A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match

[hpman247]

Another way to think of how bad a deal this is is to use an extreme example. What if your library was only 100 songs? You'd be much better off buying 25 songs each year and truly up-converting your songs to purchased in Apple's eyes (and up-converting the quality). If you did iCloud, you'd pay for those same 100 songs forever, ultimately generating many times more revenue than you normally would.

This $25 fee is doing nothing for you other than giving you access to Apple's storage locker and giving you access to some better quality songs if you want to take the time to up-convert quality (which directly negates one of their biggest selling points - speed). You'll also be paying for that forever if you want to continue to have access to their cloud. Again, you'd be better off actually buying 25 songs per year.

This isn't a cloud service. This is an up-conversion service that locks you in. Im a huge Apple fanboy but Google and Amazon offer a much better deal.

EDIT - Or as was mentioned above, it is also an off-site storage which admittedly could be useful if something happened to your HD. This is the only positive I see.

Honestly it's $25 which I make in an hour and half at work. So an hour and a half for an entire year I get a protected medium for all of my music,seamless synchronization between all of my devices, and the ability to update all those songs that I have from years ago in 128k.

The people claiming that this service isn't worth it baffle me. Just as Apple stated, I got a huge head start in uploading. Only 40GB as opposed to 120GB. 20GB of that is Dave Matthew Live stuff that simply isn't on iTMS anyway. 10GB is random recording that I've taken from concert DVDs and the like.

if I was using google or amazing, I would not have synchronization of every song and playlist and metadata updates integrated into every device from computer to computer to iPad to iPhone. And I believe not all of these other services give you the ability to download the files, much less download them in higher quality than what you currently own.

The service certainly is not for everyone, but to state that google or amazon got it right and apple got is wrong, is just wrong in its own right

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I apologize as I haven't been able to read all 10 pages but I'm also in the camp that is getting an entire CD matched except ONE song, or half a CD matched and the others uploaded, etc. IS there a way to make iTunes "try again"? Like can I check the metadata and then force it to retry matching?

I had this issue as well. I just resigned to the fact that it was a bug, and let it upload the file I currently have

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Another note.. I'm not sure how Apple is deciding what to match and want to not match, but I think it's heavily based on Genius results in combination with the length of the song. If Genius recognizes it, and the time code is the same as in the iTMS, I think you get a match.

The song "Lighters" by Bad Meets Evil for instance. My version is 4:09, but the iTunes version is 4:03. It didn't match and I very well know that they are the same song with probably some added silence to the beginning or end.

I'm going to test it later and see if it makes a difference if I reduce the time stamp to 4:03.
[the above theory seems to be invalid after testing]

 

[i hate phones]

Weird thing is some albums are 50/50. Albums I ripped myself from the original CD's are showing half uploaded, half matched.

Doesn't make sense.

and the "funny" thing is for me a lot of these were rips from cds that are now being stored somewhere in my parents basement so i tried downloading them from the internet and now they work

 

[sionharris]

I feel like iTunes goes against everything Apple stands for. I'm sure it wasn't the intention of Apple to have it that way, but it's true. Apple is all about simplicity and intuition. iTunes is the opposite of either of those. Over the years it's become a complex, WAY too feature-heavy application. Let me clarify that I don't mean that iTunes is slow or "bloated", just way, way too complex. If it was designed right in the first place, we shouldn't need a "clear explanation" on how it works. Apple's thought process is to make things simpler to use. Less is more and whatnot. Instead, all that happens with iTunes is more crap is tacked on, adding even more garbage to the already overpopulated and unorganized side bar.

Agree. It would make so much more sense to separate music, movies, TV shows, radio... into separate apps. So you listen to and buy music in the music app, you watch and buy/rent movies in the movies app, you connect and sync your devices in a sync app... iTunes has become so diluted that I even look for the App Store there... in fact it seems almost bizarre that it's separate, given all the other nonsense that has tagged onto what was once a music app.

 

[meatling]

match stuck

i have been on uploading of 340 of 7400 songs for like 20 minutes. The gear is still spinning but nothing seems to be happening. Went from step 1 to step 3 fast and uploaded the first 340 pretty quick and now just a spinning gear. anybody else have this issue.

 

[hpman247]

i have been on uploading of 340 of 7400 songs for like 20 minutes. The gear is still spinning but nothing seems to be happening. Went from step 1 to step 3 fast and uploaded the first 340 pretty quick and now just a spinning gear. anybody else have this issue.

