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A Clear Explanation of iTunes Match
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I don't know exactly what you are asking but matched tracks are the same exact format as DRM-free tracks you would purchase from iTunes music store.
It does not matter what format you rip to if it is matched since t is replaced with 256kbps AAC. If it is not matched it is uploaded as-is unless it is lossless, WAV, or higher than 384kbps bitrate. Ergo, lossless will be a waste of time for iCloud.
Michael
The iTunes thing is a bit different--probably should not have brought that into the mix. But the iTunes warning I am referring to is when unchecking music syncing in iTunes itself. That warning has always occurred. But in the past it left no music at all on my iPhone, or any other iOS device. I don't know if this is a big now but it seems so.
Update: OK I think I see what is happening. All the tracks left on my iPhone can't be deleted completely. Most of them were purchases. Apparently purchased tracks are not wiped when turning music syncing off in iTunes. If I manually delete them they stay in the songs list but with cloud icon. They can be played just like playing matched tracks: they simultaneously play and download.
The weird part is that some of the songs were not purchased and in fact were uploaded. So with iTunes Match turned off, the music app is giving me access to tracks that should only be available with Match. Heck, one of the tracks was never released as a track anywhere: I recorded it from a movie's soundtrack--poorly at that. Yet I can play that song as if it was a purchased track, with iTunes Match turned off. I would say that part is definitely a bug.
Back to the subject at hand...
The error message that pertains to pre-loading music on iOS, however, is on the iOS device itself when turning Match on. That message is not actually saying it will delete all music. It states: "iTunes Match will replace the music library on this device." That could mean, "unless the music on this device is also in the iTunes Match library that is being turned on."
That could be why you didn't have success in syncing the music before you had Match turned on in iTunes: the music on your device was not identified as being in your iTunes Match library and was deleted. Even if they are the same tracks perhaps syncing them from a matched iTunes library adds some sort of "also in iCloud" flag to them (well, of course: iCloud Status and iCloud Download are now fields in iTunes).
Michael
Yes you can show that field in iTunes and then sort by it.
But if you are trying to delete and download low bitrate tracks it is probably easier to use a smart playlist. That way you can have <255kbps, Matched, and Purchased as factors. Anything that is Matched, Purchased, and below 256kbps per second can be acted upon at once.
Michael
Yes. You make sure that the bit rate is displayed (Command-J), then click on the top of the bit rate column to sort.
It is supposed to match the actual music, ignoring completely what your tags say. In your case, if they took the same recording as on iTMS, then it should match those songs. If Art Garfunkel sings in French on your version, then you won't get it matched.
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about the 21k limit
according to the match guidelines it says it limits you to 25k songs BUT it doesn't count iTunes purchases. So can you get around this by, for lack of a better word, laundering your songs. IE, if you have a song you got from emusic or amazon and you match it, and then you delete it from your library and then download the matched version in the cloud (which would now be and iTunes track) then would those tracks now be counted as iTunes tracks and then not counted against the 25k?
Does it essentially treat all the matched songs that you download on to your devices as purchased songs from there on out? Can anyone test or confirm this?
according to the match guidelines it says it limits you to 25k songs BUT it doesn't count iTunes purchases. So can you get around this by, for lack of a better word, laundering your songs. IE, if you have a song you got from emusic or amazon and you match it, and then you delete it from your library and then download the matched version in the cloud (which would now be and iTunes track) then would those tracks now be counted as iTunes tracks and then not counted against the 25k?
Does it essentially treat all the matched songs that you download on to your devices as purchased songs from there on out? Can anyone test or confirm this?
No. iCloud Status will state either "matched", "uploaded", "purchased", or "ineligible". Anything that was purchased from iTunes will state "purchased" and anything that wasn't will not. So only music that was actually purchased will not count against the 25K limit.
Won't the "Matched" songs not count either? I was under the impression that only things that you actually UPLOAD to iCloud will count against the limit. When you match a song, you're not actually storing anything since iTunes has it in catalog.
Or am I misunderstanding?
Yes you are misunderstanding. Only purchased tracks do not count towards the 25,000.
Michael
so i'm assuming then under kind it would say Matched AAC Audio File, but if you download a matched song and delete the original file then and you cancel iTunes Match down the road will that file no longer play?
itunes match sync + match still wonky
Wow. Okay. I tried turning off Match on my iPhone, deleting all the music from the device on the phone itself, syncing a playlist onto the phone, and then turning Match back on on the phone. So, yes, my synced music stayed on the phone...BUT: the only music I see listed, cloud icon or no, is the artists/albums that were on the playlist. And, some albums have two entries for each track, one with a cloud icon and one without. Other albums don't. And these don't necessarily correspond to which ones have matched in iTunes and which haven't. This is SO user-friendly! I really don't want to spend another 24 hours syncing my playlist from Apple's servers again just because this isn't working. Lord love a duck!
