Understanding iTunes Match

[Jungo]

Create a smart playlist with the criteria being 'bit rate is 128k' and iCloud status is 'matched'. Then delete the content of that playlist locally, and then select all the files again, and right-click any song and Download.

thanks so much -

 

[soLoredd]

Secondly, from what I understand, downloading a song on one of your iDevices actually downloads to your cache, and once you run out of room, songs that you play least often or haven't played in a while will be automatically deleted from the cache, thus streaming.

Can someone clarify this? Is this how it works on iOS or not? When I tried it on my iPhone it let me listen/download simultaneously but it didn't seem like it was in cache, more like it downloaded an actual file.

 

[Tinmania]

Can someone clarify this? Is this how it works on iOS or not? When I tried it on my iPhone it let me listen/download simultaneously but it didn't seem like it was in cache, more like it downloaded an actual file.

I can clarify it but someone will likely jump in and claim: "no it is a cache!" or "it IS streaming" and quite frankly I am tired of that. If that is your belief please stop reading now.

But for the rest of you: I have tested this extensively on two iPhones and an iPad.

What I found was nothing was ever deleted. No "cache" was ever purged. I filled my iPad to the point where it was just about unusual (iTunes showed it at over capacity). Did even a single song that was downloaded simply playing get deleted? Nope. No matter what I tried nothing was deleted. Ever.

Since my iPad is jb I looked for any differences on the iPad itself, as far as where songs are stored. I could not find any difference between a song I actually chose to download, got from iTunes syncing, or merely downloaded by playing the track. There was no "cache." There were the actual songs themselves.



Michael

 

[Crotonmark]

Two Macs - One Apple ID - How to use iTunes Match

I did read the entire thread so if this questions has been asked and answered please excuse me.

My family has two macs and one Apple ID. I have turned iTunes Match on for one of the Macs. I would like to turn on the second Mac. My questions is: Will iTunes Match merge the two iTunes libraries (made up of purchased from iTunes store and ripped from CDs) or will it delete the original library from Mac 1 when I turn on Mac 2?

thanks for any help here!!

Also, my experience with using iTunes Match on my iPhone is that it is REALLY slow to download and start a song when you are in a 3G environment. That is my only Match complaint so far.

Mark

 

[Tinmania]

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 will merge the libraries. After that you will see the same tracks on both macs. I like this aspect of the service.



Michael

 

[Crotonmark]

Thank you Michael. That was what I was hoping would happen. Do I need to do anything to make that the result?

Now if only they can improve the speed when I listen on my iPhone !

 

[itsjosh]

How is iTunes Match supposed to work for purchased videos? I have many purchased music videos that have been matched at various lower bitrates. When I locally delete them, the 256kbps version appears in iCloud just like purchased music would. When I try and pull the 256kbps version from cloud they revert back to the weaker bitrate version. I've replaced most of my music using this format and was under the impression that music videos fell under the same criteria. Thanks in advance.

In addition, I hadn't seen this touched on in this thread, so FYI if you originally downloaded a song at 320kbps and it is matched and you redownload from iCloud you will now have a 256kbps version where your 320kbps version was.

 

[Tinmania]

Thank you Michael. That was what I was hoping would happen. Do I need to do anything to make that the result?

Now if only they can improve the speed when I listen on my iPhone !

No you should not have to do anything to make that work. It just works! 🙂

Not only that but your playlists will all be in sync too. Change a playlist on one mac, and the change is propagated to the other--and to iOS devices.

I love how it works because on my macbook air I don't need to keep anything stored locally--which is good as I only have a 128GB SSD. While I don't usually listen to music on my air, I still used to keep at least some music on it "just in case." Now I can do that from the cloud should I need to.


Michael

 

[barszap]

Over the years I've somehow ended up with some doubles of tracks and albums. If I turn on match, then once it's done delete all my songs locally and re-download them from the cloud will the doubles be gone?

 

[milo]

Maybe, maybe not. Some doubles are detected as doubles and the extra not included in Match, others do show up twice.

 

[barszap]

Maybe, maybe not. Some doubles are detected as doubles and the extra not included in Match, others do show up twice.

I just finished the whole process and it got almost all of the doubles which was nice. Made cleaning it up really easy.

I did also have the problem most people seem to have. Random single songs from albums that were otherwise totally matched got uploaded. Has anyone found a solution to this? Is there a way to get it to try to rescan it?

 

[FuzzySloth]

Album Art?

Ok, I matched over 8,000 songs, then deleted them (not from the cloud) and re-downloded them all at 256 kbps. Laborious to say the least. After all this, the album artwork appears not to have changed. Years ago when I copied the art from the web, the small size on my iPod was fine. Now with the larger screen on the iPad and Air Play to my flat screen in the living room, the album artwork is extremely grainy. I had hoped that iTunes Match would have taken care of this. Does it? What am I missing? I really don't want to copy and paste all those albums again individually. Is there a way around this?

Also, this may seem like a rudimentary question, but if I'm not on wifi, like on an airplane, for example, what music will I have access to on my iPad now that I've matched my entire library?

Thanks!

 

[zhenya]

Ok, I matched over 8,000 songs, then deleted them (not from the cloud) and re-downloded them all at 256 kbps. Laborious to say the least. After all this, the album artwork appears not to have changed. Years ago when I copied the art from the web, the small size on my iPod was fine. Now with the larger screen on the iPad and Air Play to my flat screen in the living room, the album artwork is extremely grainy. I had hoped that iTunes Match would have taken care of this. Does it? What am I missing? I really don't want to copy and paste all those albums again individually. Is there a way around this?

Also, this may seem like a rudimentary question, but if I'm not on wifi, like on an airplane, for example, what music will I have access to on my iPad now that I've matched my entire library?

Thanks!

I don't believe it touches the album artwork, because that, like all other metadata, treats the user's own data as the truth. Imagine if they didn't. Apple would be getting lambasted for 'overwriting my custom artwork collection' or 'wrecking all my tags'. They are going about this in the right way.

When you are not on wifi, you will only have access to whatever music you have downloaded to the device. You can see this list in Settings --> Music --> Show All Music Off. If you want to download a large amount of music en-masse, create a playlist, and then use the Download All option on that playlist.