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patseguin

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 28, 2003
1,733
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I bought myself and my brother 4GB Nano's today. His library is really close to 1,000 songs. What happens on the Nano if you try to sync your library and there are more than 1,000 songs? Does it pick random songs or the 1st 1,000 or what?
 
It will basically tell you that you have too many songs to fit onto the nano and will offer to auto select them for you or allow you to drag over exactly what you like,

ShadOW
 
I just want to make clear that there is no limitation for 1,000 songs. It's the size of the songs that count. If you have 500 really huge songs, they might not fit on your Nano. But OTOH, you could fit 2,000 really small songs on it.
 
Veldek said:
I just want to make clear that there is no limitation for 1,000 songs. It's the size of the songs that count. If you have 500 really huge songs, they might not fit on your Nano. But OTOH, you could fit 2,000 really small songs on it.
To illustrate this point, I have a 4 GB nano which is almost full... it contains 465 songs, well below the advertised 1000 songs. But I encode my music at 192 kbps, not the usual 128 kbps, so that automatically drops my "limit" to 667 songs. (3/2 the encoding rate = 2/3 the songs). And a lot of my songs are longer than the 4 minute average Apple uses for their computations.
 
I'm on the other side of that spectrum (sometimes). I have a lot of audiobooks, and if you look at 1000 songs = 4000 minutes (how Apple figures it) then I am WAY over. You can easily get 16000 minutes of audiobook files onto a 4gb iPod.

In short, it's about the overall size of the files, not the number of them.

On a related note I wish that Apple would setup a system to better use the iTunes database system, by letting you import a CD as a, say, 256kbps file but also as a 128kbps file, and have them all in the same 'wrapper' so that when you listen to it on your computer, or on your 40+gb iPod it's the 256 version, but if you are syncing it to your nano or mini or shuffle it only grabs the 128kbps. Personally, I'd like to have the option of have a 96kbps VBR AAC in there as well, since having ~1250 songs on my 4gb mini would be preferable even at the lower quality (the 96kbps VBR AAC isn't all that bad in the car or working out, etc).
 
mrgreen4242 said:
I'm on the other side of that spectrum (sometimes). I have a lot of audiobooks, and if you look at 1000 songs = 4000 minutes (how Apple figures it) then I am WAY over. You can easily get 16000 minutes of audiobook files onto a 4gb iPod.

In short, it's about the overall size of the files, not the number of them.

On a related note I wish that Apple would setup a system to better use the iTunes database system, by letting you import a CD as a, say, 256kbps file but also as a 128kbps file, and have them all in the same 'wrapper' so that when you listen to it on your computer, or on your 40+gb iPod it's the 256 version, but if you are syncing it to your nano or mini or shuffle it only grabs the 128kbps. Personally, I'd like to have the option of have a 96kbps VBR AAC in there as well, since having ~1250 songs on my 4gb mini would be preferable even at the lower quality (the 96kbps VBR AAC isn't all that bad in the car or working out, etc).

IIRC when you sync an iPod shuffle with iTunes, there is an option to re-encode to a lower (or maybe just 128kbps) bitrate so that you can fit more on it. Sounds like they should have made this a feature in iTunes 5 for all iPods (for those who want it).
 
crazzyeddie said:
IIRC when you sync an iPod shuffle with iTunes, there is an option to re-encode to a lower (or maybe just 128kbps) bitrate so that you can fit more on it. Sounds like they should have made this a feature in iTunes 5 for all iPods (for those who want it).

Ya, it's for shuffles only and is 128kbps. But if I remember right it was an on the fly conversion, so 1) it took longer, and 2) you were compressing an already compressed file, so you are going to have a little extra quality loss. While not usually a big deal, when you start to get down into the very low bittrate area every little boost in quality it important.

I'd like to see a high/medium/low quality file created at the time of import so you can avoind those issues.
 
mrgreen4242 said:
I'd like to see a high/medium/low quality file created at the time of import so you can avoind those issues.
I was going to make the comment that the result of that would be a near doubling of your iTunes library, but I guess if you can afford multiple variations of iPods, you can probably afford the extra drive space to store the songs... :D

To the OP, nice of you to buy your brother a nano. I wish my brother would do that, but no, he just bought one for himself, the cheap SOB. :p
 
emw said:
To the OP, nice of you to buy your brother a nano. I wish my brother would do that, but no, he just bought one for himself, the cheap SOB. :p
It would be inconsiderate to buy any "rev A" Apple product as a gift. ;) Perhaps when the 8GB 2nd gen ones come out....
 
jsw said:
It would be inconsiderate to buy any "rev A" Apple product as a gift. ;) Perhaps when the 8GB 2nd gen ones come out....
In that case, I'll have to remember to say "thanks" for testing it for me. Glad I'm not stuck with that piece of crap. :D
 
So from what I'm reading here, the iPod nano doesn't have the "reduce bitrate to 128kbps" option like the iPod shuffle has? :(

I wish Apple would let us enable that and set the format/bitrate ourselves. But they won't do that, because people like me won't upgrade their iPods and simply lower the target bitrate for our old iPods instead.

The best would be Apple Lossless on the computer, 128kbps on my 10GB iPod, and 96kbps VBR on my iPod shuffle and iPod nano (perhaps even 64kbps on the Nano... I can barely hear the difference between 64 AAC and 128kbps AAC while sitting at my desk with good headphones - imagine outside, in the car, etc).

Oh well, time to make a triple library... Apple Lossless on the computer, 128kbps for the 10GB iPod and 64kbps for the Nano. At least, we can still enable the browser (genre/artist/album) while using a playlist. Which only means you have to select the "Lossless Library" smart playlist instead of simply "Library" when using iTunes.

That means re-importing all my CDs again, which means I'd better re-rip everything at 128kbps VBR while I'm at it (and delete the 128kbps CBR).

There goes my HD space... Apple Lossless, 128kbps VBR and 64kbps CBR for every song I have. :D
 
Yvan256 said:
So from what I'm reading here, the iPod nano doesn't have the "reduce bitrate to 128kbps" option like the iPod shuffle has? :(
No. And I'm upset that it doesn't. I think this should be an option for all iPods.
 
jsw said:
No. And I'm upset that it doesn't. I think this should be an option for all iPods.

That's one reason why Apple should support OGG Vorbis. It's one file, many bitrates. But in the "removable bits" sense, not in the "many versions of the file inside one big file" sense.

Oh well. If only Automator supported format/bitrate settings, it'd make ripping at multiple bitrates less of a chore. :mad:
 
emw said:
I was going to make the comment that the result of that would be a near doubling of your iTunes library, but I guess if you can afford multiple variations of iPods, you can probably afford the extra drive space to store the songs... :D

To the OP, nice of you to buy your brother a nano. I wish my brother would do that, but no, he just bought one for himself, the cheap SOB. :p

Well, I'd prefer the whole thing to be customizable. I'd personally pick, say, 160kbps VBR for the "big" format, and then just 1 "small" format at 96kbps. The effect would be indeed about double the disk usage on the computer compared to everything at 128kbps, but it's be worth it to cary some extra tunes on the iPod and still have good quality on the computer AND fast sync times.

That's one reason why Apple should support OGG Vorbis. It's one file, many bitrates. But in the "removable bits" sense, not in the "many versions of the file inside one big file" sense.
I didn't realize OGG would do that... that is very cool. Doesn't the new Apple HD video implementation support something similar for video, or is that just having several files in the same container as I was suggesting for audio earlier?

But having a single, say 256kbps source file that you can copy out only the "first" or "lowest" 96kbps of to your iPod would be the best of both worlds!
 
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