Oh, and when I had iTunes Match turned OFF on the device, the cloud icons were still there and clicking one still started a download! WTH?
Wow. Okay. I tried turning off Match on my iPhone, deleting all the music from the device on the phone itself, syncing a playlist onto the phone, and then turning Match back on on the phone. So, yes, my synced music stayed on the phone...BUT: the only music I see listed, cloud icon or no, is the artists/albums that were on the playlist. And, some albums have two entries for each track, one with a cloud icon and one without. Other albums don't. And these don't necessarily correspond to which ones have matched in iTunes and which haven't. This is SO user-friendly! I really don't want to spend another 24 hours syncing my playlist from Apple's servers again just because this isn't working. Lord love a duck!
Oh, and when I had iTunes Match turned OFF on the device, the cloud icons were still there and clicking one still started a download! WTH?
That was what I was seeing when I had Match off! Weird.
But when I sync music and then turn on Match I don't see cloud icons on the playlist I synced. I even turned on the option to have iTunes sync music at 128kbps AAC and those tracks are not duplicated with their iCloud equivalents. So basically now I have 128kbps music stored locally. If I delete one of those tracks and then play it, the 256kbps version is downloaded. So Match seems to know they are the same songs.
Michael
Are you able to see your whole iMatch library? I can't get it to show anything on my iPhone except for artists/albums that were on the playlist I synched. So, most of my library is not downloadable from the cloud at all right now on the device, but it all shows in iTunes as being matched/uploaded. This is driving me nuts!
I have two songs by AC/DC that were both 128 kbps mp3. However when I used itunes match it match them and let me download the new 256 kbps .m4a but the thing that bothers me is how can iTunes match my AC/DC tracks when AC/DC does not have any of their songs in the iTunes store? I have tested the tracks and they are AC/DC so it did not mismatch them.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
It bothers you that you had two tracks updated to higher quality when you didn't expect it? It happened to me too but I was instead pleasantly surprised.
AC/DC for whatever reason is allowing this to occur but still not allowing iTunes purchases.
Michael
Jwd41190 said:
It bothers you that you had two tracks updated to higher quality when you didn't expect it? It happened to me too but I was instead pleasantly surprised.
AC/DC for whatever reason is allowing this to occur but still not allowing iTunes purchases.
Michael
Speaking of, there's also an "error" state and right now smart playlists don't include that as an option. Apple should add that so users can make a playlist of all "error" songs. I guess you can do it by having four criteria, each NOT the other four but it would be easier to just have that option.
Anything that has a cloud icon can be played, which will also download it, or just downloaded. You can also scroll to the bottom of a playlist and choose to Download All.
Michael
Thought I would add my experiences and thoughts. I don't need a lot of match features for my collection but was interested in cleaning up a lot of tracks. I can do that but not as well as I had hoped and will only need a one year subscription. The meta data does not appear to be downloaded and that is a great disappointment but I think I understand why. Apple probably had a lot of pressure from the record companies not to do that. If you have a lot of ripped tracks that are just numbered with no titles or artwork then Match won't help you. I have a lot of tracks without artwork and I was hoping to just get that downloaded but that's not happening. I guess the rule that Apple is going by is if you own the tracks you should have the meta data on the CD's.
Still I thought that downloading clean tracks would be a great feature and it is but with some caveats. I've already read of Match making errors and it appears that the digital fingerprint of each track is not perfectly unique. There is a point at which differences in similar tracks are ignored as below a set threshold of accuracy and if you have a number of tracks that are the same music but recorded at different times or with different orchestras then Match just might send you whatever it thinks is close enough. That is fine for Pop but for Classical and rare recordings it won't do. Be very cautious when downloading those that are said to be matched. If your copy has pops or other noise you might as well give it a go but most Classical CD's from the library are in pretty good condition. I copy from my CD's at AAC 256k bitrate with error correction and Matching them is probably not gong to make any difference. I'm not going to use Match on any of my Classical collection unless it's to fix a specific problem with the track. My Pop and Folk collection is a different story and Match is working great for them although I am not getting the artwork I hoped for.
Still I thought that downloading clean tracks would be a great feature and it is but with some caveats. I've already read of Match making errors and it appears that the digital fingerprint of each track is not perfectly unique. There is a point at which differences in similar tracks are ignored as below a set threshold of accuracy and if you have a number of tracks that are the same music but recorded at different times or with different orchestras then Match just might send you whatever it thinks is close enough. That is fine for Pop but for Classical and rare recordings it won't do. Be very cautious when downloading those that are said to be matched. If your copy has pops or other noise you might as well give it a go but most Classical CD's from the library are in pretty good condition. I copy from my CD's at AAC 256k bitrate with error correction and Matching them is probably not gong to make any difference. I'm not going to use Match on any of my Classical collection unless it's to fix a specific problem with the track. My Pop and Folk collection is a different story and Match is working great for them although I am not getting the artwork I hoped for.
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