iTunes question

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
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I have done a bit of work setting up playlists in WMP11. I would like to import them into iTunes so they can be used on the iPhone. Can I do this? I am already suspecting not given that iTunes does not share the same music directory. But it would save me a whole bunch of time. Anybody?
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,228
13,833
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Toronto, ON
It worked (almost) on my test playlist so I assumed it would work on them all. I was wrong. After close comparison it had dropped 1 song from my test playlist (actually this was expected as it was an iTunes song converted so the location would not have been what iTunes expected). However, the other playlists it dropped some to lots of songs from the playlists. Some it wouldn't load at all. Looks like I have to do a playlist by playlist comparsison and repair. I guess this is still better than rebuilding from scratch but it is still a pain in the butt.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,228
13,833
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Toronto, ON
I see the issue. It messed up the track names when it imported into Itunes Library. For example "Ballroom Blitz" was imported as "01 Ballroom Blitz.mp3". So a playlist with "Ballroom Blitz" will not be recognized. I have to edit about 1/2 my iTunes library.

Also for some reason when I sync with the iPhone, it wants to copy 1300 songs again. I assume its not duplicating them?

What a mess.
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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Well I think you would have been better off just dropping your music into iTunes and then reviewing them to make sure the song name, artist, album and album art is correct. The latter two is not really necessary though I am a perfectionist. Then create your playlist within iTunes.

I converted over totally about 5 years ago and this was the easiest way for me. It will duplicate songs so you maybe best dumping the music on the iPhone and resync

Once you get through this you'll be fine.
 

IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,228
13,833
168
Toronto, ON
Well I think you would have been better off just dropping your music into iTunes and then reviewing them to make sure the song name, artist, album and album art is correct. The latter two is not really necessary though I am a perfectionist. Then create your playlist within iTunes.

I converted over totally about 5 years ago and this was the easiest way for me. It will duplicate songs so you maybe best dumping the music on the iPhone and resync

Once you get through this you'll be fine.

I did the duplication when I first imported the music (see my iTunes rant post).

I was just trying to save some work with the playlists. I am not sure if it was the initial copy which caused the mess or the playlist load. I also assumed iTunes automatically got the artwork as I saw some artwork. I did a global get artwork yesterday and most albums have it now. I also did a "Get Info" on about 1000 songs individually (no way to group them and have it work) and have reset the titles.

Synced to my iPhone and it copied those 1000+ songs again. Only problem now is I have 2135 songs in iTunes and 2134 songs on the iPhone. I will probably always be 1 song short as I have no idea which song that would be.
 

memebag

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Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
Apple__things_just_work__by_makrivag.jpg
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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Well as much as mem wants to believe that this is actually an iTunes problem if you had done this in reverse this biggest pile of shit out there is WMP. Try moving anything from another player into WMP and see how friendly it is.

In my opinion IRBS did this the hard way. All he had to do was drop his files into iTunes and then create his playlist. I mean how long can it take to recreate some playlist. No one uses playlist more than I do (remember the Stiletto). LOL
 

memebag

Top Brass, ADVP
Oct 11, 2008
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Lake Huntzing
Well as much as mem wants to believe that this is actually an iTunes problem if you had done this in reverse this biggest pile of shit out there is WMP. Try moving anything from another player into WMP and see how friendly it is.

In my opinion IRBS did this the hard way. All he had to do was drop his files into iTunes and then create his playlist. I mean how long can it take to recreate some playlist. No one uses playlist more than I do (remember the Stiletto). LOL

If you have very short playlists and a small number of songs that would be fine. I've got about 70,000 songs, and some of my playlists have over a thousand items.

WMP has its problems, but it supports SMIL, the open standard for playlists fro W3C. Most media players do. iTunes doesn't, because Apple purposely avoids supporting open standards.
 
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DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
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149
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Louisiana
If you have very short playlists and a small number of songs that would be fine. I've got about 70,000 songs, and some of my playlists have over a thousand items.

WMP has its problems, but it supports SMIL, the open standard for playlists fro W3C. Most media players do. iTunes doesn't, because Apple purposely avoids supporting open standards.

Yes WMP claims to support a lot of open standards unfortunately their implementation has much to be desired.

I see your point with huge playlist, though I cannot imagine having playlist that huge. Sort sounds like a shuffle all playlist. Granted iTunes is far from perfect but when you change from WMP you can expect it will be a task as IRBS is finding out. I have had a ton of issues over the years with WMP as have many others, forums are full of WMP issues. I have had a much better experience with iTunes after some initial pain getting myself switched over. I remember moving over from another player MusicMatch to WMP had issues just importing my songs, much less getting playlist or song titles correct.

This kind of stuff should always be easier, but it is just not. He will eventually get it worked out. Once I made the switch I will stick with iPhones and/or iPod's so I don't EVER have to deal with this crap again.
 
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IdRatherBeSkiing

Sherbet is NOT and NEVER WILL BE ice cream.
Oct 11, 2008
27,228
13,833
168
Toronto, ON
I actually find WMP11 to be pretty stable and work as expected on my XP box even if I have other things open.

iTunes is incredably flaky particularly if I have anything else open. I am getting used to it but I would not consider iTunes an ideal implementation.

As to which server I use to manage my music ... if iTunes would talk to any non-apple device, it would be a consideration. But it doesn't and WMP is the only one which does. What would have been ideal is for WMP11 be able to sync the music to the iPhone, avoid the iTunes copy entirely. But we know what Apple thinks about that don't we?

So I have my iTunes world now for my iPhone and my WMP world for everything else. Nere the 2 shall meet (unless I have to import new music or export depending on where its purchased or ripped).
 

DAB

Mod Emeritus
Oct 9, 2008
9,434
149
63
Louisiana
I actually find WMP11 to be pretty stable and work as expected on my XP box even if I have other things open.

iTunes is incredably flaky particularly if I have anything else open. I am getting used to it but I would not consider iTunes an ideal implementation.

As to which server I use to manage my music ... if iTunes would talk to any non-apple device, it would be a consideration. But it doesn't and WMP is the only one which does. What would have been ideal is for WMP11 be able to sync the music to the iPhone, avoid the iTunes copy entirely. But we know what Apple thinks about that don't we?

So I have my iTunes world now for my iPhone and my WMP world for everything else. Nere the 2 shall meet (unless I have to import new music or export depending on where its purchased or ripped).

I have never had iTunes be flaky on any of my Windows Machines and certainly not on my Mac Machines. But you are running an old computer as I recall. WMP is almost built into the Windows OS, so it should work well. However my complaint isn't in respect to that. It is more about the user interface, crappy ability to download album art and the incredible crappy manner in which is tags music.

Indeed it would be nice if WMP could be used to copy directly to the iPod Touch like you can with Copy Trans or the other half dozen programs that do so. So there are choices out there beyond and above iTunes. I would imagine it would be nice if iTunes could be used to copy music to the Zune too. None of these companies play nice and this just creates issues for end users.

Neither MS or Apple have very user friendly media programs if you ask me, but if I had to choose one and I guess basically I have, then it would be iTunes over WMP hands DOWN! Then again I've been using it for 4 years, you just started and we are all creatures of habit.