> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cameron Childress [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 12:50 AM
> To: CF-Community
> Subject: Re: iPod shuffle
>
> > If the iPod shows up as a removable media device then WMP should be able
> to
> > synch to it.
>
> While it does whop up as a removable device, I suspect you will not be
> able to copy MP3s to your iPod in a way that iPod recognises using
> anything but iTunes.
>
> > Yeah - I'm sure it is. But I've spent way too long setting up my
> library in
> > Windows Media Player to switch to something new now.
>
> I've never used Windows Media Player to manage my mucis collection.
> I'm curious to know what that involves to "set up a library" in WMP?
Probably nothing more that doing the same thing in iTunes I would expect.
The short and stupid of it is to point the player at a directory full of
music. The player can reorganize your music and tag it for you if you like,
but I like things the way I like them.
I set up my files like I want them first (each album to a folder for each
artist in loose categories).
Then import the files into WMP (or just monitor folders for changes
automatically) and then go to work on them: fix all the tracks without track
numbers or weird categories, add your ratings, create custom playlists and
so forth.
For files that are missing information you can attempt to update the
information via the Internet. This is all just basic clean-up.
For the most part the information is maintained in the music files
themselves, but some information isn't (for example album cover thumbnails
or added photos). I think that ratings and lyrics are also not maintained
in the files... but I'm not sure about those.
As you use it additional information is created: your dynamic playlists can
do things like "play songs I like to play at night" or "play songs I play on
weekends". There are also a lot of "favorite" and frequency based playlists
("play songs I've never listened to" for example). Lastly some of the
dynamic playlists are content based (for example "one audio CD worth of my
favorites").
The more you use it the most adaptive it becomes. The "library" is really a
combination of all the information in the files (ID tags) and other
information maintained in the WM database (usage patterns, album art,
ratings, etc).
I've built up a rather extensive collection of playlists as well (actually
WMP is scriptable and I've built a little HTML application to create
playlists for me to make playback on my IPAQ simpler).
Of course it also rips and burns and provides media-related web content
(news, reviews, previews, etc).
I'm sure iTunes does all of this (perhaps more or less in the details, but
both players seem to cover the meat of things very, very well). I'm very
happy with WMP 10 - and I know how to get it do what I want. I'd have to
learn all over again with iTunes. ;^)
My biggest problem with WMP10 is also one of its strengths: it's also a
video player. It plays video well, but there's still a context problem in
that I want the player set up one way for music and one way for video and it
sometimes has trouble remembering that. For example I want the playlist
displayed when playing music but not with video - it doesn't savvy that yet.
They also just can't seem to settle on a playlist format. It seems each
release of the player comes out with a new playlist format. The Windows
player supports all the previous formats as well however the PocketPC WMP
doesn't - so you have to have an idea of what devices you'll be using before
spending the time generating playlists.
In any case for me it's a rather moot point. I've got an MSN radio account
(which exactly to my taste via "fan favorite stations") and buy most of my
DRM music from there or Napster (which also integrates into WMP) - but there
are something like a dozen stores to choose from integrated into the player.
Most of my music is in WMA.
But my mother's pretty small collection of music is all MP3. The iPod
Shuffle interface (well, lack of interface) sounds really perfect for her,
but I want the transfer of music to be as painless as possible and she's
already somewhat comfortable with WMP.
Jim Davis
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