Has anyone been able to get foo_pod and iTunes to both work with a Nano?

I'd like to be able to use iTunes occaisonaly with my Nano, but use foo_pod exclusively to transfer music to the Nano. I want to use foo_pod because of the replaygain->soundcheck translation. I want to use iTunes whenever I play music on my ipod while connected to the computer because then my ratings/playcounts will work correctly.

I have tried many combinations of firmware/itunes/foo_pod versions including firmware versions 1.0 and 1.1, itunes 4.8, 4.9 and 6.0. I've only ever used foo_pod 0.9.9m. I've also tried changing the foo_pod options to use 4.7/4.8 databases as well as 4.9 databases. I've tried pretty much every combination possible of these firmware/software versions/options.

I can get foo_pod to successfully transfer songs to the ipod and play them, but the only way I've been able to play these songs on the ipod from within iTunes is to use the 'rebuild database' feature. After rebuilding, iTunes can play the files until anything new has been transferred with foo_pod - if something new is transferred with foo_pod then 'rebuild database' must be performed again in order for iTunes to be able to play any files on the ipod (not just the new ones). I wouldn't mind just rebuilding the database after each transfer except that it resets all my ratings/playcounts each time I do this.

Anyone got any ideas or is this something that just isn't possible? Thanks for any help.

PS: Anyone know of a program like iVolume for Windows?

Because I don't have all the songs on my PC.



Because I don't have iTunes installed and wish to avoid it (heard horror stories of it altering MP3 files from just running it), and from what I can tell it likes to have files on the HDD at the same time as on the iPod. And if there was an easy way of doing it by hand it would be okay too

Edit: Just found Anapod can do what I want. Woo

So Aero you still supporting/developing foo_pod? I hope now that they fixed the annoying smart playlist bug you are. I know you mentioned that you feel that any new features would require a full rewrite.

I have read through a good bit of the thread almost all 77 pages. However correct me if I am wrong.

foo_pod does NOT support the following.
syncing of rating,last played, play count
and AlbumArt.

Is this correct?

Are their any plans to add support to any of the above items?

Thanks.

Add CD Images/Files with subsong indices to that list.

I don't know if someone has posted this before but I discovered a bug in the latest version. I got an iPod color and it seems that long songs that are more then 12 or 13 minutes long get skipped. This has nothing to do with long file names as all my files are encoded with the latest iTunes and iTunes by default keeps their file names to a maximum of 36 characters. So this problem only occurs during very long songs. I discovered this problem with listening to Pink Floyd "Animals". Track two is over 17 minutes in length, so as the first track played through, it ended then my iPod started playing track Three, totally skipping track two. However, I was able to play track two just by skipping back a track, so long songs are still playable.

So I decided to test my iPod out, to see if this was just a small glitch that happed, and this time watching the display. What happed was after playing track one through again, the display momentaraly showed track two's information and then immediately skipped to track three again, never playing track two. I've also tested this on other long songs that I have on my iPod and the results are the same. Long song gets skipped. Thankfully, not allot of my songs are very long, but it's still rather frustrating to have to reach for my iPod to skip back to a song because it gets skipped from song length issues.

I've been using foo_pod (v. 9.9m) for two days, and it's great, except I can't transcode on the fly. The .dll's are in the 'components' file, and I've got the LAME.exe in the main foobar folder. I set the foo_pod transcode preferences for LAME. I right-click on a file to sent to the 'pod, and get the following error message in the console -

ERROR (foo_podtranscoder) : Error opening transcoder exe
ERROR (foo_podtranscoder) : foo_podtranscoder: transcoding failed for file://C:\Documents and Settings\Ken.KEN-EG260PCW4NG\My Documents\My Music\Monkey's Audio\Pink Floyd\Pulse\disc 1\Pink Floyd - What Do You Want From Me.ape
ERROR (foo_pod) : Transcoding failed!
ERROR (foo_pod) : Error #5 copying C:\Documents and Settings\Ken.KEN-EG260PCW4NG\My Documents\My Music\Monkey's Audio\Pink Floyd\Pulse\disc 1\Pink Floyd - What Do You Want From Me.ape to e:\iPod_Control\Music\F34\15f06b5e910672496.mp3

There's a msvcp71.dll still in the foo_pod folder, but the readme says nothing about it. Is this my problem? I read thru this thread (well, mostly) and went thru tinkafoo's page looking for info, but no luck. I've tried putting just the LAME.exe in the folder, and I even dumped the whole LAME folder in. All I get are error messages like the one above. I downloaded FAAC v1.24, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to place (nothing looks like an "FAAC.exe").

