Unless you *need* the podcast menu or something, I would avoid the new firmware at all costs, period. Regardless of whether you use foo_pod or iTunes or whatever.

The new firmware breaks Smart Playlists. Period. They're just flat out broken.

Wait until they get a fix. Having a podcast menu isn't really worth it for the cost of broken SPL's, IMO.

I used the latest updater on my shuffle, but the latest firmware for the shuffle is 1.1, which is unchanged from the 2005-03-23 version. I filled the shuffle using iTunes 4.9, then tried using foo_pod. foo_pod won't recognize.

Is that because I'm using the latest iTunes? If so, where can I find the prior version?

I said I was pissed about the situation and not pissed at anyone on the software end.

Ok, here is the situation on the iTunes 4.9 database format/new firmware.

As several people have said, the latest firmware (2005-06-26) is not recommended, because of a variety of problems - the most serious being that dynamically updating smart playlists are broken (Apple acknowledges this problem, so hopefully it will be resolved in the next firmware release).

Although I thought I had foo_pod working with writing iTunes 4.9 compatible databases, this does not work correctly in foo_pod 0.9.9k.

Don't use foo_pod's iTunes 4.9 database format until this is resolved. This is no advantage of using this format for now, even if it did work.


That said, I believe you can write iTunes 4.7/4.8 format databases and they will work even on the latest firmware. So if you must use the latest firmware, write iTunes 4.7/4.8 format databases. Note that foo_pod can read iTunes 4.9 format databases, it is just writing that doesn't appear to be working at the moment.

You can find the iPod Updater 2005-03-23 for Windows here: http://www.apple.com/ipod/hp/download/

According to Apple, this contains the same shuffle firmware as the 2005-06-26 version:

iPod Updater 2005-06-26 includes new iPod Software 1.2 for iPod with color display, new iPod software 3.1 for iPod with Click Wheel and new iPod software 1.4 for iPod mini. iPod Updater 2005-06-26 contains the same software versions as iPod Updater 2005-03-23 for all other iPod models.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/download/

I thought the reason foo_pod could not read my shuffle was because I loaded the shuffle using iTunes 4.9, not because of a firmware issue.

Where can I find the earlier version of iTunes?

i'm terribly sorry, but you can't - not legally, that is: apple does not provide any old versions neither of itunes nor of the ipod-firmwares. the only thing you can do is dig out your install cd that came with your ipod and use the versions they put on there... well and maybe a friend of yours has an old firmware lieing about. i'm sorry to say those are the only options...

One more feature request, please!!!

Is there a way to add files from audible.com ".aa" extension.
Maybe a directory pointer because foobar can not read them.

I had to install itunes to solve it


BR
Tormod

the one thing that im still in need of is the abililty to right click on playlist names in the playlist editor and be able to rename, and delete them.

the double click to rename doen not work on my PC really. it takes my 15-20 tries to finally get it.

other than that I really like this plugin, and I appreciate you hard work, Its so nice not having to use Itunes.

Sorry to be a drag - me again - Aero, do you think you might have five mins just to see if these DBs crash your pod ? all the best

Clunes

Actually, Apple leaves the old downloads up for all versions of iTunes back to 4.2. The trick is just in finding them since they are not sensibly named

Heres 4.7 which I happen to have handy:

Edit: I can't figure out how to cut out that stupid redirector to akamai. Try this link instead:

http://www.mpex.net/software/download/ituneswin.html

Try google for 'itunes akamai'. I managed to get 4.2, 4.5, and 4.6 with some effort a while ago while testing something.

Two quick questions:

1) I assume this will automatically synch the iPod with the Database/Music Library in the exact same way iTunes does?

2) Any idea when a 0.9 version will be released?

Thanksx

concerning 2): when 0.9 goes final, the sdk will be released and it is likely that aero might the update the component!

Only likely that he *might* do it? Haha. Oh my.

I hate to say this, but looks like I might have to re-install iTunes then, especially since from the looks of it I have the latest version of firmware on my iPod which won't work with foo_tunes anyway

*cries*

foo_pod will work fine with the latest firmware, if you leave the experimental "write 4.9 databases" turned off.

