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Poster: amosearle Date: Jan 25, 2008 11:18am
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Anti I-Tunes

The vinyl thread got my interest up. Look up some of the stuff Neil Young has said about the superiority of vinyl.. pretty good stuff.

I just don't like I-Tunes, the way it behaves, having time to sort out playlists and prevent unwanted updates... sound quality, evil corporate whores... you name it.

Some one said you can run an I pod without I tunes.
How do I do that?

I haven't had time to load the ipod much anyway, and since most of what I want on my Ipod is either on CD or something GD related not in their commercial catalog, I would be happier doing something else.

I use winamp a good but for GD. Getting that over to I tunes to put on the Ipod is a pain.
Any suggestions?

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Poster: Scrim Date: Jan 25, 2008 1:30pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

I have an Archos 30gb mp3/video/wifi unit that I use. It's basically a hard drive that will alow you to play music and videos, look at pictures, record audio (built in mic), and has WIFI to browse internet when a network is available.

It doesn't need any external programs. You just plug it into the computer with a USB cable, and it shows up as another drive. Dump your content into the appropriate folders (music, video, pictures, data, etc) and you are off and running.

I've been using it for over a year with no problems. Cool little unit.

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Poster: waynecs Date: Jan 26, 2008 5:57am
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

By using this this I was able to uninstall itunes and quicktime.I just drag and drop the files to the ipod AND it plays shn/flac files.

http://www.rockbox.org/

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Poster: spacedface Date: Jan 26, 2008 4:40pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

I have a creative Zen Micro and it works fine with iTunes except no AAC. I mostly don't use iTunes to manage data but to rip and organize music.

>>>Other annoying things are quicktime, you find something in mp4 format but cannot get it into useful format without buying their software>>>

QuickTime is great, and all the media architectures are in competition so Apple is not solely to blame. My Adobe programs read read MS and Apple format, plus there's MediaCoder and Super for free encoding on Windows.

RealMedia formats are a dead end for everybody but the Player is decent. I use K-MultimediaPlayer and VLC over QT Player or WiMP. You shouldn't scapegoat Apple.

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Poster: Earl B. Powell Date: Jan 25, 2008 12:05pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

I look at ITunes this way, considering the cost of a jewel case and CD, the lack of decent liner notes, and all the fucking arts and crafts involved in printing the CD artwork...the cost becomes roughly the same for a purchased CD. The purchased CD doesn't have the same limitations, my computer handles the format and conversion to MP3 with ease, and the format isn't lossy.

I recently purchased a Zen Stone 2GB MP3 player, at what I felt was a reasonable price. I must say that the inability to charge the battery from a car's power outlet absolutely sucks...and the battery life of 15 hours is an out and out lie.

Back to burning CD's.

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Poster: NoiseCollector Date: Jan 25, 2008 12:29pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

If it's rechargable radio shack will have a converter to charge it in the car, trust me. Just need the right pin polarity, voltage and plug. I still use CD's myself only cause I can pop them out and throw them out the window when they skip. It makes me feel better than just deleting.

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Poster: Nothing Special Date: Jan 25, 2008 12:21pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

There are plenty of FREE media players that will sync with your iPod.....
foobar2000 http://www.foobar2000.org/ and
mediamonkey http://www.mediamonkey.com/ to name a couple I`ve used.
Also amarok http://amarok.kde.org/ if you`re feeling brave and want to give linux a try. You can now buy pre-loaded ubuntu(a linux distro) laptops so you don`t have to go through the daunting task of installing it yourself. http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dgc=IR&cid=11973&lid=471885
That way you don`t have to pay Apple or Microsoft a penny. Everything`s free! (except the computer) http://www.ubuntu.com/
By the way I checked using "Harvest" by Neil Young. The lp sounds no better than the cd .... for some reason it was nicer putting it on though.

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Poster: johnnyonthespot Date: Jan 25, 2008 11:48am
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

I hate i-tunes for reasons I've already bitched about. I pretty much agree with everything you said. It's way more limiting on your choices that's for sure.

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Poster: NoiseCollector Date: Jan 25, 2008 11:56am
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

A $50 mp3 player let's you drag and drop folders of mp3's without DRM and having to download itunes, I sold my ipod on ebay, good riddance. Other annoying things are quicktime, you find something in mp4 format but cannot get it into useful format without buying their software... gee isn't that apple too? I thought IBM was the big corporate neocon crusher of human liberty or maybe we should all rethink our whole perspective on the cool hip enviro friendly mac user versus the morbidly obese akward white corporate slave.

Vinyl and tape could never come close to preservinh music exactly as it was played. You can always make a CD sound like vinyl but you could never make a record sound as good as a CD. If you want to argue about steamships versus nuclear subs, I am ready as well.

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Poster: SomeDarkHollow Date: Jan 25, 2008 11:34am
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes

Personally, I don't have too much a problem w/ iTunes. I use my iPod primarily for use in the car as it saves me from having to cart aroung a couple hundred CD's. As for sound, the only time I notice a difference is in music I purchased directly throug iTunes. Up until very recently, any music purchased there came with special encoding that limited the devices that it could be played on and making it difficult to copy. This coding took up space normally used for music data and therefore there is a loss of quality, even if it is very minor. Recently iTunes has begun to offer some music free of this extra security and as a result it is basically equal to CD quality sound. This also allows these downloads to be played on ANY MP3 player, not just an iPod. Hopefully this will continue until ALL of their music is offered in this way.
As for the need to create seperate playlists for each show, that doesn't bother me as it only takes a few seconds and makes cataloging that much easier. A bonus I've been using is the ability to convert MP3 files to the slightly more condensed AAC format. This is big for me as it allows me to cram that much more music on the iPod, and given that I listen primarily in the car, a slight loss of sound quality is not noticeable.
But, its all a matter of preference in the long run.

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Poster: William Tell Date: Jan 25, 2008 1:26pm
Forum: GratefulDead Subject: Re: Anti I-Tunes; worked out fine for me...

Hey Amos--agree with all that is said above, BUT I am a techno idiot and just do what is simple. Got one, so used it. I just set it up as "manual" and tell it to never ask me if I want an update again. I never purchase anything from itunes, etc.

So, for me, it is really simple. It opens when I plug it into a USB port, I click on "add folder" and add a few lossless shows (of course, only 68, 69, 70 or 71) and it's done...a few clicks more than that in fact, but trust me, I figured this all out as a complete moron. I just noticed that the kid and wife had theirs "sync" to the ipod/itunes, so it is always doing things to their library, what's on the ipod, etc., but I avoid all of this by doing it "manually w/out sync"...

For me it works like a charm--lets me do what I want to do with it...truth is though, like NC, I am really a CD person for 98% of what I do, BUT this is great for the gym, walks, etc.

And, like SDH, though I don't, the kids do this for the car, and YES, every kind of adapter exists--they run everything off their ipods and Radio Shack adaptors, etc., in the car. Power, connt's to the car stereo, etc., etc.