Anyone have suggestions?

Are you doing one of the preset transcoding selections? Can you try a customer encoder and specify the path the lame.exe and see if that helps?

First of all many thanks for this wonderful plugin, ITunes has been uninstalled and shall never darken my PC ever again.

Anyway, just got a quick question with regards to Replay Gain. All of my music on the PC has been ran through the Replay Gain scanner, does this mean that when I transfer songs over to my iPod, the Replay Gain information will go over as well or will it need re-applying on the actual iPod?

It will use the ReplayGain values you already have in foo_bar.

Many thanks for the reply ReD-BaRoN

Tried that - same message.
- edit - I just discovered that I can't convert a file in fb2k, either. Is there a connection here?

Version 0.9.9n is now available.


Yeah, it has been awhile since the last release, but foo_pod development is (slowing) progressing. Since Apple finally got their firmware situation straightened out, I have been wanting to get foo_pod's iTunesDB support up to snuff. Unfortunately, it still isn't there yet...

But the good news is that there are some nice new features that I was able to get working. These are mainly Podcasting related features - Bookmarking and Shuffle Skip.

Previous to this version, if you wanted to be able to make a song bookmarkable (meaning that you can play a song, switch to a different song, and return to the first song and pick up playback), you had to use the "Send To iPod as Audiobook" feature. This transcoded the file into AAC format and wrote it out as a .m4b file. This worked, but the drawbacks were that transcoding took a lot of time and it degraded the audio quality. You can now specify a TAGZ formatting string in the Podcast tab of the foo_pod preferences to determine which songs will be bookmarkable.

Also under the Podcasting tab is another TAGZ format string called Shuffle Skip. As the name implies, this feature allows you to specify a group of songs that will not be played in shuffle mode. You might use this ensure that only songs are shuffled.

There is also a Podcast TAGZ string on this tab, but until better iTunesDB format support is available, this doesn't do anything very useful.


From the Readme:

I'm pretty sure that foo_pod leverages fb2k's transcoding support. I would work on getting transcoding to work in fb2k first, and then come back and try it in foo_pod.

That's what I was thinking also - I may try a fresh install of v0.8.3 w/the above-mentioned foo_pod new release (it wouldn't surprise me to discover that I buggered up my current version of fb2k, trying various things over the last year or so...).

Update - both file conversion and transcoding are working fine. Thanks for your help!

Good to see development continuing. Sorry to keep asking this, but is the transcoding of songs with subsong indices (ie. CD Images with cuesheets) working yet? Without this foo_pod is to me little more than completely useless, since I have my albums in lossless CD Image format so that I can choose a lossy format when I put them on my iPod. foo_sendtopod is a less than ideal solution and I would love to delete iTunes for good.

Thanks.

Edit: typos.

Sorry, but I haven't worked on cue sheet support recently. If you are going to be transcoding anyway, you could use Foobar's Convert function to save the songs to your local hard drive, then transfer them with foo_pod.

Right. You just need to turn on SoundCheck on your iPod.

Is the fb2k equalizer 'on' during transcoding? I have the EQ as part of my DSP stack, but don't want those settings used by the files going to the iPod.

Sweet! I've been looking for a reason to update the manual!

I found out what was causing this problem: it was the path of the encoder. Copying hmp3.exe to C:\ and using it as the encoder worked fine.
I think it's a bug dealing with the spaces in "Arquivos de programas"...

I think it uses foobar's diskwriter, so, if you don't want to enable the EQ while transcoding you just have to disable the option "Use DSP" on the diskwriter's settings.

That makes sense - thanks!

This is incorrect - foo_pod does not use the Foobar Diskwrite (although the code is very similar), so Diskwriter settings will have no effect on what foo_pod does.

BTW, foo_pod only applies the Advanced Limiter DSP entity when transcoding.

OK, so for Podcasts I have the following string (in the 'Podcast' box):
$if($stricmp(%genre%,Podcast),1,0)
but when I just synced my iPod, the podcasts were just lumped in with all the other music . What did I do wrong?

Hi Neil,

I don't think that "Podcast" is fully functional yet. Here is the note from the Readme file.

