foo_pod - Foobar2000 meets the iPod, iPod -> Foobar2000 0.8 Options

[gcsherwood]

I've lurked here for a while. I've used Foobar for a quite a while. Reading about the foo_ipod plugin helped me decide to go with ipod over some of the competing units.

But I'm having significant problems with large playlists. I have two main genres, rock and celtic. I have a playlist for each, 3200 mp3 titles of the former, about 1200 of the latter. Foobar gives the correct counts in the playlists. When I send the playlists over to the ipod (clean, no files on it, so all the files need to be transferred as well) the ipod (4G, 40 GB) only reports about 2400 titles in the first playlist and 1000 in the second.

So I cleaned the ipod off again, then just mounted it and copied the files directly over, rebuilding the ipod database when I finished. I created smart playlists for each (using the GENRE tag) and got the right number of files reported in each playlist. This does work, but I don't really like the random function of the ipod. I guess it is trying to conserve power by clumping its random feature so it doesn't have to read from the disk so often -- but I listen to it in my car so it is aways on external power and with as many albums as I have I don't want to hear three tunes from the same album in an hour.

So I wanted to create a randomized playlist for each genre, then download those. Foo_ipod immediately started resending all of the files. My guess is that since the files aren't in the usual places on the ipod it didn't recognize them as being the same. So I downloaded the database from the ipod to a foobar playlist using foo_ipod, deleted all the rock entries (to make a celtic playlist) then transferred the playlist back. At first this seemed to go fine -- it didn't try to copy any new files since it knew where they all were, and the playlist showed up on the ipod. With a total of 20 entries in it. Out of 1200. I tried the same thing again, with the same result. 20 entries. All celtic, all random, but about 1180 entries short.

Shouldn't what I tried have worked?

Or maybe there is just another way to do what I want to do. All I want to do is to go through a randomized playlist in order. Unfortunately, if I switch back and forth between the rock and celtic playlists, each time I switch I start at the beginning of the corresponding playlist. If the ipod had some feature that said resume playing a playlist the same place you left it I'd be set -- that is *exactly* the behavior I'm trying to mimic -- but I haven't seen anything like that.

I figure if I can get the randomized playlists sent correctly, I can do something with smart playlists to get something like the behavior I want. If I were to play every tune once in order I could just look for 'longest time since played' (or whatever the smart playlist option is -- I don't have my ipod with me so I can't check). Not played in the last two months should work somewhat, but after two months I think the songs which had been played before that would start jumping back to the front of the playlist so I'd never hear the ones at the end. In each of these cases I have the 'randomize' flag OFF and use the 'select songs from playlist' option of the smart playlist.

Any ideas on this score would be most welcome as well.

thanks,

Geoff Sherwood

[Aero]

I've lurked here for a while.  I've used Foobar for a quite a while.  Reading about the foo_ipod plugin helped me decide to go with ipod over some of the competing units.

Apple should be paying me a commission!

But I'm having significant problems with large playlists.  I have two main genres, rock and celtic.  I have a playlist for each, 3200 mp3 titles of the former, about 1200 of the latter.  Foobar gives the correct counts in the playlists.  When I send the playlists over to the ipod (clean, no files on it, so all the files need to be transferred as well) the ipod (4G, 40 GB) only reports about 2400 titles in the first playlist and 1000 in the second.

So I cleaned the ipod off again, then just mounted it and copied the files directly over, rebuilding the ipod database when I finished. I created smart playlists for each (using the GENRE tag) and got the right number of files reported in each playlist. This does work, but I don't really like the random function of the ipod.  I guess it is trying to conserve power by clumping its random feature so it doesn't have to read from the disk so often -- but I listen to it in my car so it is aways on external power and with as many albums as I have I don't want to hear three tunes from the same album in an hour.

Are there any errors on the Foobar console? I have playlists with more than 7000 songs and I have never noticed any problems, so I don't think it has anything to do with the number of files you are transferring. But if there any errors while transferring the files, it could explain why you aren't seeing the full playlist count.

