Welcome back, Aero! I hope you had a fun, and relaxing, visit to Europe. I'm going in a month or so myself... hopefully you didn't take all the good pictures

Glad to hear you were able to get another ipod photo as well. Any work you may want to do with photo-only capabilities is fine by me! Thanks a bunch, as always.

Welcome back Aero!

Well most of my problems have been solved with uninstalling iTunes. Don't ask me why, but almost everything thing seems to work properly now (transcoding, files showing up on iPod)! I'm a happy man.

However, the one last thing I'm having trouble with is the iPod Pre-amp Volume Adjustment, Sounds with SoundCheck data. I've transcoded songs to the iPod with it set to -100% and 100% and can't hear a difference . I know that SoundCheck data is in the file however, because when I turn off SoundCheck on the iPod, the song is much louder. It doesn't seem to me that the preamp part is working. Is there a bug with this when transcoding the files (rather than just copying them to the iPod)?

Thanks!

I don't think it is transcoder related, because the preamp settings are applied after all of the songs are already on the iPod. Maybe certain iPod firmware versions ignore the preamp volume is SoundCheck data is available? Apple has been doing some weird stuff with firmwares lately, like removing the _show_voltage hack in the latest Photo firmware (but leaving it in for the 4G firmware). I'm pretty sure that the preamp volume is getting set correctly in the database, so maybe it is something like a firmware change?

I'll do more experimenting and see if I can figure out what is going on.

Edit: At least on my iPod Photo with v1.1 firmware, this feature works as expected. I tested that non-SC volume works by setting the volume to -90%, and it was nearly inaudible. Then I transfered 2 identical files with SoundCheck (-5.56dB), but manually edited the database so one has -90% preamp, and the other had +90%. The -90% song was very quiet, and very slightly louder when SoundCheck was turned off. The 90% song was very loud and even louder with SoundCheck turned off, as expected. I didn't test it on my 4G iPod with 3.0.2 firmware, but I am almost certain I tested it on this model when I added the feature to foo_pod.

If you are still having problems, please post your iPod model and firmware, and the preamp volume settings for both non-SC and SC.

I must be doing something wrong. I have a 4G iPod Photo with 3-23-05 (v1.1) firmware.

Here is the relevant settings:
http://www.matonian.com/preamp.jpg

I did the same trick of sending an identical song to the ipod, one with -100% and 100% and I didn't hear a difference. That's why the slider is on 100% in the settings above.

My workflow is as follows:
EAC->FLAC
FB2k sets replaygain for the album
Highlight files, right click, foo_pod, send files to ipod
foo_pod then proceeds to transcode the file to MP3 using LAME 3.96.1 and puts it on the iPod.

Am I missing a step or something?

Thanks!

The same preamp settings are applied to all songs, and it is updated whenever foo_pod writes the iTunesDB database. So if all of your music has ReplayGain/Soundcheck, it will all get the same preamp value and you won't notice a difference. Also, make sure your song really does have ReplayGain information by checking the technical data in the Foobar Properties window.

Try this - set the non-Soundcheck slider to -90% and the Soundcheck slider to +90%. Then copy 2 new songs - one with Soundcheck and one without. Put them in a new playlist, so you can easily compare them.

I'm having a slight problem with foo_pod and my iPod photo 30gb. I like to Replaygain all my files - however I didn't get a chance to replaygain then before uploading them onto the iPod. Hence, I tried adding the iPod playlist into foobar (i.e. directly playing the songs off my iPod using foobar) - and then Replaygain'ing them. The scans would happen but the Replaygain info wouldn't 'stick' to the files - i.e. when i play those files off my iPod after reconnecting it or over the iPod on a standalone basis through headphones - the files are still distorted and the replaygain info has disappeared. My only solution is hence to copy the files back onto my hard disk, replaygain them, and then upload them again - a very lengthy process!! Is there any way around this??

I'd also like to take the opportunity to say that iTunes is a piece of fascist dogsh*t, and foo_pod f*cking rocks a*s.

There is a way, but not a really good way...

The only way to do this without copying the files off of the iPod is to use the Rebuild iTunesDB Database menu item, found under the Components/foo_pod/Maintanence menu. This will rescan your iPod and build a new database based on the files on your iPod. So if you have applied ReplayGain to the files *on* the iPod, it will pick up those changes. The downside is that rebuilding the database deletes any normal (but not smart) playlists, and you also lose dynamic infomation, like rating, last played time, and playcounts.

