Hi all,
In comparing the spoken menu options on the iPod Nano 4G with the way
Rockbox works, Scott Chesworth asked:
Anyway, the
spelling option is there as a backup for when you haven't generated
those clips, I wondered, does the new nano have a similar feature? I
guess what I'm asking is, what happens if you manually add content?
Do voiceclips or whatever Apple calls them get generated as part of
the process, or do you get the files spelled out, or just get
unnerving silences on those tracks?
With the iPod Nano 4G, if you manually add content you just get
unnerving silences. I posted about this a couple of weeks ago (subject
line: Content transfer to the iPod Nano 4G) because I was trying to
clear up this issue. Here's the basic distinction: when you manually
add content -- and by that I mean when you do a VoiceOver drag and
drop of some playlist or selected tracks onto your iPod device in the
source table -- the iPod updates its iTunes database files by reading
the headers and tags of the new files. When you do a "sync" -- either
by having your iPod automatically update all its contents to mirror
the music content in your iTunes library or selectively by having your
iPod update the contents of selected playlists -- the iPod updates its
iTunes database files by reading the iTunes database file on your
computer.
You need to have the iPod Nano 4G updating its local iTunes database
by a sync action with the iTunes database on your computer in order
for the sound clips to get automatically generated and added to the
iPod.
One reason some people like to select the option to "manually manage
my music and videos" on the iPod Summary page options is that this
allows them to transfer content from mulitple iTunes libraries that
might have different content or different versions/tags of the same
files. I've used this to move tracks from iTunes on my Mac onto a
first generation iPod Nano that is formatted and synced to an iTunes
library on a Windows XP machine. (I don't think you can do this cross-
platform stuff any more; it certainly won't work for any of the most
recent generation iPods.) But in order to use the more advanced
functions on the iPod, like smart playlists that keep track of whether
you've already listened to a podcast, or what your most frequently
played tracks are, or what the most highly rated or most recently
downloaded tracks are, you need to designate a single iTunes library
that the iPod syncs to and let the two library databases update each
other. That way your progress through an audiobook can be transferred
between iPod and computer, for example. So you can continue your
listening on your computer, and have iTunes pick up the location of
your last bookmark to resume play seamlessly, and then, when you sync
to your iPod before going off again, have the new bookmark location
get updated to the point you've gotten to in your listening on your
computer.
So the experiment I did was to change the settings on my iPod Nano 4G
to check "manually manage my music and videos". Then I did a
VoiceOver drag and drop of a playlist onto the Nano 4G. (The playlist
included the last 3 podcast episodes in the VoiceOver Getting Started
Guide for Leopard, where I had previously synced the first three
podcasts to my Nano). Sure enough, the files transferred under the
manual exchange, but just as I said, there were no sound clips
generated for the Nano 4G menu. The new episodes show up in the
Podcasts section of my 4G directory after the sync'd episodes, they
can be viewed in the contents of my Nano under iTunes (with VoiceOver
announcing their properties), and they play just fine on the 4G ---
there just aren't any title information sound clips for the entries
and my wheel goes click, click, click on these tracks. Everything
else that I synced speaks nicely, of course.
Perfectly understandable behavior, if not quite what one wanted to
hear (or not hear) <grin>.
Here's the link to the post in the mail archives that details what
goes on with content transfer to the iPod for manual, automatic, and
semi-automatic syncs:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg42164.html
Yes, the basic solution to use text-to-speech sound clips for the iPod
Nano 4G isn't new; it was the scheme that Rockbox adopted. There are
still people who like other features that Rockbox provides, such as
support for playing other music file formats and games (not sure
whether these last were ever accessible). The issues on the other side
were battery lifetime (got better with new releases, but was still a
performance issue for Rockbox, support for DRM'ed content (no
Audible.com audiobook files or iTunes Store DRM'ed purchases can play
on Rockbox), and support for smart playlists (some level of support
was implemented). And there isn't a Rockbox option if you use the more
recent iPods (e.g, iPod Nanos after the first generation, I think, or
the iPod Classic).
Cheers,
Esther
On Oct 9, 2008, at 1:42 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
Apple has it setup so small mp3 clips are generated for not just
tracks and so forth, but for menu items etc. WOrks much more
smoothly than I experienced with Rockbox.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 5:05 PM, Scott Chesworth wrote:
Chris - What's equally worrying is that I checked how you spelled it
and thought about how i'd have done it for quite a while lol. I'm
sure you already know how your nano works by syncing little
voiceclips
for each file? Rockbox can work in the same way, Apple is jumping on
the wagon pretty late on this one because I'm fairly sure the rockbox
team weren't even the first people to have the idea.
Keep rockin the Mary Poppins...
Scott
