iTunes, Exact Audio Copy or dBpoweramp?

Last Friday my wife invited some friends and colleagues over and a good time was had by all. That is until I put some music on and we sat out on the patio enjoying the late evening sun, and someone moved his chair to sit next to me.

He said he was moving his seat to get the best audio location. My heart sank – an audio bore. I smiled politely and was pleased when he complimented me on the sound quality. We went through my stereo components and he approved them, although he had ‘auditioned’ my speakers and had gone for a more expensive model. Then the question of CD player.

Actually, I explained, this isn’t a CD player – it’s my iPod. There was a pause. One of the new video iPods? Er, no, this one’s about three years old and its done a million miles, looks like it’s about to fall apart, but sounds good.

“You must have used special software to rip your CDs”. Er, no – iTunes. There was one of those pauses where I’d clearly said the wrong thing. I probed his concern and this was his reply.

“Nobody who’s is halfway serious about music quality would use iTunes.”

That was it. Complete certainty despite the evidence of his own ears. What would be acceptable ripping software? I was given two names – Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and dBpoweramp – which could be relied upon due to the thoroughness with which they read CDs. As my guest explained CDs played via a computer can result in bad CD readings and only advanced software such as these two can read with the accuracy a serious music lover needs. As we later said our goodbyes I thought I’d test that view.

On Saturday I downloaded both applications and set them up on one of my computers. When I set up podServe I’d tried other ripping software so this was a good opportunity to try these, in the case of dBpoweramp re-try. I chose at random five of my own CDs to compare. I wanted to primarily test ripping quality to see if these systems produce better sounds than iTunes.

I started by ripping five CDs into iTunes, stopwatch in hand. Timings carefully noted I repeated the process using EAC. Or at least tried to. EAC is the most confusing product and it took a long time to get a working ripping system. I used the most accurate ripping configuration and eventually the five CDs were added to my hard drive.

dBpoweramp had a more forgiving interface, so I was able to start ripping more quickly. Broadly you can opt for speed of ripping or high accuracy. Thanks to a more communicative interface I could see what had happened when I ripped the CDs. Using the highest accuracy settings each CD had been ripped properly (as was the case with EAC). However it had taken considerably longer to do so – slightly over four times longer.

So I had three sets of rips – iTunes, EAC and dBpoweramp. Bit rates and file formats were the same. Time to sit down and listen for a couple of hours. Did the audiophile rips improve on iTunes? Well not to my ear. As far as I could tell they were identical.
Finally I thought I’d test dBpoweramp’s claim to offer fast ripping. So I switched from great accuracy to speed. Five CDs later I had another set of rips and two notable red flags. On the last tracks of two CDs (The Rolling Stones – Stripped & The Beatles – No 1s) dBpoweramp was flagging ripping errors. What about the speed though? dBpoweramp was marginally slower than iTunes but only by a few seconds. However dBpoweramp got its album data more quickly then iTunes (which was taking a leisurely 15 seconds or more to query CDDB) and at the same time it located the album art. As you may know, iTunes gets its album art in a second pass and only then if its on iTunes.

To be fair to dBpoweramp the fast rips of the good tracks sounded every bit as good as the accurate rips. But there are two tracks where the sound is distinctly flawed, albeit flagged nicely for the user. Given no significant speed advantage I can’t see the point of using dBpoweramp above iTunes.

In this test I found that iTunes was both fast and accurate. It ripped all tracks properly. It ripped all tracks a little faster than dBpoweramp in sprint mode and much, much faster than either EAC or dBpoweramp in their secure ripping modes. And crucially my iTunes tracks sound just as good as the others. Roll on the next home social.

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 ...........

Classical Mac

Over the last twelve months there's been a noticeable trend towards getting more classical CD collections to rip. I'd like to think this is because podServe's marketing and web site (www.podserve.co.uk) has been emphasising the extra attention we pay to classical music libraries.

Maybe we take it for granted (and our Data Grooming software helps) but classical music is better on a Mac. Earlier this week Joe put a classical CD into one of our Windows systems and found the album data that got downloaded was corrupted. Thankfully he stopped and asked for help.

My suggestion, greeted with some scorn, was to put the CD into one of our Apple Macs. He was suitably amazed to find the album data appeared, in the correct format. Well done Apple.

So, if you're thinking of buying a new computer, or looking for a CD ripping platform, opt for the Mac - your music library will thank you for it.

iPod Mysteries

Got a call for help - an observant iPod user noticed that when he synched his iPod the scren showed that 15 Gb of his 30 Gb iPod's storage was being used by 'other'. His question was what's in this 'other' section and how can he recover it for his music?