What I really need to do is create a feature that does the updating, without having to do a full database rebuild. As I was typing this, I figured out how I could do this, so if you want to wait about a week or so (maybe less, maybe more), I'll put that feature on the top of my todo list.




Heh. Thanks for the praise! I was using iTunes last night, to help in reverse engineering the Photo Database format, and I felt dirty just using it...

Cool - the ONLY two things I use iTunes for now are:

1. Uploading photos onto the iPod photo (but why does this create a HUGE cache file as well as copying the images themselves?!)

2. Applying my customised EQ curve to my music - I've created a customised EQ setting as I didn't like any of the defaults in iTunes - and applied this to every single song I have - although I'm not sure where this data is saved (or if it even accessible by any program except iTunes itself) but hope my iPod is playing back my tracks with this EQ curve being the functional one. I usually apply a gentle EQ curve on top by turning on the iPod EQ- e.g. Classic. My custom EQ doesn't appear in the iPod EQ list.

If somehow foo_pod could integrate custom EQ settings, that would be major achievement and would address what I think is the iPod's 2nd largest shortcoming... (the first being the lack of any proper user DSP functionality)

The whole photo syncing procedure with iTunes is crazy and poorly implemented. When the iPod Photos first came out, I figured that Apple rushed the current implementation out the door just so there would be *something* to load images. But I expected something better by now.

Part of the problem is that there are 4 different images (5, if you include full size resolution) that are created for each image copied to the iPod. One of them is for TV display only, which is uncompressed 16 bit @720x480, or around 675kB in file size. It appears that this is what iTunes caches on your hard drive - I can only guess that to speed up syncing, but there are better ways to avoid resending the same images.

My photo utility (which won't be part of foo_pod, BTW) will not only transfer images, but let you view the ones already on the iPod and remove them individually. And no huge, wasteful caches littering your hard drive. In fact, I plan to make the TV image optional, so if you never connect your iPod to a TV for display, you don't have waste time creating it and waste disk space storing it.


Otto42 has reverse engineered the EQ section of the database on the iPod, but it appears that the iPod doesn't use this information even if it is present. I haven't tested it recently, but the last time I tried, I was able to create a custom EQ preset on the iPod but it wasn't applied on the iPod itself.

So until the firmware is fixed, you are stuck with the EQ presets. In the database, it is possible to have different EQ settings for each song, but I can't remember if this is actually applied on the iPod, or if it is ignored and the Settings/EQ is used instead.

Sounds awesome, Aero.

Will the photo utility be a foobar plug-in, or a standalone app?

Standalone - no connection to Foobar (or foo_pod) at all. In fact, it is going to be a .NET application.

I might extend it to also work with album artwork, since that is very close to the Photo Database stuff.

Makes sense... I assumed that by photo you meant album artwork, and thus another foobar plug-in. Still sounds awesome for anyone that uses the photo functions of the ipod.

The album art writing will (eventually) go into foo_pod - this other app would be more for management (add/removing/changing album art).

The per-song EQ in the MHIT is indeed applied iff:
- the EQ you specify is one of the iPod's defaults (since it doesn't seem to load the EQSettings file), and
- the equalizer is not set to "off" on the iPod's settings menu.

The way it works when the iPod's Equalizer is on is that the iPod will apply the EQ specified in the MHIT, or if there isn't one, it will apply whatever EQ is set in the settings. So setting it to "Flat" in the settings is equivalent to turning it "on", as this will leave normal songs alone and apply whatever EQ you specified on those where you specified one.

I have not checked version 2.3 of the software to see if they added/fixed the EQ loading yet.

Thanks for the reminder. I added some code to iPodDB to set the EQ MHOD, but never adding anything in foo_pod to do anything with it.

I checked the latest firmware, and there is no EQPresets string in it, so I'm guessing that custom EQ settings are still unimplemented on the iPod.

I thought the newer firmwares were actually encrypted? I need to examine it in more detail, I guess.

Nope, at least some 2005-03-23 updater firmware is in plain text. In fact, you can open it in Visual Studio and look at the different firmwares in the "FIRM" resource type, and see the various strings.

Aero, I've noticed no regressions in the VS2003 version of your plugin. The next time you build it, can you build it in release mode so that extra libraries aren't required (it doesn't worry me as I have VS2003 installed, but many people don't have it installed).