So I wanted to create a randomized playlist for each genre, then download those. Foo_ipod immediately started resending all of the files.  My guess is that since the files aren't in the usual places on the ipod it didn't recognize them as being the same.  So I downloaded the database from the ipod to a foobar playlist using foo_ipod, deleted all the rock entries (to make a celtic playlist) then transferred the playlist back.  At first this seemed to go fine -- it didn't try to copy any new files since it knew where they all were, and the playlist showed up on the ipod.  With a total of 20 entries in it.  Out of 1200.  I tried the same thing again, with the same result.  20 entries.  All celtic, all random, but about 1180 entries short.

Shouldn't what I tried have worked?

I'm not sure that I have tested your exact situation yet, but it should work. foo_pod shouldn't care where the files are on the iPod, as long as the database entries are correct. But there certainly could be a foo_pod bug that is causing the problem, so I'll look into it.

Or maybe there is just another way to do what I want to do.  All I want to do is to go through a randomized playlist in order.  Unfortunately, if I switch back and forth between the rock and celtic playlists, each time I switch I start at the beginning of the corresponding playlist.  If the ipod had some feature that said resume playing a playlist the same place you left it I'd be set -- that is *exactly* the behavior I'm trying to mimic -- but I haven't seen anything like that.

That would be nice, but I don't believe the iPod can do that. Sort of a playlist bookmark feature...


Let me know if there is any unusual activity in the Foobar console, and I'll look into the Rebuild Database feature and make sure that is working correctly.

[gcsherwood]

I deleted all of the files in the F folders since they were duplicates when foo_ipod started sending files that it thought weren't already there. I have a tree structure under iPod_Control/Music with folders like comedy, irish, rock, etc, with all of my albums as subfolders within them, and all of the tracks within those subfolders (pretty standard layout, I'd expect).

I rebuilt the ipod database. This completed without errors. I downloaded the database to foobar using the Components->foo_pod->Load Ipod Songs to Foobar2000 Playlist command. I got two errors when I did this:

WARNING (foo_pod) : mhit(id = 4272) doesn't have a MHOD_LOCATION - removing it from the iTunesDB
WARNING (foo_pod) : mhit(id = 6489) doesn't have a MHOD_LOCATION - removing it from the iTunesDB

I sorted the new playlist appropriately in foobar2000 (default interface) and deleted songs I did not want in my playlist, winding up with a total of 1082 songs. Checking properties on one of the songs in the list it shows location as f:\iPod_Control\Music\irish\Altan - Harvest Storm\<song title>, which is what I'd expect. The ipod is mounted as f: on my computer.

I then renamed the playlist to something meaningful (irish list) and sent that playlist to the ipod using the Components->foo_pod->Send Current Playlist to iPod command. Foobar went away for a second or two, then popped back up with another window on top saying it was preparing the list, updating the iTunes database, etc. There were no warnings or errors on the console. Everything looked as if it worked perfectly. The appropriate playlist appeared on the ipod.

It was empty.

In the previous test I had gotten 20 tunes in the playlist. My surmise is that those were the duplicate tracks which foo_ipod had started sending down (before I aborted it) I mentioned at the beginning of this post and in my first one. I cannot confirm that, but considering the number sounds right (I aborted pretty quickly when I saw it sending down files I knew that were already there) and once I deleted all files in the F folders I wound up with empty playlists, it sure sounds plausible.

If I can give you any other information to help you reproduce this, please let me know.

I really like being able to manage the file system myself rather than having files stuck in random directories, so I hope there is some way out of this. The only negative is that if I add a new album the only way I can get it to be played is to rebuild the database, right? And that blows away all information such as when it was last played, play counts, etc. If you'd entertain an feature request, it would be really nice to have an 'update database' which would preserve the existing info if available. Would that be difficult to do? I'd think you could keep a copy of the existing database, create the new one, then for any song entry in the new database which is also in the old, just copy the corresponding fields. Of course, all things are easy to he who does not have to do it..... This would be good as an additional command, keeping the current one for cases where the database is corrupt and you really *don't* want anything hanging around.

thanks much for your time,

Geoff Sherwood

[jkwarras]

Hi Aero,

I have my iPod repaired I just wanted to know if there's some improvements in the counts sync between PC and iPod. Do you have plans for that?