I would shut down iTunes and restart it. When mine got stuck, I did this and it went on along after i rebooted

 

[hbmex]

iTunes Match

I subscribed to iTunes Match last night. When I enabled it on my iPhone 4s it deleted all of my playlists! I also seem to have lost the ability to create a genius playlist on my iPhone. Anyway to recover my playlists? I would be happy to regain the ability to create genius playlists again. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[i hate phones]

I subscribed to iTunes Match last night. When I enabled it on my iPhone 4s it deleted all of my playlists! I also seem to have lost the ability to create a genius playlist on my iPhone. Anyway to recover my playlists? I would be happy to regain the ability to create genius playlists again. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

had you synced your phone (playlists) to your computer? iTunes Match will take all your playlists in itunes and make them available in the cloud, but it doesn't take from your idevice, it wipes it clean and then you refill it with stuff from the cloud.

* though i'm curious to know how it handles playlists created on your phone AFTER you set up iTunes Match... since you're not syncing with itunes anymore i would assume it has to transfer them to the cloud...

no idea about making new smart playlists sorry.

 

[Zimmy68]

I have some questions that I haven't seen an answer to yet.

I have Match running (all night) and it should be almost done.
My library (16k+ songs) is on my home Win7x64 machine.
Stuff is already showing as I expect on my 4S and iPad 2.

Now, I am at work and use a MacBook Pro and a Win7 PC, both with iTunes 10.5.1 on them.

How do I see my library on these computers?
It asks me to "match this computer", will that clear off my main library?
I don't want to match my work computers, I just want to see my library but there doesn't seem to be an option.
I also can't see my library until match is completed, right?

What is the best way to have Match recheck songs.
I'm sure that about 75% of the songs it couldn't match are in iTunes.

 

[fgarvin]

I have 15,000 songs... It's been working since 2pm yesterday.... that's 19 hours.. geez... What would happen if I stopped the process? Would it start from the beginning?

 

[Zimmy68]

I have 15,000 songs... It's been working since 2pm yesterday.... that's 19 hours.. geez... What would happen if I stopped the process? Would it start from the beginning?

I had to force quit iTunes (Windows 7 version) a couple of times last night.
It was odd, iTunes worked normally but it would not quit on its own.
When I relaunched, iTunes told me to sign out and back in, then it seem to continue where it left off.

 

[iBug2]

I have 23k songs, it's been working for 15 hours or so, I stopped and relaunched iTunes, seems like it's back to half of the process. Yikes.

 

[hpman247]

I have some questions that I haven't seen an answer to yet.

I have Match running (all night) and it should be almost done.
My library (16k+ songs) is on my home Win7x64 machine.
Stuff is already showing as I expect on my 4S and iPad 2.

Now, I am at work and use a MacBook Pro and a Win7 PC, both with iTunes 10.5.1 on them.

How do I see my library on these computers?
It asks me to "match this computer", will that clear off my main library?
I don't want to match my work computers, I just want to see my library but there doesn't seem to be an option.
I also can't see my library until match is completed, right?

What is the best way to have Match recheck songs.
I'm sure that about 75% of the songs it couldn't match are in iTunes.

Just turn on match on your work computer. It won't wipe anything

 

[Jim Boonie]

How do Playlists work with ITM? Can you make playlists in the cloud or on a given iOS/OSX device, and the playlists sync to all devices? Or are there no playlists, and everything is just a massive pile of...music.

And...

Has the ITM methodology been revealed? Is it, "Listening" to songs? Looking at timestamps? Looking at metadata?

 

[Ronlap]

keeping the metadata is a big win for me. I may actually use this now.

This is new. Early in the beta, purchased or matched songs with changed metadata would appear in your library twice - your original song, and a second one with the original iTunes metadata would be downloaded automatically.

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How do Playlists work with ITM? Can you make playlists in the cloud or on a given iOS/OSX device, and the playlists sync to all devices? Or are there no playlists, and everything is just a massive pile of...music.

In my experience, playlists sync across devices. They disappear on iOS for a while when you first turn it on, then they re-sync.

 

[i hate phones]

Just turn on match on your work computer. It won't wipe anything

it won't wipe it but it will match it and add whats on your work computer to your other computers.

if you don't need to see what's currently on your work computer and your home computer at the same time you can set it up as a new library (hold shift(windows) option(mac) while starting itunes and setup new library.

 

[Zimmy68]

Just turn on match on your work computer. It won't wipe anything

It gives me this warning...

iTunes is matching on another computer, if you continue the other session will be stopped and this one will be matched instead.

So, since I have no music on this computer, will it just go back to matching my main one?

 

[Cartaphilus]

i have been on uploading of 340 of 7400 songs for like 20 minutes. The gear is still spinning but nothing seems to be happening. Went from step 1 to step 3 fast and uploaded the first 340 pretty quick and now just a spinning gear. anybody else have this issue.