However, the latest firmware for 4G and up iPod's has serious issues just by itself, so I'd try to revert it back to a previous version anyway.

As for whether he might do it or not, well, until the SDK is released, he *can't* do it, so there's your main reason it can't be done yet.

Ahh I see, thanks.

All I want it to do is basically every time I add a song to the Media Library it'll synch it to the iPod, everytime I remove a song from my hard drive/Media Library it'll again synch it and delete it from the iPod. I assume that foo_pod does this without any troubles? If so, I'll stick it out and see how it goes!

Thanks Otto

Here's a weird one for you guys: Is there any way foo_pod could check the battery life while my iPod is connected?

No. The computer just sees the iPod as a hard drive. There's no secret method of communication or anything, it's just a hard drive. Nothing more.

I am prepared to be beaten down for this question... knowing that here goes..

how, if its possible, do I send my lossless (flac/ape) to my ipod as .wav?

Set up the transcoder in foo_pod to convert all lossless files to wav. Its in the options, and pretty straightforward. However I recommend you don't use wav. It'll waste battery and space on the ipod. Instead, convert it to ALAC (or even LAME/AAC unless you have some insanely good headphones and really can ABX lossy audio). Same audio, smaller file size.

Nope - there is no way for foo_pod to add songs to the iPod (at least add them and put them in the database so that they are playable) if the format is not playable in Foobar.

The technical reason for this is that a song in the iPod database needs some basic information about the songs - information like song length and other details about the song. If Foobar can't play the song, there is no way for foo_pod to get this information. Also, I would guess that most .aa files are DRM'ed.

I don't know of any way to query the battery state, and I don't see anything in the iPodService interface that is even close.

I'm not sure that transcoding to .wav will work. I haven't tried it, but it might fail when foo_pod tries to write metadata to the WAV file.

But MG is right - transcoding to ALAC (using Otto's iTunesEncoder script) is probably a better idea than writing uncompressed WAV files.

Yes, I took a look at your iTunesDB file and it promptly crashed my 4G iPod, requiring going into Disk Mode to recover.

Unfortunately, the iTunesDB file is so big that finding the one thing that is causing the problem is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So I haven't made much progress in figuring out the problem - if you can reproduce it with a smaller set of files, it would help my debugging efforts.

I'm having a serious problem with foo_pod. It only has the "Update iTunesDB on iPod" choice in it's list of choices. I cannot send songs to the iPod either. Please help!

Hey Folks,

I've got a question on playlists.

I have a bunch of songs in the default IPod playlist in Foobar. These songs are already on the iPod.

I added a new playlist, and put a subset of the files in the default playlist into the new playlist. I then select Send Playlist to iPod, and it doesn't show up on the iPod. I get all the warnings about the songs already on the iPod and I expect that, but I also though that the playlist would have been added to the iPod.

Is this expected behavior?

Thanks,
Brian

Sorry for the off topic but I figure it would be useful info here...

I took the time to go through all of the iPod updaters to figure out what firmware versions are in which updater.



You can find instructions on how to downgrade your firmware Here

As far as I know, 3.1 and 1.4 are the bad ones that do not update SPL's.

Hi guys, need some help with this.

"Rebuild iTunesDB Database on iPod
Searches for iPod-playable music anywhere on the iPod, not just in the Music directories. This allows you to create a working database after copying music anywhere on the iPod. This is useful if you want to store your songs in human-readable directories, rather than in F00 - F99.

Note: The iPod cannot read files with a total path and filename of greater than 127 characters. During transfer, foo_pod truncates long filenames to alleviate this.

It deletes existing playlists, and dynamic data: rating, playcounts, and last played time. It preserves Smart Playlists."

Will this actually sort all the current folders into Artist/Album instead of the F00-F99 folder sequence? I need to do this as i bring my iPod to work and i would want to actually put folder.jpg into the folders so i can view the albumart at work.