It is built in Release mode - it is just that not everyone has the VC7 runtime library installed yet.

Edit: I'll put in the runtime DLL for the next release, which will be VC7 based since no one seems to be having any problems with it, and it might be a little faster.

I'm confused then. I've been working on a component, that when built in debug mode requires the VC7 runtime library, but when built in release mode does not. How can this be?

The release build only needs the non-debug C++ runtime DLL (msvcp71.dll), while a debug build would need msvcp71d.dll, and maybe other debug libraries. I can only guess, but you might have msvcp71.dll already installed in your SysDir/System32 directory, but wouldn't have the debug DLLs installed until you have Visual Studio 2003 installed as well.

There is some information about the runtime DLLs here.

More specifically, I've had my component work on a computer without VC7, but the VC7 version of foo_pod not work on the same computer.

Hi Aero, I really appreciate foo_pod features and your effort to make it ever better.

In my actual condition, most music on my hard disk is encoded in one single lossless file+cue for each album. When I have to transfer an album to my iPod, foo_pod first converts in the chosen format (mp3, aac etc.) but still in a single file, instead of as many files as the included tracks based on the cue.
So every time I must accomplish more steps manually, i.e.: convert to single lossy format files per track; transfer them to iPod; delete them from hard disk.

I found in this thread that it's a known behaviour due to lack of cue support.
Do you have any planned update about this?
Thank you for your attention and your great work.

Thanks!


Yeah, CUE support is lacking, and is something that I have meant to add for awhile now.

I was just thinking about cue sheets this morning, while driving to work listening to the Raven'n'Blues podcast. I was thinking that it would be great if shows like R'n'B would distribute a cue sheet along with the audio file. Then with the right program (foo_pod, naturally! ), it would be possible to create a playlist with all of the individual songs as cue sheet entries. So if you wanted to listen to the 3rd song on the show, you could just skip to the 3rd song in the playlist, rather than fast forwarding or rewinding to the right spot. I guess it is sort of a chicken and egg problem - there isn't any software to convert a cue sheet into individual tracks on the iPod, and there aren't any podcasts distributing cuesheets... But since there are a lot of people that use them with Foobar, it definitely would be a good feature to add.

Anyway, yes, I intend on adding cuesheet support at some point. I have most of the code already written - I just need some time to finish the iPod side of it.

Okay, I've been having a problem for a while now. Sometimes it simply won't transcode files, and I don't know why. I've tried replacing my lame.exe, updating foo_pod. It was doing this before and after a format. I don't know wtf is going on. Here is my console (some are in single files + cue sheets, some aren't).



Please help me!

Which version of LAME are you using? And have you tried using one of the FAAC defaults, just to see if that has any difference?

The newest, 3.96.1 I believe and yes I have.

EDIT: Well, I think it got it working, more or less. I just did a full transfer of about 2500 songs, and no errors (as best I can tell), but the songs that were transcoded that are also in playlists are NOT in those playlists on the iPod. They ARE on the iPod, but not in the playlists.

Did I miss something?

Sorry for the double post, but I also have a request.

In these long file transfers and transcoding sessions, my room is awful quiet. Would it be possible to allow us to listen to music while foo_pod is doing its thing?

BUmp

Your post was less then a day old, I didn't really need a bump.

Buy a radio or learn to hum?

Newer versions of foo_pod try to do a better job of not monopolizing Foobar, but it isn't completely a background process. Try starting up music before you start the transcoding (and the transcoding/playlist problem is a known bug).

Version 0.9.9h is now available

0.9.9h only has 2 changes over 0.9.9g - I added an Update iPod Database feature (found under the foo_pod/Maintenance menu) and removed the change from 0.9.9e which made the progress dialogs non-modal.

Update iPod Database is useful if you make changes to the files on your iPod, and want to update the database to match. For example, Porschephile posted about his situation - he applied ReplayGain to the files already on the iPod. But since foo_pod didn't previously have a way to take these changes and update the database, his only solutions would be to copy the files off of the iPod and back, or use the Repair Database feature. By using Update Database, you can do things like change artist/album/genre or add ReplayGain, and have those changes applied to the database without having to rebuild the whole thing.

