1000 Songs - Just Right?

[cgmpowers]

Yeppers, far beyond 1,000 songs..

I keep wishing for an 80 gb iPod...

18,952 songs, 1,559 albums/3,247 artists/72 Genres, 75.15 GB of music.. That's 46.7 days worth of continuous music (and a couple of audiobooks).

Guess that puts me in the 10%. 15.99 GB of music, 15 GB iPod. D'oh!

 

[advocate]

I wonder if there's a plugin for iTunes for a lossless audio codec, for those that like to encode their music at 320k. Because you can get lossless compression for only a slightly bigger filesize (than 320k/s).

At 320kbit/s, 74 minutes of audio consumes 173 megabytes. A 74 minute CD contains 650 megabytes of data. I don't see how you can say a factor of almost 4 difference is a "slightly bigger filesize".

 

[SiliconAddict]

Well I guess I'm in that 10%. I have 36GB of songs well over 1,000 tracks on my computer right now. Even Apple's top of the line iPod would barely fit my collection. I'm really hoping for a 50-60GB iPod this summer. 🙁

 

[Nny]

Guess that puts me in the 10%. 15.99 GB of music, 15 GB iPod. D'oh!

Same here... 5726 songs on a 30 GB iPod with 4 GB free. Starting to get cramped in there.

 

[Nny]

At 320kbit/s, 74 minutes of audio consumes 173 megabytes. A 74 minute CD contains 650 megabytes of data. I don't see how you can say a factor of almost 4 difference is a "slightly bigger filesize".

A 74 minute cd COULD contain 650 MB of data (if it didn't contain audio... it's an audio cd, not a data cd)... I don't think that audio and data correlate in the way you imply, but I can't be sure. That would mean a minute of uncompressed losless audio would be 8.65 MB. Anybody know if that's the average file size for a minute of a FLAC or AIFF file? Is it more or less?

 

[jacg]

freaky

yep, Apple definitely knows what it's doing! 😀

well now this has got me curious to see how many songs i've got in iTunes... about 1880. well i've got alot more that i haven't put on, not enough free space on my PB.

i wouldn't go for a iPod that just fit my music collection though. people forget that you're not just buying a MP3/AAC player... you're buying an external HD. i'd much rather have only 1/3 of my iPod filled and have the rest so i can back up my stuff.

Freaky. I have 1877 on my PB. (11.78 Gb)

I don't have an iPod. With a big one, can you have more on your iPod than on your computer (or only the other way round)?

Edit: Ah, I see.
"I find that 4Gb should be a fairly manageable size of mp3s to have. I have about 12Gb of Mp3s on my 20Gb iPod and it's really eating into my hd space, since iTunes requires me to have a copy on my computer's hard drive. I wish apple would remove that requirement and just let me store 1 copy of everything on the ipod"

 

[advocate]

I love the physical size and the design of the iPod mini, I just could not deal with having to manage a playlist evertime I sync. Sure I probably only listen to 10% of the music on my 15 GB iPod, but I just like the feeling of knowing I have it all there if I choose to listen to something else.

You know, I was a bit anxious about that before I bought my mini, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be able to haul my entire library around with me no matter what size iPod I bought. Sure, the 40 GB iPod can barely hold my current library, but my library is growing all the time. I thought about it for a while and decided to use smart playlists to overcome that challenge.

I have five playlists in iTunes set up to sync with my mini. One is a smartlist of one gigabyte of most often played songs. One is a smartlist of one gigabyte of most recently played songs. One is a smartlist of 750 MB of most recently added songs. One is a smartlist of one gigabyte of random songs not played in the last 14 days. And the last is a manual playlist for my current audiobook.

Now I don't have to touch my playlists, except when I finish listening to a book, and I always have music around that I'm likely to listen to, along with some music that I haven't heard in a while. And chances are, if there's a particular song I feel like listening to, it'll be there.

I love my mini to pieces. The best part about it is that it's so small and so light that I can just put it in my jacket pocket. I wish there were a way to make a super-playlist that includes other playlists, though: if I could throw the four smart playlists into one super-playlist, and play that, then I wouldn't have to occasionally skip past a chapter of an audiobook while in shuffle play.