My iPod is being detected by foo_pod, because it can update the iTunesDB on it. Unfortunately, I don't see any other options for controlling the iPod (there are no "Send song(s) to iPod" or iPod playlists available). My iPod is being detected by the computer and iTunes.

No. It will scan the iPod for any files it finds that are playable by the iPod and build an iTunesDB out of them, but it doesn't change the location of the music on the iPod.

If you manually put the music on the iPod thru explorer and used that artist/album method for your naming, then this would rebuild the database such that the iPod would then be able to play that music. But it won't do that for you.

You probably could use FooBar's masstagger, then rebuild using foo_pod

Thanks for the input guys...

I guess I should clarify more specifically my reasoning.

I couldnt care less about battery life, as I use my IPOD mostly in the truck connected to the cigarette lighter power plug. When Its not plugged in the truck, I may use it while jogging, hiking a few hours, or bicycling to and from work. The point being battery life isnt all that important.

As for space, I only have a 15 gigger, roughly 13 and some change. I dont really mind not carrying more songs as updating/transferring a playlist should be easy to handle overnight.

My main issue: I would prefer not to have 2 sets of files (flac and mp3) for each album.

I guess I was wrong in assuming transcoding would only create a temp file for xfer and then delete it.

I had all my lossless mass transcoded to apx, but found I didnt like managing 2 sets of files. Anyone have any advice for my situation?

IM tired and hopefully Im making sense.

Thanks for reading.

I do this, and there shouldn't be an issue. I have all my CDs ripped to FLAC on my computer harddrive. Then I just setup foo_pod to transcode the files to MP3s prior to sending them to the iPod. No MP3s are required on your computer harddrive, as foo_pod does this all for you (this is why I started using foo_pod actually).

The iPod can't decode FLAC/APE, so MP3 is the way to go since ALAC won't leave you with much spaced on a 15GB. That being said, I would use aps or the medium setting, cuz I doubt you're getting much more out of apx, and with a 15 gigger, space is an issue.

Thanks!

[/quote]

I do this, and there shouldn't be an issue. I have all my CDs ripped to FLAC on my computer harddrive. Then I just setup foo_pod to transcode the files to MP3s prior to sending them to the iPod. No MP3s are required on your computer harddrive, as foo_pod does this all for you (this is why I started using foo_pod actually).

The iPod can't decode FLAC/APE, so MP3 is the way to go since ALAC won't leave you with much spaced on a 15GB. That being said, I would use aps or the medium setting, cuz I doubt you're getting much more out of apx, and with a 15 gigger, space is an issue.

Thanks!

[/quote]
Yo thanks for the great info! Im looking forward to a successful transcode/transfer.

can anyone fill me in on what I may be doing wrong here getting this message trying:

Components > foo_pod > Send Current Playlist to IPOD

I get this:

ERROR (foo_podtranscoder) : Error opening transcoder exe
ERROR (foo_podtranscoder) : foo_podtranscoder: transcoding failed for file://d:\Lossless\2Pac [1996] All Eyez On Me (Disc 1)\02 All Bout U.flac
ERROR (foo_pod) : Transcoding failed!

(it happens for all the songs until i can manually cancel the xfer)



win xp sp2
foobar 0.8.3

thanks.

First let's make sure your transcoder is setup properly. You need to make sure that you have the foo_podtranscoder.dll, foo_podclienc.dll, and foo_pod.dll in foobar2000/components directory.

Then go to the transcoder tab. You can use some of the presets, or you can make your own. If you use the presets, you need to make sure the encoder, either LAME of FAAC are in the foobar2000 top level directory. I've made my own, so under the configuration of Use Custom Encoder Settings I have:

Encoder: C:\Program Files\LAME-3.96.1\lame.exe
Extension: mp3
Parameters: --preset standard - %d
Format is: lossy
Highest BPS mode supported: 24 (I don't know what this should be set to, maybe someone can tell me)
Tag: ID3v2
Pass floating point data (some lossy encoders only) is not checked. (I don't know if this should be set or not with LAME/mp3, maybe somone can clarify if this is needed)
Encoder requires accurate length is not checked. (I don't know if this should be set or not with LAME/mp3, maybe someone can clarify if this is needed)
Display name: LAME 3.96.1
Neither box under Generic Setting are checked.

