Up a creek without an iPod

[Washac]

Hi All

It seems that if you do not use an iPod and want to add tracks and playlists to a another make MP3 Player on a Mac you are up a creek without a paddle.

I bought a Goodmans GMP33000S HD player, it states it is Mac compatable, but is only compatable in the respect that you can plug it in your Mac and drag and drop your tracks onto it.

Thats OK if you want to just listen to your tracks in any old order.

Because you can only drag and drop have no software to sync the tunes and make playlists, you have to find a way by fiddling about with the files and ID3 tags so the player plays stuff in Artist/album order.

How come nobody has written a program to do this on the Mac for other MP3 players? iPod users have iTunes, but I will not use iPods, we had two in a year here and both went wrong.

I tried a Program called SyncTunes, but even that did not work.

Any help/ideas would be appreciated

Washac

 

[Chundles]

Hi All

It seems that if you do not use an iPod and want to add tracks and playlists to a another make MP3 Player on a Mac you are up a creek without a paddle.

I bought a Goodmans GMP33000S HD player, it states it is Mac compatable, but is only compatable in the respect that you can plug it in your Mac and drag and drop your tracks onto it.

Thats OK if you want to just listen to your tracks in any old order.

Because you can only drag and drop have no software to sync the tunes and make playlists, you have to find a way by fiddling about with the files and ID3 tags so the player plays stuff in Artist/album order.

How come nobody has written a program to do this on the Mac for other MP3 players? iPod users have iTunes, but I will not use iPods, we had two in a year here and both went wrong.

I tried a Program called SyncTunes, but even that did not work.

Any help/ideas would be appreciated

Washac

Blame the company that made your mp3 player for not making a Mac version of their software.

Can you drop the music in folders or does it have to be track by track?

 

[Nermal]

That's interesting, iTunes should be able to "talk" to it - the whole point of iTunes was to allow you to manage MP3 players on a Mac (iPods didn't even exist back then). Maybe iTunes only supports certain models or something

Edit: Here's a list of supported players.

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

I have an old-as-dirt Rio 500 that "just works" with iTunes on my PowerBook.

 

[®îçhå®?]

Hi All

How come nobody has written a program to do this on the Mac for other MP3 players? iPod users have iTunes, but I will not use iPods, we had two in a year here and both went wrong.

Aren't they under warranty so you can just get another one??

 

[Washac]

Blame the company that made your mp3 player for not making a Mac version of their software.

Can you drop the music in folders or does it have to be track by track?

At the moment I just drag and drop the tracks onto the drive on the Desktop.

Folders, hmmm, how would that work? Silly question maybe but how would the folders be recognised by the Player?

Folders already on the player are :

AUDIO
RECYCLED
SYSTEM
SYSTEM VOLUME INFO

 

[Washac]

That's interesting, iTunes should be able to "talk" to it - the whole point of iTunes was to allow you to manage MP3 players on a Mac (iPods didn't even exist back then). Maybe iTunes only supports certain models or something

Edit: Here's a list of supported players.

My players is not one of the recognised ones by iTunes

 

[Washac]

Aren't they under warranty so you can just get another one??

Yup, they sure are, but at their price they should not keep going wrong in less than a year, I really cannot be bothered with them.

By iPod, breaks in less than a year, send it back, they send new one, new one arrives breaks in less than 6 months, na, not good for a product of its price I'm afraid

 

[Sesshi]

You pay less (and it's usually not that much less these days), you get less. There are iTunes plugins to export to M3U playlist formats. Most of these aren't exactly transparent in use but it might work for you. Here's one:
http://homepage.mac.com/beryrinaldo/AudioTron/Export_Playlist_to_M3U/. The exact implementation and ease-of-use of such playlist differs from each player so I can't advise on how to use it with the GMP. But it should at least work in some fashion.

Anything goes wrong and iPods are as reliable as most other quality MP3 players, if not more so. And warranty support provided you haven't acquired it through dodgy dealings is exceptional. Your choice looks budget-related to me and argued through hearsay, not failure-related.

If Goodmans says it is Mac compatible and it isn't, it's not Apple's fault. It's Goodmans'. I would personally suggest trying to get a refund based on any claims of Mac compatibility (if it is explicitly made) and buy a 2Gb Nano instead. The GMP does have features the Nano lacks such as voice recording. If you want to hang onto these then you're going to have to weigh up the pros and cons of losing those features or making do with kludgy playlisting.

 

[Washac]

You pay less (and it's usually not that much less these days), you get less. There are iTunes plugins to export to M3U playlist formats. Most of these aren't exactly transparent in use but it might work for you. Here's one:
http://homepage.mac.com/beryrinaldo/AudioTron/Export_Playlist_to_M3U/. The exact implementation and ease-of-use of such playlist differs from each player so I can't advise on how to use it with the GMP. But it should at least work in some fashion.

Anything goes wrong and iPods are as reliable as most other quality MP3 players, if not more so. And warranty support provided you haven't acquired it through dodgy dealings is exceptional. Your choice looks budget-related to me and argued through hearsay, not failure-related.

