Using an iPod without iTunes

[Funkstar]

There is no way I'm going to pollute any of my systems by installing iTunes (and all the other Apple crap is insists on installing) but I need to get my MP3 collection onto my new iPod Classic.

What's the lightest and most straight forward way of doing this?

I don't want to buy anything, I know I can do it with free software. I don't need it to rip, download meta data or covers, encode or anything like that, just simple file transfer or syncing.

Thanks all.

[Zak33]

I've had to put iTunes on Sair's PC... can't work out how to get stuff to her iPod touch any other way.

[finlay666]

Mediamonkey supports syncing

You need to use iTunes first to enable disc use but after that you can uninstall it

funnily enough the free version also does all the other things you mentioned, except converting on the fly (e.g. ogg on your pc to mp3 on your ipod)

[Funkstar]

The iPod touch and the iPhone are completely different beasts to the rest of the range Zak. Although apparently it can be done, to a certain extent.

I've installed foobar2000 along with the iPod manager component.

For the iPhone/Touch platform you need to have iTunes installed but you don't have to use it.

Installing iTunes on my netbook so I can initialise the Classic and make sure the firmware is up to date.

[peterb]

The ipod will show up as a disc in Windows, BUT the ipod uses some database construct to store files, and relies on the idtag data to display the names.

I use Amarok on a Linux based system, which does prtetty much what Itunes does - altghough it doesn't do automatic syncing (which IMHO is a good thing - you can't accidentally wipe your Ipod!)

[Jiff Lemon]

Didn't good old winamp include Ipod support?

[Funkstar]

Apparently so (after a little googling), but I figured Foobar was even lighter than winamp for what I need to do.

[Stoo]

http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php that any good?

[Funkstar]

That look spretty good Stoo

What a crock of sh... iTunes is! 90meg download, completely hostile when used on a netbook with a low res screen (controls off the bottom of the screen, and their Mac like scroll bars are terrible and buggy). I rally don't like the way it implies you have to register a payment method to use it either. You don't have to do that part of the setup, but it makes you think there is no way past it. Canceling the registration does let you use iTunes and your iPod, but that's not the impression you get.

uninstalling it now.

[floppybootstomp]

I've been using Winamp for my I-Pod for around a year now, so much better than i-Tunes imo.

No i-Tunes on any machine here, nor Quick Time, Safari et al.

[Funkstar]

This is getting annoying and I think there must be something wrong with what I'm doing.

Transferred all 22,000+ tracks with foobar2000, everything appears fine, disconnect the iPod and it says I have ~17,000 tracks, no albums artists or genres, won't let me play anything.

Wiped it with iTunes (which said there was no music on it, just "other"). Tried Winamp, same deal.

I guess I should transfer a few albums to start with, something is messing the iPod DB up.

Oh and CopyTrans looks good, but you can only add tracks to it, not folders. I have ~1,600 albums, so adding them one at a time would not be fun.

[Unique]

i have an iphone and it's a PITA using itunes and having to tag everything properly first. my old mp3 player was just drag and drop and played in alphanumeric order based on folder and filenames, which is how i have my files on the pc

i thought with an ipod classic that if you used "discmode" the ipod shows up as a portable HD like a usb flashdrive, but if you dragged and dropped files like that they wouldn't be playable in the ipod, you have to use itunes or some alternative to "sync" the files to it, and when the mp3s are copied across it updates some seperate table of contents on the ipod?