This has worked for me for a while.

Edit: Fixed quote'ing problem.

foo_pod does not support packed mp3-files? (*.zip etc..)
if not support, please support 'unpack' URL.

# I expect that foo_pod cuts first 7 characters of 'location'.
# excuse me about poor english by Jp.

Thank you for this program. I even paid for Anapod, but now that I've finally figured it out, I use foo_pod exclusively.

Also, http://www.tinkafoo.com/log/foo_pod.html is an excellent resouce, though I'd love to see the information it's missing added.


I've been seeing the perpetual reboot cycle bug with my 60 GB PhotoPod. It seems to happen most often after I've transferred a large amount of music to my ipod.

I'm using itunes 4.7, and running the firmware/itunesDB format 1.1. I transcode some mp3s to audiobooks, and just in the course of figuring foo_pod out, I've had foo_pod backup/restore/rebuild/update the itunesdb multiple times.

As with others, putting it into Disk Mode through diagnostics, and then adding one song through itunes fixes it.

Hello.

Just got foo_pod. It works just fine.

But there's one thing I'm wondering about.

Is there any way to make foo_pod read the taginfo from det foobar database instead of the file itself?

Thanks
/Alzer

I am having the exact same problem and have been for about 3 releases. I end up switching between preset transcoder setting (error), manual (error), back to preset, and it finally works. Sometimes it takes 3-4 switches, but it will finally go.

Hi, how do i use masstagger to sort into Artist/Album directory structure?

masstagger -> rename, move or copy files -> artist/album/nn - title
then remember to click the create subdirectories checkbox

This assumes songs are tagged properly

thank you, that did the trick!

AFAIK foo_pod always uses the foobar database. I don't think it can read tags at all, instead it just uses whatever info in the foobar database. However, I haven't looked at the code, so I could be mistaken.

I don't use the foobar database at all and foo_pod works just fine (with the minor exception of the occasional perpetual reboot cycle).

If I guessed, I'd say that perhaps foo_pod uses both database info and tags, and one has precedent over the other.


Is there a command to update all playlists? Having to update each playlist one by one is a key usabiilty frustration for me. (Maybe it's a sync thing? Though I tried that and almost wiped out all my music).

How do you go about updating playlists now? How about creating new ones?

AFAIK you can't actually disable the entire database. When you choose that option theres just no central store of song info. Your playlists (like the one foo_pod constructs) still contain database entries for each song in them. So from foo_pod's perspective, you're still using the database, even if you don't want to.

At least thats what I've gathered.



I really doubt theres a parser built into foo_pod for all tag and file types it supports. I'm pretty sure its just reading the info that foobar gives it. Unless Areo's been busy writing code to handle reading not just AAC/MP3 but also tags on FLAC/APE/etc files transcoded into MP3/AAC by foo_pod

Fair enough. Though it's a database entry created instantly from tags, and exists only as long as the song is in a playlist. Point granted though; if we take this any further it'll just be an exercise in semantics.

I guess the more helpful question to Alzer would be: what are you trying to do?




I right click on the playlist tab and choose "update this playlist." I use the playlist editor to create new ones. I tried using "Send all playlists to ipod," but then I just end up with two copies of every playlist.

Update: I just tried "Sync all playlists." Foobar crashed, and all my playlists dissappeared. Sigh.

When you use the Playlist Editor, how do you get the playlists to showup in foobar? When I add a playlist in the playlist editor, I don't see the equivalent playlist in foobar. Maybe I'm missing something.

After creating the playlists in Playlist Editor, I then do: components>foo_pod>load ipod playlists as tabs, and they show up.

It'd be nice if there was the option for smart playlists and regular playlists to show up at the same time.

Is there a quick tutorial on how to get ratings working with fb2k and foo_pod so that I can start to use SmartPlaylists? I went to tinkafoo and didn't see anything related to this.

Searching the thread for this information has gotten a little unweildy, so I'm hoping someone has a concise pointer.

Thanks!