I went through what I thought was the obvious culprits, data, contacts, photos, games. No, none of those were responsible. Each time we tried to synch the lost half a disc stayed dedicated to 'other'. We tried to restore, no good. Then we finally accepted that a factory reset was the only option left. Did that, but still found the stubborn 15 Gb was out of reach. However we did prompt an error message - error 1428.

Looked this up on the Apple web site and it seemed to suggest the problem here is with Windows rather than the iPod or iTunes. At this point my client expressed concern that this really was a fault with his iPod and so rang the retailer, the iPod being only three months old and he didn't want a 'Friday afternoon' device. Happy ending - iPod replaced, no problem. That's Tesco for you.

Had to go to the Apple Store to invest in (yet another) 500 Gb hard drive. While I was in the queue to pay I rudely eavesdropped on a conversation between a lady and an Apple employee. She was complaining that her iPod often seemed to stall or jam, just stopping mid track. What was the suggested solution? Take the iPod to a technicain in another part of the store who would blast it with compressed air. The customer laughed (me too) but the Apple man was serious. Her iPod was duly taken away and the young lady stood aside to wait for the air to work its magic. I hung around hoping to hear the outcome but had to leave, not wanting to get a reputation as a stalker.

Can't wait until I get an iPod in with the same symptoms to try compressed air. I didn't think to ask if it should be hot or cold.

iTunes, Hard Drives and The Joys of Windows

Several of our clients (www.podserve.co.uk) have reached the stage where their music libraries are larger than their hard drive on their laptop or PC. So, more and more people are looking to store their music on a separate hard drive, and it particularly suits people with second homes as it allows them to take their msuic with them.

Music library on a USB connected hard drive is a simple system on our Macs. Just plug the disc in, no problems. Leave the drive unplugged, no problem.

Windows? Oh, no. If you open iTunes even once without your hard drive being connected it loses all links between its internal libraries (the itl and itx files) and the real location of your music. You see a swathe of grey exclamation marks, against every track. You can't play your music, your iPod doesn't synch properly. The 'cure' is to reload all your tracks. Not only does this take time, but it means you lose the contents of all your (simple) playlists. Small consolation in that smart playlists rebuild themselves.

Twice in the last few days we've had to fix this problem for clients, neither of whom were happy that their hard built playlists had gone.

So, if your music is on a free standing hard drive - you must hae your drive connected and powered on BEFORE you open iTunes. Each and every time. Please don't blame podServe, Apple or iTunes. This is down to Microsoft and I'm afraid I don't know a work-around.

iPod Hardware Repairs in London

iPods are great, but like all computers they go wrong from time to time. If your iPod is in warranty Apple is the first port of call. But what if your iPod is older?

If you can get to Kensington High Street the Apple dealers there - Cancom Kensington - are worth a call. They're at 290 Kensington High Street, about ten minutes walk from Kensignton High Street tube station and the main shops. As Apple dealers they know the whole product range and can check your iPod from both a hardware and a software perspective. Talking to their staff they appear well informed, polite and very helpful.

If you'd prefer to ring them their number is 0845 686 3400. I hope your iPod never fails, but if it does, this could be your salvation.

Outstanding Support

Some years ago I made what has turned out to be a brilliant investment. It's a great piece of software which finds album art and embeds it into iTunes music libraries. I've found it to be quick, easy to use and very reliable.

It's called iAlbumArt, it is written by Mike Matheson and you can find out more at www.ialbumart.ipod-sync.com.

Several times I've done something which needs help. On every occasision I've been amazed at the quality of support I've received, direct from Mike himself. Maybe it helps with me being in the UK and Mike being in the States, but his replies to my calls for help have been as fast as they've been patient and courteous.

So if you're looking for software to handle your iTunes album art, and you appreciate world class support, look into Mike and his product. It's brilliant.

Robotic CD Ripping

In an earlier post Ripfactory explained that they were exiting the robotic CD hardware ripping market. Their plan instead was to have their ripping software sold by the hardware manufacturer as part of a robotic ripping solution. Given the worldwide raising of the blood pressure in the CD ripping community at the mention of Ripfactory, a step in the right direction.

Other postings have brought me into contact with MF Digital. I would have no hesitation in recommending them as a first class company to deal with, they've come over as a solid and professional, keen to deliver good service to their client base. They've even stepped into the breach when their erstwhile trading partner had appeared to let a client down.

So the ripping scene takes a step closer to the golden horizon with the launch of MF Digital's combined robot hardware and software CD ripping systems. You can find out more at MF Digital's web site.

The RipStation name echoes the heritage of Ripfactory but the product is supplied by MF Digital. If you're looking for a robotic ripping solution now your first port of call should be MF Digital. Perhaps I can briefly point out that I don't use a robot myself and I hold no brief for MF Digital beyond being happy to plug the good guys.