iPod/iTunes rant

[westernind]

I've just bought my first iPod, a silver classic 80Gb 6th generation. Sure, it's an object of beautiful design, yeah, but ARRGGGHHH the iTunes syncing is SLOOOOOW. I mean, three hours, or overnight, and I've only got about 8 GB of music on an 80Gb device. I'm wondering what happened; maybe it works fast on a Mac and was badly ported to PC?

Is it to do with the USB connection - any faster if I get a firewire cable? Would it even work? Any other tips?

Another thing that's almost certainly slowing it down is that the music library is on our network drive, which has an 11g wireless connection. However, that doesn't account for the 30 minutes taken before data transfer even commences, which I'm guessing is when iTunes is comparing pod content with library content. 'Guessing', because iTunes doesn't see fit to share information on what it's doing.

Am I stuck with iTunes?

ARRRGGGH

PS No I don't want to get a Mac. I'm a developer, and it won't run the software I use.

Comments

[wildwinter.livejournal.com]

Firewire won't work on later model iPods.

Mine is fairly slow, too, even on a Mac - I have the same setup as you (music library over wireless). I suspect iTunes is just bad at doing comparisons across a network.

Sorry I can't suggest anything obvious!

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it is a matter of USB vs FireWire, but I noticed with my new iTouch (oooh shiny new toy!) that it took forever at home to sync stuff - loooooooong delay then it started to do stuff. This is on a Mac - so probably a "feature" of iTunes.

However, after a bit of rummaging I discovered that iTunes was trying to "backup" the iTouch before syncing - this seems to be either a feature of the new generation of iPods/Touches or a recently release of iTunes. If you have a look at the app preferences (not sure where they are in PC iTunes) there should be a set of options for "Syncing". I deleted the backup that was listed and turned off the auto back up option.

Now it seems to work fine.

[sack-boy.livejournal.com]

Alternatives to iTunes from SimpleHelp.net

Quintessential player

Anapod Explorer

Plugins for WinAMP

I can't comment on any of the PC versions, but I've had bad experiences with Floola (it didn't work, unless causeing an iPod crash and total wipe counts as working) and good experiences with Song Bird.

[ed-fortune.livejournal.com]

I got an iPod as a gift a few years ago, and you're right, iTunes is rubbish.

I use mediamonkey instead, seems to be faster

[westernind.livejournal.com]

I'm going to try that. Also, the paid version will monitor libraries for changes, which iTunes won't, and that's essential as there's two of us both ripping to the same network drive.

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

It also might be worth checking your USB is running in USB2 mode. Some hubs can cause it to switch to much slower USB1.

I don't own an iPod but I believe Rhythmbox has support for syncing with the iPod. Of course you can only play MP3 or AAC on the iPod unless you consider alternative firmware like Rockbox which I think just require you to drag and drop the files on the "drive".

[stsquad.livejournal.com]

Gah scratch that, I don't think there is a port of Rhythmbox for Windows and Rockbox only supports up to gen 5.5 of the iPod for now.

[samharber.livejournal.com]

I agree, slow speed is most likely due to it being plugged into a USB 1.1 port or something that thinks it is.

[eldelphia.livejournal.com]

Snap! on the iPod. but not trying to rip 8 GB of music to it at once >.>