 

[advocate]

A 74 minute cd COULD contain 650 MB of data (if it didn't contain audio... it's an audio cd, not a data cd)... I don't think that audio and data correlate in the way you imply, but I can't be sure. That would mean a minute of uncompressed losless audio would be 8.65 MB. Anybody know if that's the average file size for a minute of a FLAC or AIFF file? Is it more or less?

Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot that data sectors use only 2048 bytes of each 2352 byte sector on a CD. So in fact the uncompressed audio would be 780 MB, not 650 MB. That means uncompressed audio is a factor of 4.5 larger than audio compressed at 320 kbit/s.

http://www.feurio.com/English/faq/faq_playtime.shtml

 

[the silver fox]

I have no idea...

how much space it would take up, but I have around 2500+ CDs (currently only about 380+ CDs in iTunes). I may try sticking them all on just for the laugh. 😀

 

[ktrout]

An interesting opportunity to evaluate our sample

A Jupiter Research survey reveals some interesting statistics about consumer interest in portable audio players.

According to their survey, 90% have no more than 1000 songs on their computer, while 77% of consumers would be interested in purchasing a portable music player with a 1000 song capacity.

I think this vindicates Apple's strategy with the miniPod. Lots were skeptical around here.

It also provides a nice opportunity for some interesting research on this group. I often think that the viewpoints expressed here, though often articulate and insightful,* are not representative of the larger market--even among the Mac faithful.

So let's take it as given that only 10% of the general computing public has more than 1000 songs.** I would bet that 90% of the participants here are in that 10%. I certainly am. Thanks to a diligent program of AAC-izing my CDs (and the iTMS) I have hit 26GB.

Let's count 'em up and see. Based on the posts I have just read, it looks like it may be more like 99.7%.

* They are also sometimes mean-spirited and ignorant, from time to time.

** I have not evaluated the source of these figures. They may, of course, be bull****.

 

[cxny]

Typical Usage??

3745 Songs 21.66 Gigs is begining to max out my 30 Gig iPod. My experience with the original 5 Gig iPod was frustrating, having to really watch what I loaded on and deleting stuff constantly. With even the new PBs shipping with a paltry 80G HD it really limits putting "entire librarys"on iTunes. As for iPod minis, they got it just right! (ie you can't even get one) my neighbours have 3 5gig pods and 2 minis between 2 adults and 2 kids but none of them have loaded more than a few hundred songs. I'm sure that's more typical usage than the average reader of this forum. Don't forget in this day of "legal" downloads maxing out an ipod mini is going to set back a teenager user $1000 and that's on top of the $250 of hard earned cash for the player. For now 4 Gigs hits the sweet spot.

 

[choogheem]

Only 1000

Hmm, at present I have 5965 songs and I'm still adding. While 1000 songs would seem like a large amount, anyone ever been on a 21 hour road trip and then another 21 hours back. I can say that 1000 songs is not enough especially driving through north dakota, indiana, nebraska or eastern colorado (take your pick).

 

[idkew]

I have 4970 songs at 24.66GB of space. That, my friends is 15 days, 11 hours, 28 minutes, and 35 seconds of continuous music.

you must have encoded them at a pretty low bitrate. i have over 500 less songs than you, but they take several more gigs of space.

 

[idkew]

Same here... 5726 songs on a 30 GB iPod with 4 GB free. Starting to get cramped in there.

what are you encoding at 96kbps?

 

[SiliconAddict]

So let's take it as given that only 10% of the general computing public has more than 1000 songs.**

* They are also sometimes mean-spirited and ignorant, from time to time.

** I have not evaluated the source of these figures. They may, of course, be bull****.

I'm more then a little skeptical of these figures. Every friend I have has WELL over 1,000 songs. 2 or 3 are into the five digit range and the rest are in the 2,000+ range. Maybe its just the friends I hang out with 😛

 

[iChan]

I wonder why people mark this as "negative" - any thoughts? 😕

who cares?

 

[Rincewind42]

I wonder if there's a plugin for iTunes for a lossless audio codec, for those that like to encode their music at 320k. Because you can get lossless compression for only a slightly bigger filesize (than 320k/s).

There are at least 2 people/groups working on a FLAC Quicktime codec, so when that comes out iTunes and other Quicktime enabled applications will be able to play FLAC files.