If Goodmans says it is Mac compatible and it isn't, it's not Apple's fault. It's Goodmans'. I would personally suggest trying to get a refund based on any claims of Mac compatibility (if it is explicitly made) and buy a 2Gb Nano instead. The GMP does have features the Nano lacks such as voice recording. If you want to hang onto these then you're going to have to weigh up the pros and cons of losing those features or making do with kludgy playlisting.

Hi Ya

My choice was Ipod past expierence related....

Goodmans just state Mac after all else, almost as an afterthought rather than an upfront declaration, so I paid me money and took me choice.

The Goodmans player just appears on the desktop as another drive.

I have a prog called SyncTunes which did put a playlist across from iTunes to the Goodmans, but it asked me what folder I should add this to on the player, here are the choices of folders on the player:

AUDIO
RECYCLED
SYSTEM
SYSTEM VOLUME INFO

Tried it in the Audio and nothing, the files are there, but do not show on the Goodmans.

 

[Chundles]

Hi Ya

My choice was Ipod past expierence related....

Goodmans just state Mac after all else, almost as an afterthought rather than an upfront declaration, so I paid me money and took me choice.

The Goodmans player just appears on the desktop as another drive.

I have a prog called SyncTunes which did put a playlist across from iTunes to the Goodmans, but it asked me what folder I should add this to on the player, here are the choices of folders on the player:

AUDIO
RECYCLED
SYSTEM
SYSTEM VOLUME INFO

Tried it in the Audio and nothing, the files are there, but do not show on the Goodmans.

Wow, this sounds like a much better experience.

 

[Washac]

Wow, this sounds like a much better experience.

I came here looking for help, if I want smart comments I know where to go.

Thanks....

 

[Chundles]

I came here looking for help, if I want smart comments I know where to go.

Thanks....

Have you tried just putting the files in the root directory?

 

[Sesshi]

Hi Ya

My choice was Ipod past expierence related....

Goodmans just state Mac after all else, almost as an afterthought rather than an upfront declaration, so I paid me money and took me choice.

The Goodmans player just appears on the desktop as another drive.

I have a prog called SyncTunes which did put a playlist across from iTunes to the Goodmans, but it asked me what folder I should add this to on the player, here are the choices of folders on the player:

AUDIO
RECYCLED
SYSTEM
SYSTEM VOLUME INFO

Tried it in the Audio and nothing, the files are there, but do not show on the Goodmans.

Wish I could help, but you're going to have to get support from Goodmans on that one. Presuming the playlists output by Synctunes is in M3U format, you'll have to ask them where to put it. It may even be that you have to create a separate folder for them or something.

 

[Washac]

Wish I could help, but you're going to have to get support from Goodmans on that one. Presuming the playlists output by Synctunes is in M3U format, you'll have to ask them where to put it. It may even be that you have to create a separate folder for them or something.

Yes, just mailing Goodmans right now on that one.


Thanks.

 

[Washac]

Have you tried just putting the files in the root directory?

Yup, Just drag and drop all files directly across, all files have their correct ID3 tags, yet the player just wants play them how it wants.

I have had to number all tracks from 01 - 120 if 120 files on player, then frig with the ID3 tags to get them to play in album order.


Just contacting Goodmans about all this, see what they say.


Thanks

 

[Washac]

Hi All


Problem Solved, I found this prog and it works a treat, just have to make sure to remove any Mac hidden files after transfer.

Copy Playlist To Card 1.1.7 a script for iTunes

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/27403

Also now I know where this copy files to I have another way to do this.


Thanks for the help. a little of most said led me in the right direction to solve this


Washac

 

[Sesshi]

Cool. Next time don't be a cheapskate and get an iPod

 

[Washac]

Cool. Next time don't be a cheapskate and get an iPod

LOL

 

[Nermal]

here are the choices of folders on the player:

AUDIO
RECYCLED
SYSTEM
SYSTEM VOLUME INFO

Recycled and System Volume Info look like they came from Windows. Have you ever connected the player to a Windows system?

 

[Washac]

Recycled and System Volume Info look like they came from Windows. Have you ever connected the player to a Windows system?

Hmmm, it more than likely is Windows formatted, it came that way.

That is because as far as I know, most MP3 Players and flsh cards when bought are Windows formatted, and I think I read somewhere that you should not reformatt them as they stop working. I'm new to flash cards and HD MP3 players so I have no idea, I left it as bought.

 

[redAPPLE]

reason #341 why mac is my platform-of-choice, why iTunes is my music jukebox and why iPod is my digital music player of choice.

 

[e²Studios]

You mean there are "real" MP3 players that actually work and dont look like hideous M$ products that arent iPods??? *le gasp*
Ed

 

[Washac]

You mean there are "real" MP3 players that actually work and dont look like hideous M$ products that arent iPods??? *le gasp*
Ed

Yup

 

[fev]

Hi all, sorry to resurrect this discussion but i'm having a nightmare. My gmp33000s only has the system folder on it and a load of wierd symbols. I have used the program suggested but there is nothing in the folder it creates. Any ideas?

Cheers.
P