[SNAG]

Hey guys!
It's been a while since I last checked this thread out...

Not to be an irritating person, but Aero, are there any updates to the current version?

Here are my suggestions (2 cents worth) of inputs:

1) I realised that the OTG Playlist for the 3G iPod (not sure if it happens on the 4G) disappears after new songs have been added to the iPod. Can this be prevented?

2) It would be really cool if foo_pod could allow the user to save the OTG playlist onto the DB. (I guess this applies to ol' time 3G/2G users like me.)

Looking forward to seeing new revisions of foo_pod online!

[Otto42]

1) I realised that the OTG Playlist for the 3G iPod (not sure if it happens on the 4G) disappears after new songs have been added to the iPod. Can this be prevented?

No. The iPod deletes those files itself when the iTunesDB file changes.

2) It would be really cool if foo_pod could allow the user to save the OTG playlist onto the DB. (I guess this applies to ol' time 3G/2G users like me.)

This is possible. Functionality to do it is in the iPodDB library, but code would need to be added to foo_pod. Specifically, it'd need to:
-read the OTG Playlist files
-parse them ( iPod_mhpo->parse() )
-either create normal foobar playlists from them (probably not easy to do.. I dunno) or convert them to normal iPod playlists in the iTunesDB (trivially easy to do.. functionality to do just that is in the iPodDB library... iPod_mhpo->CreatePlaylistFromOTG() ).

This is just me talking off the top of my head, mind you. Only Aero knows how easy/hard it would really be to do in foo_pod. I guess the question is whether you want it to become a foobar playlist or a new iPod playlist only.

This post has been edited by Otto42: Nov 9 2004, 19:02

[gcsherwood]

It occurs to me that the 'update database' request I was looking for almost has to be mostly implemented already. foo_ipod has a way of adding new tunes to the database -- otherwise sending down a playlist wouldn't work. It seems to me that all that would be needed would be to scan the ipod's file system looking for audio files (which the 'rebuild database' command already does), check to see if each file found is already in the database, and if not simply add it in the normal way.

That should allow new albums added to arbitrary places on the ipod disk to be made available to the ipod without messing up what is already there.

Does this make any sense?

thanks,

Geoff Sherwood

[SNAG]

1) I realised that the OTG Playlist for the 3G iPod (not sure if it happens on the 4G) disappears after new songs have been added to the iPod. Can this be prevented?

No. The iPod deletes those files itself when the iTunesDB file changes.

2) It would be really cool if foo_pod could allow the user to save the OTG playlist onto the DB. (I guess this applies to ol' time 3G/2G users like me.)

This is possible. Functionality to do it is in the iPodDB library, but code would need to be added to foo_pod. Specifically, it'd need to:
-read the OTG Playlist files
-parse them ( iPod_mhpo->parse() )
-either create normal foobar playlists from them (probably not easy to do.. I dunno) or convert them to normal iPod playlists in the iTunesDB (trivially easy to do.. functionality to do just that is in the iPodDB library... iPod_mhpo->CreatePlaylistFromOTG() ).

This is just me talking off the top of my head, mind you. Only Aero knows how easy/hard it would really be to do in foo_pod. I guess the question is whether you want it to become a foobar playlist or a new iPod playlist only.

Just installed iTunes 4.7, and realised that it displays a OTG playlist as a separate playlist (therefore I can save the OTG playlist)...

[scottder]

Ok I may be doing something wrong, but why can't I change the name of a Smart Playlist?

[jokull]

Is it not possible to transcode from a FLAC file with an embedded CUESHEET with track info correctly to single AAC files properly tagged?

Also one complaint to this otherwise tremendous plugin is the lack of information (progress) when trasncoding and transfering in one step.

