iPod conversion questions, normalizing, file structure etc. Options

[thomasmarup]

Hi all
I have tried searching, but couldnt find consistent answers to my problems:
I have an iaudio m3 with 40gb, which is running out of space, even though I have encoded in vorbis at faily low bitrates for my m3. Im considering buying an ipod with 80gb, as it now is gapless. I therefore have some question:

1. I have all my music in flac, on seperate drive, in a structure like this: artist\album\# - songname. furthermore these files are not tagged or anything(these flacs are coded to vorbis for portable, and iaudio m3 just use the filenames and library structure). Is Ipod capable of storing files in this structure (mp3's), without any tags, and does that make for convenient song browsing on the unit?

2. Ill need to re-encode all my flacs to mp3 :-( because of ipod. And need a specific lame frontend(or script) which can convert my whole .flac library, to an mp3 library with exactly the same structure(eventually adding tags as well, based on the file-tree(only if Ipod needs tags will this be neccessary))

3. All my flacs have album replaygain tags. Since I believe Ipod support some kind of normalizing, like replaygain, I wonder if these replaygain tags can be converted to Ipod tags. If not, would I just let itunes compute and write the info to the mp3 files(which would make ipod lower volume in certain songs). Furthermore, can itunes distinguish between my albums, when they are arranged in the aforementioned structure? (I need normalizing with respect to albums, as I want the intended dynamics between songs)

4. This is a lame question, but I think that my m3 sounds very good when hooked to my stereo. Is the Ipod equalized to sound well on a stereo(I know this is subjective and all). I will be running without any signal processing on the Ipod(whatever there is, no dynamic bass boosts for me!). But abit of equalizing could ofcourse be done(even though that is processing as well).

Hope some of you will reply, as I know these kind of questions are trivial and asked alot

Thanks in advance, Thomas

This post has been edited by thomasmarup: Nov 3 2006, 12:50

[kanak]

So where does the ipod store the playcount information? does it write tags or store it in the database? In any case, is foo_dop able to access that information? The main thing i'm concerned with is if i can do in foobar what you're doing with itunes (having the playcount synced)-- if it's stored in a tag or something, i can prolly write a masstagger script to add it but if it's in the database, then that'd be something entirely different.

So in any case, whether i use itunes, or foobar or any other program, i will have to embed the album art into the file right?

[chrisgeleven]

So where does the ipod store the playcount information? does it write tags or store it in the database? In any case, is foo_dop able to access that information? The main thing i'm concerned with is if i can do in foobar what you're doing with itunes (having the playcount synced)-- if it's stored in a tag or something, i can prolly write a masstagger script to add it but if it's in the database, then that'd be something entirely different.

So in any case, whether i use itunes, or foobar or any other program, i will have to embed the album art into the file right?

iPod's use a database to write all of this information. I have no idea if foobar is able to use stuff like last played and play count while keeping it all synced. As far as I know, iTunes is the only application that can expose the benefits of the iPod database to its fullest. This allows you to do some amazing things with Smart Playlists.

As for album art, the latest iTunes (version 7) will automatically download album art for most music (and keep it separate from the file) if you create a free iTunes Music Store account.

If you don't do that, you have to embed the album art into the file manually.