows about this, care to eleborate?

 

[Hunter9]

iTunes says it’s not matched (i.e Uploaded) some tracks of mine; but it does have in the iTunes Store. What’s up with that?

Is there any way I can change the status of that song to "Matched"