I just ripped a CD in Apple Lossless... and the files are almost 10x larger than when downloaded off of iTunes. So for anyone else like me who has lots of empty space and wants to use it, rip CD's in Apple Lossless and it has better sound too. 
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iPod For everyone with LOTS of extra ipod space
- Thread starter rye9
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A lot. If the files are ten times the size, your iPod has to access its hard drive ten times as often. If an iPod normally has a 20-minute buffer, you're now down to a 2-minute buffer.
I don't know exact numbers on the battery life, but it's a lot. Hard drives don't spin for free.
I don't know exact numbers on the battery life, but it's a lot. Hard drives don't spin for free.
And since your sig says you only have 2 40GB drives, you're going to need more space if you plan on keeping stuff in that format
A lot less. The problem is that the iPod only has 32MB RAM and is not made to play Lossless files as it cannot cache the next songs and has to access the HD constantly. Think of it as constant skipping to the next song. Now with video content coming Apple might up the RAM. I'd advocate 128MB to be useful for videos and Lossless. But considering Apple had 256MB as a standard for computers for a pretty long time I don't see that happening.
rye9 said:
Yes. Select the right AAC rate in the import prefs in iTunes, highlight the songs and ctrl-click them and click convert to...
Remember the ITMS rips at 128 - up the bit rate to 160 or higher and you'll notice some sound quality increase anyhow.
Searching a few older posts, it looks like using Apple Lossless cuts your iPod battery life about in half.
Yes, you can convert Lossless to AAC as Diatribe says, but that leaves you with two of every file. The Shuffle has a feature that allows you to downsample high-quality files upon transfer to the Shuffle, but that hasn't been implemented for other iPods yet.
Yes, you can convert Lossless to AAC as Diatribe says, but that leaves you with two of every file. The Shuffle has a feature that allows you to downsample high-quality files upon transfer to the Shuffle, but that hasn't been implemented for other iPods yet.
Diatribe said:
To make sure I understand this.. I go into iTunes, open Preferences, click Advanced, then Import, and then select AAC encoder. Then what?
After that, I open Finder, to Music, then my iTunes library, and drag and click a box around all of the Lossless song files to highlight them all... and ctrl-click?
rye9 said:
Yes you should be able to control-click or right click and see a menu item for "Convert to AAC." That will duplicate all of the highlighted files at the lower quality (whatever you set it at in the Import preferences).
rye9 said:
I did say 'or higher' - you can put it to what you like. You trade size for quality - but it will depend on how well you can hear the difference.
I rip most stuff at 160 (since I listen in relatively noisy environments) unless it's classical or some electronica when I up it to 192 to avoid crackles in the quiet parts
WildCowboy said:
I wish it had. Because we are already for the iMacs and are coming to that point with the portables where we could have our music libaries in Lossless on our HDs but won't since we'd have to have an additional just for the iPod since it isn't big enough and doesn't have enough RAM.
So a feature like this would be welcomed. Although I guess I wouldn't need it until there are 300GB 2.5" HDs since my Lossless library already takes up 140GB on my external HD.
In a few years though there won't be the need for compressed music anymore, neither as a bandwidth nor a storage space excuse. The only question is if they're ever going back now that they see that customers are buying 128kbit-crap (sorry but it is) too.
rye9 said:
Sure...go higher if you want. At some point, though, you can't really notice the compression. A lot of people can't tell the difference between CD quality and 128 AAC. Most others are happy at 160 or 192. If you're just listening through an iPod, this is most likely fine. If you're playing your tunes through a $3000 stereo system, you'll likely be able to tell the difference up to much higher bit rates.
I changed it to AAC in the itunes prefs but I dont get an option to convert to AAC in my music folder.
rye9 said:
Sorry...just do it in iTunes, in your Library. Select the bunch of songs and then control-click or right click and select "Convert Selection to AAC." You can also do it through the "Advanced" menu in iTunes.
rye9 said:OK, thx, then I can delete the old Lossless files.
If you have the hard drive space, keep the lossless. It future-proofs you. Who knows, maybe Apple will come out with an iPod that can hold your whole libarary as lossless, and play for 24 hours. It also means that when a new audio format comes out that produces better sound at lower bitrates than AAC, you'll have the lossless 'base' files to start your conversion from again.
A friend of mine had his CD collection (200+) encoded as 128 kbit mp3s. Once Apple Lossless came out, he re-encoded as Apple Lossless, then transcoded to 256 kbit mp3 (for his streaming media player,) and 160 kbit AAC (for his iPod.) And, heck, iTunes takes care of transcoding to his latest addition, an iPod shuffle.
I had literally just finished ripping my ~150 CD collection to AAC the day before Apple announced Lossless, so I wasn't in a hurry to re-rip. I may do it soon, though.
rye9 said:
I fyou don't get the convert to option when you ctrl-click the songs then, try the menu, somewhere on the right there is the option to convert all.
Diatribe said:
I missed way back in post #11 that he's trying to do this through Finder. We'll get him into iTunes and it'll be fine.
WildCowboy said:
Yeah, missed that too. Thanks for pointing that out.
Do what I said in iTunes and you'll be fine.