The other change is that I made the progress dialogs modal again. This means that while foo_pod is doing something (like transferring songs), Foobar will be locked. I don't like this, but I think that a rare crash bug was introduced by the original change in 0.9.9e, so I want to see if this fixes it.

One other note is that I am officially switching over to the Visual Studio 2003 compiler. If you don't already have the msvcp71.dll on your computer, you can find a copy in the zip file. Just copy it to your Windows\System32 directory, or to the Foobar directory.


From the Readme:

I have a problem with the sync option in foo_pod; when I choose sync all playlists, it doesn't recognize the songs that are already on the iPod, and begins copying them all indiscriminately causing the iPod's drive to fill with duplicates. When I choose to synch my main / largest playlist it prompts me to delete 5788 songs, which is basically everything I have on the iPod. Does anyone know what may be causing this?

just got an ipod photo ... foo_pod rocks. i have one problem/bug to report. when i try to use the new "update itunesdb database on ipod" function, i get a runtime error in foobar2000.exe. anybody else have this problem?

It could be a foo_pod bug, but similar things have happened to others in the past, and it usually turns out to be something they did that modified the song files on the iPod. Do you know of anything you've done to the files (some Foobar components - like some versions of Play Count or Ratings - will modify a file's metadata behind the scenes.
Still, it seems strange that all 5788 songs would have changed. Let me know if you know of anything that would have modified the files.

Would you please send me (foopod(at)argz.com) your iPod_Control\iTunes\iTunesDB file? I haven't experienced any crashes, but it is a new feature and so there are bound to be some problems.

I have the same problem too... I will send you the iTunesDB file shortly...

I'm just starting to play with foo_pod and so far am rather impressed - well done Aero, Otto &co.

One question regarding the treatment of multidisc albums. iTunes has a box for Disc 1 of 6, but when you save such info it doesn't appear in any tags, suggesting it is instead stored somewhere in an itunes db on the hard disc. The godfather tagging program has a tag called "partinset" and i've seen other people suggest a pair of tags DiscNumber and Disccount.

I'd like foo_pod to transfer this information when it populates my ipod - is there a default tag that it looks for with this information in it?

Mike

Hi guys,

Great work on foo_pod so far - much appreciated.

I have a question regarding Ottofill. Whenever I use it, I only get ~2GB of songs transferred (10GB 2g ipod). Is this a limitation in the current version, or is something going wrong?


thanks.

I don't know what may have modified the files. I do not have ratings, and I do not believe I have play count. I decided to sync, just to see what would happen, and even though it copied all of the songs to the iPod just fine, they do not show up (all menus under "Browse" are blank). I can see all the files on the iPod when I connect it to my PC though. This is really puzzling me!

Thanks to everyone who sent their iTunesDB files and other debugging information. I wasn't able to reproduce the crash, but I did narrow the problem down a little, and I have posted a test version of foo_pod for you to try to see if it works on your computer.

foo_pod 0.9.9i test version

Thanks!


foo_pod currently uses the metadata entries "DISC" and "TOTALDISC" for Disc 1 of 6, respectively. I'm pretty sure I just made up those names, and since no one has ever asked about them, I never had a reason to change them.

I can easily add new metadata name aliases, such as DiscNumber and DiscCount, if those seem to be a more widely used standard. I just did some quick Googling, and it looks like those names are used by several different programs (including by the iTunes Music Store, in its XML format), so I'll add those in the next release.

No, that is a bug. I capped the number of songs that can be transferred at 400, as a hack, and never went back and implemented it correctly.

I'll try to fix it for the next build.

Ok, thanks. In the meantime, running ottofill a couple of times without replacing the existing songs works fine.

First off, since I found this plug-in, I absolutely refuse to use iTunes. It's so bloated and clumbsy. foo_pod is simple. foo_pod --> send all playlists to iPod --> play video games --> done. I really appreciate your hard work.

I'm just wondering if there is any progress on the transcoded files showing up on iPod but not on playlists bug? I'm not a programmer or anything, I'm just wondering if I can help. I'll send my iTunes DB, try other computers, foo_pod, iPod, foobar builds, whatever needs to be done. Whenever this gets fixed, I can fully uninstall iTunes.

Thanks again.

Thanks for the offer of help, but I know exactly what the problem is and how I need to fix it. I just need to sit down and commit myself to working on it (it won't be too hard to fix - I just need to make sure I don't break anything else while fixing this bug).