[mobyduck]

Ok I may be doing something wrong, but why can't I change the name of a Smart Playlist?

Select it and, after 1 sec. or so, click on it one more time. Works for me.

HTH.

Alessandro

[eTapio]

Hello,

first of all, thank you for this great plugin.

I just have one question. If I use the option 'Send Current playlist to iPod' it only transfers the songs within the playlist, not the playlist itself. Is this correct?

Regards
eTapio

[jkwarras]

I just have one question. If I use the option 'Send Current playlist to iPod' it only transfers the songs within the playlist, not the playlist itself. Is this correct?

AFAIK, it transfers all the songs in the playlist + the playlist.

[eTapio]

AFAIK, it transfers all the songs in the playlist + the playlist.

Hmm...doesn't work for me. Is there any special setting? In the Preferences I marked the option 'Create iPod playlists'. I also tried it with option 'Enable sync functions' switched on and off. But I get the same result. The songs has been transfered to the iPod, the playlist not.

eTapio

[Biscuits]

There shouldn't be any special setting that you have to turn on.


I have a question aswell, if you use Sync Current Playlist, will that just make the playlist that is on the iPod look the same as the current playlist? For example, I made a playlist of some songs and I clicked Send Current Playlist. It sent and I have the playlist on my iPod now. I now realize that there's a song I don't want in that playlist (I just want it on my iPod, but not in a specific playlist). Can I remove the song from the playlist in foobar, then click sync current playlist?

Hope this isn't too confusing.

Thanks,
-Tristan

[jkwarras]

Can I remove the song from the playlist in foobar, then click sync current playlist?

Sync will make your iPod look exactly like this playlist, which means: Delete and add all files on your iPod to look like this playlist.

[eTapio]

Hi,

there must be something wrong. If I use option 'Sync current playlist', foo_pod deletes all files on the IPod. But it did not transfer the files from the playlist!?!

'Send Current playlist to iPod' still works, but it transfer only the songs.

I also create a playlist with EphPod 2 and this creates the playlist on the iPod like it should. So there must be someting wrong with the interface or do I miss something?

eTapio

[jkwarras]

there must be something wrong. If I use option 'Sync current playlist', foo_pod deletes all files on the IPod. But it did not transfer the files from the playlist!?!

Are you getting errors during the tranfer on the console window?
And are you using last firmware for the iPod?
And, aren't really the files on your iPod? Sometimes they're there but don't know why, they're not shown as transfered.

I have some symptoms like yours and this were the problems:
1) Didn't have the last firmaware.
2) HDD iPod issues.

'Send Current playlist to iPod' still works, but it transfer only the songs.

You should wait to the developper to answer you.

[eTapio]

Are you getting errors during the tranfer on the console window?

No, the console didn't show anything.

And are you using last firmware for the iPod?

I updated it to Version 3.0.2. Still the same behaviour.

And, aren't really the files on your iPod? Sometimes they're there but don't know why, they're not shown as transfered.

I checked the iPod Filesystem. They are not there.

You should wait to the developper to answer you.

Ok, I will wait.

Thanks for your help!

eTapio

[jkwarras]

And, aren't really the files on your iPod? Sometimes they're there but don't know why, they're not shown as transfered.

I checked the iPod Filesystem. They are not there.

One more tip, maybe it'll help who knows?
make sure when you send a playlist to the iPod to send the active playlist. I mean, the playlist that's being displayed on foobar. If you send to the iPod a playlist, right-clicking on the playlist tab, but the playlist isn't active (another playlist is displayed) I think some people reported problems with that, but I suggest you to read this topic (a bite long but very helpful).

[Aero]

Version 0.9.5 (Release Candidate) is now available.

I'm not dead, but between work, family, and Half Life 2, I haven't had much free time lately. Still, I have some good new stuff in this version that should help usability.

Probably the most visible change is that Rebuild Database not only work on the whole iPod now, but it also retains any smart playlists from your previous database. I also believe I fixed retaining smart playlist with the sync functions, but I'd appreciate some user testing to make sure. I also made the alternate metadata items (e.g. POD_TITLE) work as TAGZ strings, so any valid TAGZ formatting string can be used here.

