iTunes 4.5 Released

[DStaal]

Best new feature:

Best new feature (and entirely unmentioned): Multiple users on the same computer can have iTunes open!

That's right, no more "iTunes can't open because it is in use by another user." No more making sure you quit iTunes so the rest of your family can use it. It just works!

Related, but one I'm not so excited about: Switching users while playing iTunes no longer stops iTunes from playing. Good, in that I can hear the song, bad in that I can't stop the music or change the volume, or anything else...

 

[svenas1]

This was posted by Paul Thurrott on his web site http://www.internet-nexus.com/ about the iTunes update.

All he does is talk about the conversion from WMA to AAC, which is valid enough I suppose, but just can't say something good about it!!!!

Is it just me, or does this guy never really have much good to say about Apple...

No, it's him. This guy PT is a sad person. Sad and hilarious at the same time. Did you notice the pic of him next to his intellectual counterpart ? PT is the one with the short ears.

 

[centauratlas]

>lossless

To me this indicates that they intend to do bigger iPods in the not so distant future. I encoded all my CDs at 320kbps MP3 (I started back with the 1st version of iTunes) so they aren't small for sure. I have 12730 as of right now. I would have encoded higher but iTunes wouldn't go higher. But their lossless format will probably make them even bigger. For example, Dire Straits, "Brothers in Arms" song is about 16MB at 320kbsp MP3. I am re-encoding it with the "lossless" format to see how big it is and how the sound compares.

Anyway, the point was, if they are encouraging bigger encoding rates and therefore bigger file sizes, there is a market for bigger iPods to hold them all.

Edit: I did re-encode the entire Brothers in Arms CD (in particular that B in A track) and each was about doubled in size. It says it encoded around 800kbps (varies by song). I am going to selectively re-encode some CDs.

It would be nice if the Apple store sold the songs in "lossless" format. That is one reason I buy the CDs more often. I'd even pay a bit more for lossless.

 

[centauratlas]

I import my cds at 1411kbps (exact cd copy) to a sep. 250gb western digital drive.

What are you using to encode? Just curious.

 

[jmerk]

Radiohead download?! wtf?!

Porchland:
To my knowledge, Radiohead does not have their music for sale on the web ANYWHERE! Where on iTMS did you find this? I just did a search for Radiohead and came up with Christopher O'Riley's very cool piano renditions of Radiohead's music and a few other covers but, alas, no Radiohead themselves...

What are you talking about?

j

 

[jmerk]

Where the HELL is the Quicktime 6.5.1 update?!

I see a Quicktime update 6.3.1, post date: 4.27.04.

Quicktime is up to 6.5 so what the hell is this? After reading the "spec" on the update, it appears that it COULD be the 6.5.1 update. Is this a typo or what the hell?
I've run Software Update about 10 times...nothing.

j

 

[Rower_CPU]

I've only found it via direct download:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/quicktime.html
or
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

 

[idkew]

I see a Quicktime update 6.3.1, post date: 4.27.04.

Quicktime is up to 6.5 so what the hell is this? After reading the "spec" on the update, it appears that it COULD be the 6.5.1 update. Is this a typo or what the hell?
I've run Software Update about 10 times...nothing.

j

rower has posted the link for you, i did about 50 posts ago, as i am sure others have.

stop being lazy and read the thread.

 

[xhost_plus]

ID3 Tags

What I would like to see is a feature that resides in Window Media Player. In Media Player, you can update the song information in a slick way. You can search for the song or album information and it will update the song's ID3 tags automatically. If iTunes had this feature I think that more people would want make the switch.

 

[Kid Red]

wma on windows only

links to the music store from every song in my library.


the party shuffle is nice.

and cd covers.. cool.

Ah, did you happen to open your prefs and uncheck the 'link to the music store'? Try to learn a little more before basd mouthing something.

I personally think it's cool because I have a lot of tunes that I don't know which album it is from. Now I can simply find out.

 

[TheT]

Best new feature (and entirely unmentioned): Multiple users on the same computer can have iTunes open!

That's right, no more "iTunes can't open because it is in use by another user." No more making sure you quit iTunes so the rest of your family can use it. It just works!

Related, but one I'm not so excited about: Switching users while playing iTunes no longer stops iTunes from playing. Good, in that I can hear the song, bad in that I can't stop the music or change the volume, or anything else...

This is about the best thing! This has pissed me off for so long... awesome!

 

[dynamicd]

Well, I skipped the previous 9 pages so I don't know if this has been posted yet or not but since you can now click the arrows next to the song or artist in your library to go onto itms, I wish there was someway you could get the album art off there too by using a similar method.

 

[Spyky]

but that would only give iggy pop songs that are in the soundtrack genre. there isn't anyway to have iggy pop songs, plus soundtracks. I think thats what he was getting at

unless I'm stupid and just haven't figure it out

Use match "ANY" instead of match "ALL"

So, Match "Any" 1. artist is iggy pop + 2. genre is soundtrack

Unfortunately, one cannot select some to be matched all, and some to be matched any. However, you can now select in or not in a playlist, so you could make a playlist that say contains: All Iggy Pop songs of time < 2 minutes (Using ALL) and then another playlist that has everything from that playlist plus all of your songs from the genre soundtracks (using any).