Speaking of working, I spent some time tonight with Album Cover Art Downloader and leeched a bunch of cover art from Amazon.com. No promises on adding album art support to foo_pod, but at least I have some extra motivation to implement it.

I think it will work like this: when you copy a song to the iPod, foo_pod will check that song's directory for 'folder.jpg' (configurable). If it is found, that is what foo_pod will use for the artwork. If nothing is found, it will go up a directory, and so on and so forth until it finds a folder.jpg. So if you are like me and organize your music by Artist/Album, even if you don't have album art for a particular album, you could put some generic artist artwork in the Artist directory.

Version 0.9.9i is now available.

This version might fix the crash reported in Update iPod Database, and should take care of the long-standing problem where transcoded files would not be included in iPod playlists. It also adds a workaround for OttoFill, so it will fill up iPods with capacities >1GB. I also added "DISCNUMBER" and "DISCCOUNT" metadata supported, as requested by veryevilmike.


From the Readme:

Thanks for the update Aero. The fix for transcoded files works. Unfortunetely, I'm having a bit of an issue. First I'll tell you what I'm doing. It could very well be me. I tried to add 4 playlists: My favorites, a playlist of 503 of my favorite songs, Top 100, my top 100 favorites, a playlist of 100 of my favorite songs, a playlist of a single 12 song album, and another simply called "iPod" which is about 2250 of the rest of my music. Each playlist except for the single album have files that need to be transcoded.

I had all 4 playlists loaded in foobar, and went foo_pod --> send all playlists to iPod. Only 3 showed up, and 1 was way off. The My Favorites list had all 503 songs, yay! You fixed the bug. The single album was fine as well. The list entitled "iPod" didn't show up, but all the files on it did? Also, the Top 100 list, only 1 song was on it? Wtf?

Each song on the Top 100 list is on the My Favorites list. The 1 song that showed up on the Top 100 list seemed completely random.

If you need any more details of what happened, I'll be glad to provide them.

BTW: Thanks for the update. I really appreciate the work you are doing. Do you accept donations for the work? Usually I don't do this, but when big contributions are made to a community, I feel it should be rewarded a bit. Thanks again.

EDIT: I also tried renaming the playlist and sending it or deleting it off of the iPod, renaming it, then sending it, or any of the above combinations. They don't even show up on there. I must be missing something...

EDIT 2: Okay, no matter what, unless I use iTunes, I can't get foo_pod to create a new playlist. Unless something has changed on foo_pod's level, I feel really stupid...

EDIT 3: Okay, did a little experiment. I completely removed foobar, foo_pod, my entire foobar folder, the whole 9 yards. Reinstalled it all, completely updated. Tried again and getting similar symptoms. Went into iTunes, and it seems the songs that don't get sent (some transcoded, many just plain MP3s) have exclamation points by them. iTunes can't play them nor edit them, hence they aren't on those playlists, but apparently ARE on the iPod. And, they are all at the beginning of the list of songs (516 songs total sent, wierd songs stopped after AC/DC). As far as I can tell, nothing is unique about these songs over others. For instance, one AC/DC song from the same album worked, another didn't, both are transcoded. This seems to be the root of the problem, I just don't know what is wrong with these songs. I hope this helps.

EDIT 4: To add to this experiment, I resent those songs, but not with the "send playlist" rather, just "send songs to iPod" and they are just fine. I then manually added them to my playlists via iTunes and every song was accounted for.

Thanks for the update, Aero.



Seems this works a little too well now. Ottofill attempted to copy ~2500 songs; made it to 1750 before running into disk space issues. Did you just up the limit of songs copied or should it have only picked enough songs to fill the disk?

thanks

Okay, more on this problem I am still having. With my iPod in the state I noted in my previous post (not showing any songs), I tried using the rebuild iTunes DB on iPod feature multiple times to no avail. Then I decided to reinstall iTunes, just to see what would happen. Oddly enough, it recognized the iPod immediately, and saw all the songs on it. Nothing was transferred over that I know of. Then, I ejected the iPod and all the songs now appeared on it! This was great. Since this happened, I have been able to use foo_pod to send songs to the iPod. I am unable to send normal playlists (they do not appear under the playlists menu on the iPod). I am able to create smart playlists though. Is it possible that I am overlooking something? Also, is it important that my iPod connects to my PC through a firewire port?