Also, I fixed some problems with Rebuild Database and sending files to the iPod. Previously, if you rebuilt the database and then attempted to send an existing file to the iPod, you would end up with two identical copies of the song on the iPod. This is fixed now, so as long don't care about normal playlist, play counts, or ratings, rebuilding the database from files you have copied directly to the iPod is a usable solution.

Another new feature that might be interesting is the Import Database From XML feature. This is basically a XML -> iTunesDB feature, so you can either create a new database directly as XML, or export an existing database, edit it in any text editor, and import it again.


I'm calling this a Release Candidate, since while I have been slowing adding features over the past 2 months, they aren't all fully tested. Also, I'd like to get one more feature in (Send Songs as AudioBooks) in before I declare a new version.

CODE

Version 0.9.5 - November 26, 2004
*  Added the ability to import XML and create the resulting iTunesDB database file.  This allows easy human access to the database.

*  Rebuild iTunesDB function now searches for iPod playable music anywhere on the iPod, not just in the Music directories.  This allows you to copy music to anywhere on the iPod, and after running Rebuild, creates a working database.  Also, Rebuild now preserves any existing Smart Playlists.

*  Fixed an incompatability with recent versions of iPodService, which caused the Mount/Eject functions to not work correctly.

*  The alternate metadata feature now allows for TAGZ strings in the metadata.  This allows you to have dynamic  metadata created by any legal TAGZ string.

*  The Sync functions now also preserve any existing Smart Playlists.

*  Fixed a bug when created a database using the Rebuild Database feature.  Previously, any songs added by this feature had incorrect timestamps, so if a user tried to add the same song again, it would copy a new version of the song to the iPod.

*  Delete All Songs and Playlists preserves the iTunes Music Store key files (iSCInfo and iSCInfo2).

*  Fixed Backup/Restore Database features.  

[hunted]

Very awesome Aero, I thank you very much.

[rexy]

Lovely update Aero. It's a shame you do not have as much time to work on foo_pod, nowadays.
I hope you have not abandoned plans on implementing the VOLUME alternative option for RG so volume balancing also works on 3G's through the dock's line out and implementing an option to pass transcoded files through the DSP or at least the limiter and the eq. Just a friendly reminder. I don't mean to pressure you (but I guess I kinda am). I was just wondering... and hoping.
Hmm... that was possibly a tad blunt.

[SNAG]

Version 0.9.5 (Release Candidate) is now available.

I'm not dead, but between work, family, and Half Life 2, I haven't had much free time lately.  Still, I have some good new stuff in this version that should help usability.

Probably the most visible change is that Rebuild Database not only work on the whole iPod now, but it also retains any smart playlists from your previous database.  I also believe I fixed retaining smart playlist with the sync functions, but I'd appreciate some user testing to make sure.  I also made the alternate metadata items (e.g. POD_TITLE) work as TAGZ strings, so any valid TAGZ formatting string can be used here.

Also, I fixed some problems with Rebuild Database and sending files to the iPod.  Previously, if you rebuilt the database and then attempted to send an existing file to the iPod, you would end up with two identical copies of the song on the iPod.  This is fixed now, so as long don't care about normal playlist, play counts, or ratings, rebuilding the database from files you have copied directly to the iPod is a usable solution.

Another new feature that might be interesting is the Import Database From XML feature.  This is basically a XML -> iTunesDB feature, so you can either create a new database directly as XML, or export an existing database, edit it in any text editor, and import it again.


I'm calling this a Release Candidate, since while I have been slowing adding features over the past 2 months, they aren't all fully tested.  Also, I'd like to get one more feature in (Send Songs as AudioBooks) in before I declare a new version.

Great Work Aero, and thanks for the update!

Will give this new plugin a workout this weekend.... Finally something to play around with.

[jkwarras]

Thanks you Aero
I thought you were hiding from us