Sounds Odd

Don't you just love train rides? This week I've been into London twice by train so the last thing to go in my bag as I leave home is an iPod. The iPod in question is the podserve.co.uk main test platform. I hope that sounds grand but its actually three years old and if it were a car it would have been round the clock at least twice.

Leaving in a bit of a rush its pot luck as to what's on the machine. This time it was pretty full (just as well as there were some long delays) with a wide mix of music. None of this is terribly remarkable until I got to Elvis Costello. I can't vlaim to be a big fan but he's done some good stuff. I noticed my favourite, Oliver's Army, wasn't there but none the less started to listen to Elvis.

Then it screeched. Short, sharp scream. Then Elvis performs for a few seconds, then hopped on to the next track. So I skipped back to check what was happening, same thing second time around. I made a note of the track and thought I'd look in more detail when I got back to The Hutch (which is what the office has now been named).

The first thing I did this morning was to listen to the track in iTunes. It plays fine, which was a load off my mind. I wouldn't like the thought that podServe's CD ripping clients were suffering jumpy tracks. Breathe a big sigh of relief and re-synch the iPod. Track still plays up.

So I erased the iPod, and reloaded it with the same playlist. On checking, Elvis is still deformed. My thinking by this time is that there's a fault on the iPod's hard drive and by chance I've found the track that rests on the bad sector. To force a removal to another and better location I created a new playlist, with EC and other artists, and synched the iPod to that. Nothing changed, he was still skipping to the next track after a few seconds. So I again erased the iPod and forced the new, shorter playlist onto it. Crossed fingers.

So on an almost empty iPod poor old Mr Costello finds the same flawed area again. As Sherlock Holmes might say, this is a two pipe problem. Not being a pipe smoker I made do with a cup of coffee.

I thought I'd try the same exercise but rather than use iTunes to load the iPod, I'd use Xplay 2 (from www.mediafour.com). This is a great piece of software that's got me off the hook time and time again. Magic. The track loaded with Xplay works fine. But why?

I can only think that the iPod's mini operating system has a method of placing files that results in the same track landing in the same place each time. Xplay must use a different algorithm. Moral of the story - if your iPod produces odd sounds check with iTunes first for file integrity. If normal resynchs don't solve the problem try a third party product such as Xplay 2.

Ipod Movies and iTunes

A client rang, he was struggling to get his videos into iTunes and from there onto his iPod. While trying to help I gained an understanding of how fiddly this process can be. It's something we do all the time so its a firm reality check when a client shows us how the process can go wrong.

First, the basic building blocks. You need one or more video files in the right format. These need to be MPEG files, and they need to have been created in sympathy with the iPod's screen aspect ratio. You will need specialist software to do the conversion. Dig around on the internet and you can find this at a modest price or even free.

Second, you need the right type of iPod. Videos don't play on all iPods, not surprisingly you need to have Video iPod. Sure the screen on the nano is very good and yes I'd be happy to watch old films in B&W, but NO, only the iPod Videos play movies.

The quick way to get the movie into iTunes is to drag it from its current location into the iTunes source pane. This is the area on the left of the main screen, headed Music, Video and so on. Here's the odd thing - as you drag your movie file across the space of your desktop or the main iTunes screen, the file icon (in Windows) will appear to have a 'no entry' road sign on it. Off-putting, isn't it. Just keep dragging across the screen until you get to the source panel and the icon will have a '+' sign. When you let go, it will be added to your library.

This got my client fooled, he was expecting it to take time - not unreasonably, we'd given him a large 90 minute movie to watch. Remember, if you haven't checked the box in Preferences (under Advanced) to copy to iTunes music folder when adding to library, then all that gets added in iTunes is a pointer to the source destination. Done in the blink of an eye.

Is the movie there? Click on Movies in the source pane and your film should be listed there. Use the normal play / pause button and away it goes. Can't see anything? Control+G will pop a small white preview screen in the bottom left, and your moving image will preview there. Alternatively use one of the buttons between the Apple icon and the search function at the top of the screen to let you see your film in full screen.

If you've added movies before ticking add to msuic folder etc don't lose heart. If you go to Advanced and select Consolidate iTunes will hunt down all files located outside your main music folder and copy them there at a click.

When done, you're ready to synchronise music and movement onto your iPod.

AllofMP3- Born Again

Along with many others I mourned the passing of allofMP3.com. I just loved the way the conclusion of my long ago and almost forgotten economics course had been applied to digital music - something about price tending towards the marginal cost of production. It seemed to me fabulously ironic that this should have come to pass in that bastion of free markets - the former Soviet Union.

Well imagine my joy to find that the BBC web site is hailing the son of allofmp3.com. It's here - www.mp3sparks.com

The suggestion was that this was a replacement for my much loved example of free market economics, but no, its much more than that. It has somehow inherited my login name, password and download history. Even what remained of my balance! A whole $0.13.

So I decided to invest a bit of my balance and downloaded a track. Yes, it works, the music downloaded effortlessly and zapped straight into iTunes on my Mac. I listened with great pleasure.

Right now I should think the US copyright control police are jumping up and down in rage and plotting all manor of retribution against the evil empire. Probably only a matter of days, but until then ...........