I did, and twice I restarted it only to see it "stick" again. It turned out that you just have to wait it out, and eventually it will go on to the next number. I have some 8 kilosongs (but mostly classical, which often much bigger files), and the whole process took nearly eight hours.

 

[i hate phones]

Just turn on match on your work computer. It won't wipe anything

It gives me this warning...

iTunes is matching on another computer, if you continue the other session will be stopped and this one will be matched instead.

So, since I have no music on this computer, will it just go back to matching my main one?

you can only do one at a time, i would just wait til it completes and then turn it on

 

[hpman247]

It gives me this warning...

iTunes is matching on another computer, if you continue the other session will be stopped and this one will be matched instead.

So, since I have no music on this computer, will it just go back to matching my main one?

No it won't. If you tell it to 'match' your work computer, it will stop the uploading process at your home and it won't restart until you physically tell it to.

What it will do is stop your upload at home, scan your non-existant work library, realize it has nothing to match, and it will then show all the music that has so far uploaded and matched on your home computer.

 

[OnWithTheShow]

How do you download an entire playlist or album to an iOS device? All I seem to be able to do is download each track individually or hit play and they will download as they play through. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned being able to bulk download by artist, album, and playlist.

 

[clcnyc]

Does it make sense to subscribe?

If my entire music library fits in my 64GB iPhone 4S and iPad 2 with room to spare, is there any purpose to having Match? Stupid question, I know, but just trying to justify it I use my iPhone for music every time I get in the car, and don't want t have to wait for music to download to listen to it, if indeed that's how it works.

 

[ChipmunkTX]

Do you have an entire local library in your house? No. You have a small library of books, but have access to a vast library, called....The Library. So do you need a library of 60k+ music files, No. You need access to a vast library of music and that's called Spotify (Or your personal flavor of the week.)

Now, if you do have a large local library of books at your house, and you have 60k+ Music Cd's, there's a show you need to check out, called, Hoarders.

Now that I've become more comfortable with electronic books and mags (Thanks to my iPad...still hate reading on the laptop.) I am more likely to buy more books and mags because I don't have storage for them. I have also purchased more music now that I don't have to have a physical CD to keep track of. If I won the lotto, I'd end up buying a small library worth because there are some people who love to read and have a ton of books. Everyone is different with different interests. I own more MTG cards than any normal person should. Also, I havn't read anyone asking for the ability to have more than 25K songs for free. And in the scheme of things, that isn't a lot of songs. But my point in this long winded post is that you can suggest Spotify as an alternative until they address the issue, but don't be rude about it...we all have our hobbies.

 

[Cory Bauer]

Uploaded vs Matched

Like most others I had several tracks that were uploaded instead of matched, despite being available in the iTunes store. Does anyone know how to make iTunes try again with these tracks? My hope is that maybe adjusting the metadata would result in a match, but perhaps it's a lost cause and those tracks won't match no matter what one does? Thanks.

 

[JHankwitz]

But what happens if you have 92,000 songs in your library like I do?

Wow, you're either very rich to be able to afford all that music, or one heck of a thief.

Publishing your situation and username online will certainly make it easier for authorities to locate and deal with you. Smart move!

 

[Ian619]

I think I’m having much better luck than most. I only have about 50-60 tracks uploaded out of 3,500 that I feel should have been matched (I verified they are in the iTunes store). This is not counting music that I knew going in was not in the iTunes store (i.e. the band Tool). I am in the anal-retentive camp, so I spent plenty of time and effort in tagging correct metadata on all of my songs preparing for iTunes Match, but I am still in the camp as some people that have an entire album matched save for one song. What is that about? These are ripped from CDs, by me using iTunes and the iTunes Plus setting, so it’s frustrating that these aren’t being matched when the rest of the album was matched.

This question has been asked, but no one has answered. I’m assuming that’s because no one knows, but I will try again: Is there a way to re-scan to see if iTunes Match can find the iTunes store match for a previously uploaded track? I have tried deleting an album from iTunes and iCloud, re-ripping it and trying again, but it ends up having an issue with the same song in the album.

A few of them I understand. One album, the last track on my encode had a lot of skips and I pulled the CD and sure enough it was scratched and re-ripping gave the same skips. Another (Nirvana – Nevermind) has the super long last track where the last track and “bonus track” are combined as one track with a ton of dead space in between, but the iTunes store has it as two different tracks. So I know I’m not going to have luck with those types, which is fine. Where it is not is like my Snoop Dogg – Doggystyle album, about half the album is matched and half isn’t. NONE of this music is downloaded/torrent; these are 100% rips from CD using iTunes and are properly tagged.

Other than that gripe, I am pretty happy with the scan and match portion.