 

[aricher]

With 13132 Songs on my HD - 95.97 GB - 44 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes and 19 seconds - methinks that an iPod mini is way too small 😀

And that's not even counting my collection of audio books and "This American Life" shows.

I just convinced my ex-IBM'er mother to buy an iPod - this is the woman who when I saw the first Mac in 1984 said - "yeah I've heard about those things - basically an etch a sketch with a fancy screen."

 

[network23]

Remember who the likely respondant to this poll is. 95% of them will be running Windows computers. There are a lot of additional questions that need to be answered before you can accept the validity of the results.

1. Of these users, how many songs to they have *outside* their computer?

2. If they had an elegant system for listening to music on their computer (iTunes), would they have devoted more time to ripping more of their collection to the computer?

3. Where was this poll taken? From the results here, it sounds like users tend to underestimate the number of songs they have, so unless they were at their computer at the time of the poll, those numbers might be off.

I believe I am FAR from being a music collector. Most of my music is on vinyl. I bought *maybe* 15-20 CD's in the 90's and fewer than that in the 00's. Including the many, many tracks that came with my Dual USB iBook, I have around 1800 songs in my collection.

 

[RogerQ]

AIFF File Sizes

Uncompressed stereo audio at 44.1kHz x 16 bits (CD quality) is approximately 10 MB / minute.

A 74 minute cd COULD contain 650 MB of data (if it didn't contain audio... it's an audio cd, not a data cd)... I don't think that audio and data correlate in the way you imply, but I can't be sure. That would mean a minute of uncompressed losless audio would be 8.65 MB. Anybody know if that's the average file size for a minute of a FLAC or AIFF file? Is it more or less?

 

[numediaman]

I have about 20 songs in my iTunes library -- I guess that puts me a little on the low side, huh? (Of course, I have about 2500 CDs, so it's not like I'm short of music.)

I'm sure Apple does a fair amount of market research before introducing products. I don't see that iPods are introduced based on the idea that bigger is better. After all, they could introduce an iPod with far more storage capacity, but why do it if it changes the design, or serves a market that doesn't exist, right?

 

[Aceon6]

I've got over 4000 tracks ripped, but only have 700 or so rated 4 or 5 stars. The mini is plenty for me to carry around the music I like most. Frankly, until something comes along that has a longer battery life, I need to "return to base" at least once a day anyway, so there's always the opportunity to switch out and pick up something new.

It seems to come down to whether you plan to use your pod as your primary storage or not. For me, the answer is not, so the mini works.

 

[sushi]

I agree, I think they do pretty good homework, but a 1,000 song player would not be enough room for me, I just hit 2,648 songs today. 😀

Yeah, but with Playlists, it is so easy and takes very little time to change the songs on the iPod. Besides, you have to charge the battery so you can update your songs while charging.

1,000 songs. Just how long would that take to listen? At 3 min per song, that's 3,000 minutes or 50 continuous hours. More than plenty for most folks.

Sushi

 

[dmjones]

1000 Is Never Enough

I currently have 5466 songs in my iTunes catalog--a total of over 16 days of continuous music that takes up over 31 GB on my hard drive (I encode everything at 192kbps for better quality). I still have all my box sets to add to the mix when I get time, and I buy 2-3 CDs per month (unless I get them at Half.com for really cheap--in which case I might buy 5 or 6 in a month). I don't have an iPod yet and honestly can't decide which way to go when I decide to get one: do I want the biggest one they make (40 GB at this time) so I can fit all my music--although the price is astronomical! Or should I opt for the mini and just put a portion of my music on it? It's a big decision that I hope to have to make later this year!

 

[sushi]

(whips out calculator) woah, that's about 10 Mb per song! Either they're really long, or you use a crazy sample rate. . .

do you have super-hero hearing abilities?

Well, it depends on one's needs.

You could rip each song twice. Once for a portable player and once for your stereo. But that is a lot of work. Or you could just rip one version. But the quality may be lacking or the file size big.

Personally, I took the option to rip one version. My encoding takes about 2MB per minute vice a CD file which is 10MB per minute.

So I save space, but still have great quality regardless of the medium I choose to listen over.

Sushi