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A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match
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...checked my PowerBook this morning, and on Step 2 with about 2,000 songs left to go (out of 20,000). been on over 24 hours! will report back if everything got uploaded ok, etc.
It really seems like they didn't think this through. Is there really NO way for us to still sync a playlist via USB and then add/subtract via iCloud? I guess the idea is to only download stuff when you're ready to listen to it, but that doesn't work very well if you're not in WiFi, and in the real world it's a lot easier to start with a playlist-like sampling rather than think, okay, what MIGHT I want to listen to when I'm out and about. And I shudder to think about what happens if I have to switch devices, wipe it and reload, etc. Can it really be something they consider workable for someone to have to spend an entire week with their iPhone plugged in (I tried letting it load while unplugged and man, WiFi loading drained the battery FAST!).
Mine was taking forever, too. I have started and stopped it several times after it seemed to get stuck and it pretty much seems to have restarted where it left off. Right now, I am at about 500 that still need to be uploaded, down from over 1,000 a little over 24 hours ago. It's a slow process, but think about how many people are doing this all at the same time. The servers are slammed!
For those of you having trouble with Sgt. Pepper's, mine matched the whole album. I have the boxed set of remasters that came out in 2009 and they all matched, but I did not have the mono version that seems to be giving people problems.
As with all new things, there are going to be bugs to work out. I'm sure they will get worked out over time. Many people are asking if Apple tested this before releasing it. Of course they did, but they only had a limited number of people testing. Compared to all of us who have purchased the service since release, there was no way to test it at this type of volume! I'm impressed that it already works as well as it does!
empty everything on Macbook
I spent a few days getting my library very happy on my iMac with iTunes match. Upgraded a ton of songs, got everything clean. Worked on my playlists,etc.
I want to have all that happiness on my macbook. So, I remove my iTunes folder on my laptop. Start iTunes with the option key held down and choose to create a new library.
It starts me with a blank library. I then click to Turn on iTunes Match. It checks my library (empty so it doesn't take long). It asks - Do I want to add this computer. I accept. Then it says that there are 14, 950 songs in the cloud. and I click "done". I am now looking at a screen with info about how to rip a cd, how to buy music and how to search my computer for music.
But isn't it supposed to start downloading all my songs from the cloud, or at least show them in a list so I can stream them or choose to download them? And where are the playlists. I got nuthin'.
And the little cloud next to "music" has little blue bars running through it. But nothing is happening.
What up?
I spent a few days getting my library very happy on my iMac with iTunes match. Upgraded a ton of songs, got everything clean. Worked on my playlists,etc.
I want to have all that happiness on my macbook. So, I remove my iTunes folder on my laptop. Start iTunes with the option key held down and choose to create a new library.
It starts me with a blank library. I then click to Turn on iTunes Match. It checks my library (empty so it doesn't take long). It asks - Do I want to add this computer. I accept. Then it says that there are 14, 950 songs in the cloud. and I click "done". I am now looking at a screen with info about how to rip a cd, how to buy music and how to search my computer for music.
But isn't it supposed to start downloading all my songs from the cloud, or at least show them in a list so I can stream them or choose to download them? And where are the playlists. I got nuthin'.
And the little cloud next to "music" has little blue bars running through it. But nothing is happening.
What up?
Well, I was just pleasantly surprised. iTunes matched only the Hallelujah Chorus from my ripped CD of the Complete Messiah Oratorio performed by Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus. Which initially upset me because this recording is not in the iTMS and the version of the the Hallelujah Chorus available in the store is not the one on my CD. However, when I downloaded the matched song, it is the correct version. Hallelujah!
The best solution is to sync via USB with iTunes prior to enabling iTunes Match on your iDevice. The tracks you synced via USB will remain on the device, and then you'll only have to download new tracks from there on out.
Where it gets tricky is for those of us trying to upgrade old 128kbps tracks to the better 256kbps tracks, because the upgrade doesn't occur unless you delete the 128kbps track (after it's been matched) and then redownload it from iCloud, giving you the 256kbps matched track. One has to do one of two things to get the best-quality tracks:
1. Remove all music from an iDevice and redownload it all directly from iCloud with iTunes Match (a buggy painfully slow approach)
2. Delete and replace all matched tracks under 256kbps in iTunes on the desktop first, then sync all desired music to iDevices prior to enabling iTunes Match on them.
I used the first approach for my iPad, and the second method with my iPhone. The second method is definitely the way to go.
Very good advice and is how I load music myself.
One another point...
Some people have been wanting to store lower bitrate music on their iPhones or other iOS devices so it takes up less space. Assuming you want to keep at least a "must have" playlist stored locally all the time 128kbps can cut that in half if it is rather large.
But they can have their cake and eat it to, if you will: if you preload the iOS device by first syncing to iTunes, and have "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" checked, you can preload at that bitrate for less space.
I am one that does not really notice the difference on my iPhone so might do that myself.
Michael
Does iTunes Match eliminate my need for storing my itunes library on Dropbox? I'm using a Win7 desktop as my "mainframe" currently but the migration to Apple began with the purchase of a new 13.3" Air.
My iTunes library is currently stored on the Windows PC and thus I sync my iPhone/iPod to this machine, the Air has seen no iTunes action so far. I'm playing with the thought of placing the library on Dropbox so I can add music while using any computer that I'm using Dropbox/iTunes on.