i was recently thinking about the classic so i can keep more music on a player without having to update it so often. it seems most ipod alternatives have went down the flash media route, rather than use a 1.8" or 2.5" HD, so you are usually stuck to 32gb or 64gb max, and it's pricey. there doesn't seem to be anything where you can drag and drop files in explorer and they just play, and you can get 160gb size, apart from maybe some of the expensive archos machines, but they are larger as they are designed to play videos. i just want a small music player to fit in my pocket with large capacity. i don't want to watch videos on a 3" screen, and i don't need apps. my iphone does all that, but as most people with an iphone will tell you if they are honest, after a couple of weeks of farting about with it, you just end up using it to speak/text/internet/email and ignore the seventeen trillion free apps you've downloaded

the other thing someone mentioned to me the other day when i was saying it's a shame the ipod doesn't support flac, as i have a few bootlegs in that format and it's a pain having to make a seperate copy in mp3 to play on the ipod, and he said that at some point software might let you convert on the fly, so rather than copy the files as flac to the ipod (or whatever), it would convert them and make an mp3 copy instead, so smaller size, you aren't going to notice that much difference on a portable device. now that would be a huge improvement. someone mentioned media monkey, does that do this type of thing? and can it let me copy a bunch of flac files to mp3 on the fly to the ipod?

there was another thing called rockbox i heard off, custom firmware, but i understand only older ipods can be hacked that way, but you can play flac natively

[floppybootstomp]

This is getting annoying and I think there must be something wrong with what I'm doing.

Transferred all 22,000+ tracks with foobar2000, everything appears fine, disconnect the iPod and it says I have ~17,000 tracks, no albums artists or genres, won't let me play anything.

Wiped it with iTunes (which said there was no music on it, just "other"). Tried Winamp, same deal.

I guess I should transfer a few albums to start with, something is messing the iPod DB up.

Oh and CopyTrans looks good, but you can only add tracks to it, not folders. I have ~1,600 albums, so adding them one at a time would not be fun.

That's odd.

When I use Winamp with my i-Pod I've always created a playlist before adding tracks, either for an album or individual tracks in one musical genre.

So yes, maybe try creating a few playlists/folders initially.

The only quirks I've encountered with Winamp is that album track order is sometimes a bit random and I have to put tracks in the right order within the playlist.

Also, sometimes a playlist will not be in the correct alphabetical order on the i-Pod but this resolves itself after connecting/disconnecting i-Pod to computer 2 or 3 times.

[Funkstar]

i thought with an ipod classic that if you used "discmode" the ipod shows up as a portable HD like a usb flashdrive, but if you dragged and dropped files like that they wouldn't be playable in the ipod, you have to use itunes or some alternative to "sync" the files to it, and when the mp3s are copied across it updates some seperate table of contents on the ipod?

By default the Classic will show up as a USB disk, however that doesn't allow you to drag and drop your music on to it, something needs to update the iPods database. Annoyingly, the Archos players also have their own database, but instead of relying on external software to manages it, the update happens once you unplug the player or on a manual database rebuild. This is by far the best solution, Apple are not known for using the best solutions though.

[Unique]

By default the Classic will show up as a USB disk, however that doesn't allow you to drag and drop your music on to it, something needs to update the iPods database. Annoyingly, the Archos players also have their own database, but instead of relying on external software to manages it, the update happens once you unplug the player or on a manual database rebuild. This is by far the best solution, Apple are not known for using the best solutions though.

the old player i have but haven't used in a couple of years was an archos 20gb 1.8" and you dragged and dropped, and when you turned it on it updated the TOC (table of contents) with the files you've added or removed since you last powered on. it just took about 10 seconds. it was a great player, the only drawback being it had short gaps/jumps between files instead of being gapless. i presume that's an issue that's long gone on other players

looking at the media monkey site it seems that it can let you copy flac files to the ipod, converting to mp3 in the process, which sounds pretty good. it's almost as good as copying native flac, perhaps even better as the mp3 will take up less than half the space of flac. and as most flac files are bootlegs, the change to lossy won't be a problem

has anyone had much experience using media monkey? apparently it works on the iphone so i might give it a try with that. if it can automatically create mp3 tags based on filenames for the ipod/iphone then that's a bonus. the tags and not using folders is the main PITA in itunes/ipods apart from not dragging and dropping. i can't just download something on one computer and add an album to the iphone, i have to move the files to the pc that's got itunes synched to the phone first

[mufa]

i bought a Creative Zen Stone instead of the Ipod.. dirt cheap .. good quality.. only draback is that it doesnt have a screen..