-Spyky

 

[encro]

Obsessive-compulsives are always so sure about themselves and others.

rewind and go back a step

It's not because I'm 'obsessive-compulsive', it's because of knowledge in the recording industry (I am a musician/hobbyist-audioengineer). It has more to do with the fact that reference monitors present music purely as it is; not with the colorization that standard hi-fi speakers will present to you.

If you can't acknowledge that then me thinks you have been to too many loud concerts

 

[looklost]

not working

looks great..... until I quit itunes and tried lanching it later, now itunes doesn't work. Seen a post about Quicktime 6.5.1, going to try installing and see if that helps. Anyone else run into this problem?

 

[centauratlas]

SACD

What I would like to see too is SACD support on the Mac and in iTunes. Talk about even more audio data there. ;-) (And not just playing the CD layer, but the whole thing).

 

[egsaxy]

My library

Did anyone else have to reload their library? When I opened it the first time my library was empty. Now my purchased music is not in that playlist (still loaded after I found it), and all of my playlists are bye-bye. Plus because I filled one drive up and started using a second my iTunes library is in multiple locations and am now "missing" 200+ songs and I dont know whats missing or where exactly it is. Anyone else having problems like this?

 

[egsaxy]

sorry for the second post in 10 seconds but does anyone have the .dmg of iTunes 4.2 I want to install it in addition to 4.5 if possible.

 

[jfruh]

new ipod updater doesn't work for me.

Hello-

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, I'm looking for help anywhere I can get it...

I just downloaded the new iTunes update (to 4.5) and accompanying iPod update. After updating iTunes, when I plug in my iPod, it appears as a volume on the desktop (even though I haven't set it to firewire disk mode) and a dialog pops up in iTunes: "iTunes has detected a software update for the iPod. Would you like to install it now?" I click yes, and it launches the updater app -- which tells me that "No iPod is attached"! I've tried rebooting to no avail. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Oh, I should add that my iPod is the original, old school 5 GB model. Never had any problems with it before.

jf

 

[chabig]

What are you using to encode? Just curious.

He's not encoding. He's importing as AIFF, which is the native CD format. Or...he could simply be dragging and dropping the audio files from the CD to his hard drive, which is the same thing, except iTunes isn't managing it.

 

[Wonder Boy]

i was really hoping for an ipod software update that resolved the battery issue. ah well.

 

[JFreak]

There's NO WAY you can distinguish AAC@192 from the orginal CD, on a hi-fi equipment costing less than $50,000.

sure i can.

just give me a pair of shure E5 headphones and an ipod. put in an aiff original and an aac file and play it to me not telling which comes first. i bet i can tell you which is which. and it only costs a thousand, ipod included.

aac loses some of the high frequencies, which can be felt as "air". or seen with a frequency analyzer. either way, the difference is there and i can hear it with reference monitors.

 

[jesuscandle]

itunes ate my library

Did anyone else have to reload their library? When I opened it the first time my library was empty. Now my purchased music is not in that playlist (still loaded after I found it), and all of my playlists are bye-bye. Plus because I filled one drive up and started using a second my iTunes library is in multiple locations and am now "missing" 200+ songs and I dont know whats missing or where exactly it is. Anyone else having problems like this?

egsaxy,

I had the same problem at first. (In fact, 4.5 kinda screwed my system for a couple of consecutive restarts.) Things seemed fine when I left for work.

Anywho...

I was able to salvage my library completely intact by navigating to the folder:

~/Music/iTunes library (something like that?)

In there, my old library was chilling out with a name like "Itunes Library (Old)" I just renamed the "current" library file (and it's associated XML file) to be "New" and then renamed the "Old" file without the "Old."

Worked like a charm.

Um...I'm realizing that's not super descriptive. PM if you still need help.

 

[Rincewind42]

sure i can.

just give me a pair of shure E5 headphones and an ipod. put in an aiff original and an aac file and play it to me not telling which comes first. i bet i can tell you which is which. and it only costs a thousand, ipod included.

aac loses some of the high frequencies, which can be felt as "air". or seen with a frequency analyzer. either way, the difference is there and i can hear it with reference monitors.

Actually, QT before 6.5.1 did cut off frequencies above 16Khz. This is not the case with 6.5.1, so you may want to check your listening test again.

 

[TWinbrook46636]

Double-Blind Listening Test

I was able to participate in a double-blind listening test last year comparing various bit rates to CDs. The equipment was mid-range (high-end to most) but nothing extreme. Over speakers in the 128k vs 192k test I picked out the 192k samples 7 out of 10 times. Over headphones it was 9 out of 10 times. Over speakers in the 256k vs CD tests I picked out the CD samples 5 out of 10 times. Over headphones it was 7 out of 10 times. There were more but I don't remember them off hand.

I will say that the CD format is not the end all be all of quality sound to begin with. When I listened to an LP for the first time in many years I was blown away. It was so much better than a CD of the same album. It made the CD sound dull in comparison. Background noise is stripped away with CDs but so is everything else. Of course, LPs are not exactly practical in this day and age. I think as technology advances the quality of digital recordings will imporve.

Of course, this doesn't stop me from owning an iPod. I do wish there was a 192k option on iTMS for say $1.50 or so. Most of the songs I have bought from the iTMS are pretty good but I can hear room for improvement on a lot of them. One EP I bought recently was actually better than the CD though which is interesting.