If I go down the iTunes Match route, will there be no need for having a "main" library i.e. will the "main" be in the cloud? Can I add new songs, an MPx-file regardless of source, on any device that I have authorized to use ITM and then have ITM scan it on that very machine and if matched it will be available to any ITM enabled device of mine?
I understand that iOS devices lack the ability to add music from any source other than iTunes Store, hence only MacOS machines will be able to use the match function. I also curious how a song matched and then placed on more than one playlists will be dealt with? Is ITM as hassle free as Apple says?
Thank you in advance!
My iTunes library is currently stored on the Windows PC and thus I sync my iPhone/iPod to this machine, the Air has seen no iTunes action so far. I'm playing with the thought of placing the library on Dropbox so I can add music while using any computer that I'm using Dropbox/iTunes on.
If I go down the iTunes Match route, will there be no need for having a "main" library i.e. will the "main" be in the cloud? Can I add new songs, an MPx-file regardless of source, on any device that I have authorized to use ITM and then have ITM scan it on that very machine and if matched it will be available to any ITM enabled device of mine?
I understand that iOS devices lack the ability to add music from any source other than iTunes Store, hence only MacOS machines will be able to use the match function. I also curious how a song matched and then placed on more than one playlists will be dealt with? Is ITM as hassle free as Apple says?
Thank you in advance!
I would love to know this as well.
I would also like to know why a single track from an entire album purchased from iTunes is "ineligible" when the rest of the tracks are "matched". This happened to four songs from four separate albums. Not really a big deal since it's only four songs but still frustrating since they were all purchased from iTunes and the rest of the tracks all matched.
I just downloaded an older track from iCloud that I had purchased from iTunes a few years back. It is 128 kbps. I thought iCloud would automatically give me the 256 kbps version? Or do I need to purchase iTunes Match for this function, even for tracks that I bought legit from iTunes?
Sort by 'iCloud Status', select all the duplicates, and hit option-delete. I would examine them very closely first to make sure you aren't losing anything you want to keep. Also, you may actually consider the one iTunes calls a 'duplicate' to be the one you want to keep, if you care about such things (metadata, playcounts, ratings could be different between the two files).
Okay, now I'm confused. I had music on my iPhone already that was sync'd by USB when I enabled Match. Once I enabled Match on my device it wiped out all that music. I was under the impression that this was how Match worked, that ALL your music would be dealt with through Match. So when you turned it on it DIDN'T wipe your music from your device?
Are sure it was actually deleted? I think some people see the warning when turning on Match and think it must be so.
I have done this many times now, even during the beta, and my iTunes synched music was always still there.
Now if you synched to a different library, with different music than is in iCloud, I would venture that it would delete the existing music.
Michael
Did you enable match on your computer, sync, and THEN enable it on your device? I hadn't done it in that order...I synced and then enabled it on both computer and device, and it did indeed wipe my device...there was no music there. I just spend a whole day downloading a 9 gb playlist, so I'm a little wary of possibly wiping it again. Anyone else with any experience with this? This would eliminate most of the problems I'm having...I assume we could sync our own library's versions of music that Match mis-matched rather than grabbing it from the cloud?
Yes I did have iTunes Matched turned on in iTunes first (and all tracks matched, etc.).
Heck not only am I not getting local music deleted when turning on Match, I can't seem to get rid of all of the local music unless I delete it manually.
I have 105 tracks on my iPhone that won't go away, even if I turn off music syncing in iTunes then turn it back on. If I look at what iTunes thinks is stored on my iPhone it thinks there is nothing there right now. But they show in the Music app. Well plus all my purchased tracks with cloud icons--they never seem to go away. Odd that you can only have the Music app show only locally downloaded tracks when Match is on. The option goes away with Match off.
So my problem now is more of how to actually delete, without manually deleting each track on iPhone itself--which is a pain. Seems on my iPhone music checks in but it does not check out lol.
Michael
OK this is very strange. I have match off on my iPhone and have 105 songs that won't go away. I even made a playlist of 1 song and synced that but syncing it did not delete any local music. Half of those are iTunes purchased tracks so can understand that.
The strange part is that many of the tracks are NOT iTunes purchases yet they have a cloud icon when I manually delete them. This even includes unmatched tracks that were uploaded to iCloud. Seems strange that it is doing that.
Michael
The strange part is that many of the tracks are NOT iTunes purchases yet they have a cloud icon when I manually delete them. This even includes unmatched tracks that were uploaded to iCloud. Seems strange that it is doing that.
Michael
Question
So, what if your song/album/artist tags arent perfect? Also, what about multiple versions of songs...like: I own "Simon & Garfunkle's Greatest Hits Walmart French Canadian Edition" and iTunes doesnt have THAT exact albulm...do they just read the name of the song and give me whatever they have equivalent? I'd love to replace all my ripped (CD's) songs with higher quality DL...but Im curious before I pull the trigger.
Dont wanna just upload some crappy rips. Cheers Friends!
So, what if your song/album/artist tags arent perfect? Also, what about multiple versions of songs...like: I own "Simon & Garfunkle's Greatest Hits Walmart French Canadian Edition" and iTunes doesnt have THAT exact albulm...do they just read the name of the song and give me whatever they have equivalent? I'd love to replace all my ripped (CD's) songs with higher quality DL...but Im curious before I pull the trigger.
Dont wanna just upload some crappy rips. Cheers Friends!
So iTunes claims it's going to delete all the music on your device and then doesn't? Is this a feature or a bug? I would prefer it this way, but that's very odd that it gives that warning if that's not actually how it functions. A little disconcerting.