"Podcast is a special designation which displays show notes and causes the song to appear in special Podcast menu (these features are not fully implemented in foo_pod yet...)."

How's the new database support comming along? I started using Rockbox firmware from time to time and would like to have all the songs alavable through both firmwares. Good work so far!

What is the status of Rockbox on the iPod. According to this link, it looks like they don't use the iTunesDB database at all.

Or do you mean if foo_pod can read iTunes created databases? foo_pod should be able to read the latest iTunesDB format (at least the basic stuff like songs and playlists), but it doesn't write it yet.

I know it dont read the database file but I would like to organize music on the ipod in artist/album order for Rockbox, and then write a database file that can be used in standard OS if needed.

This post explains how to do what you are looking for. The caveat is that there is a limit on filename length, which has gotten short with recent iPod firmware versions. So while the technique works in general, if you go over the filename length limit, the song won't play on the iPod (using Apple's firmware).

Consider it added to the manual.

This is one of the things that makes foo_pod stand out, but it's not very obvious if you just glance at the interface. It reminds me of stuff I've done with the Alternate Metadata strings:

Sort albums by year on your iPod

• Select: Components / foo_pod / Preferences / Advanced
• Replace the contents of the "Album" box with: [[$right(%date%,2)-]%album%]
• Transfer music with foo_pod

This got me to thinking.. What other nifty tips are floating around?


While I'm looking to beef-up the manual, I might ought to show off the PDF version (includes Table of Contents, Index, and even a cheesy logo!) I don't expect people to use it much, but it was a fun excuse to teach myself InDesign.

Linear version (343K PDF)
The pages are in numerical order. Recommended for online viewing.



Booklet version (263K PDF)
Identical to the linear version when printed. Formatted as a dual-sided cropped 2-up saddle-stitch booklet on 8.5x11 paper. Not recommended for online viewing. (Do NOT take it to Kinko's. For printing, cutting, and binding, they will charge you $26 for a single book! That is, if they do it right in the first place. Shop around.)



(Aero, ignore the test version I made last year. It was done with MS Word.)

Ok I've read that topic before but what worried me was the post below:



The iPod I have is 4g Greyscale but I don't think it uses a different database.

Is this a bug? The 'Mount iPod' thingy, in the foo_pod drop-down, isn't working - everything else works fine (sending 'pod playlists to fb2k, adding/removing files from the 'pod, transcoding, ejecting the 'pod upon closing fb2k, all that stuff), but when I click on 'mount', the window flashes on the screen for about a millisecond, and that's it. (BTW - I haven't tried un- and re-installing the .dll, 'cause I don't want to have to reconfigure it, until/unless I need to).

My thanks to Aero for thinking up, and updating, this little gem. I don't miss iTunes at all!

Off-topic@quazi - What is your avatar?

It sounds like you're trying to mount it after it's already mounted. Do you have the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the Windows Tray?

Just for kicks, go to Components / foo_pod / Preferences / Main and see if "Force iPod Drive Letter" is blank. Then go to Preferences / iPod Service, and see if "Don't Use iPod Service" is off, and "Enable Disk Mode" is on. (..These are my settings *shrug*)


He's a headless pewter miniature with (almost) no arms.
(bigger)

I forget to mention that the 'eject ipod' button won't activate, either (never post on minimal caffeine...).

I do have the 'safely remove hardware' icon. I also get the 'safe to remove' message when exiting fb2k w/the 'pod plugged in.

'Force iPod Letter' is blank; iPod Services is off; I can't activate Disc Mode - again, the button is there, but won't highlight (didn't know this until just now).

Off-topic - so that's where the arm went...

Download another one and either delete yours first or copy over it. I've never had anything like this happen, but it sounds like something broke somewhere.

Just wanted to say thanks for 0.9.9n!!!

I was not aware that apple had finally fixed the firmware for my 3G (the dreaded non-updating smart playlist bug). Now that I have updated my firmware and foo_pod version, I am finally able to "bookmark" mp3 podcasts.

Before today I had been re-encoding all my podcasts into M4B just so I could have the bookmark feature.

This release will save me quite a bit of time (and sound quality).

So, thanks Aero! This was a big release for me.

PS, Is there any way to add items to a foo_bar playlist automatically? I would love if Juice could put the podcast files into a foo_bar playlist as it downloads them.

Hi there,

Well, I'm using foobar since quite a long time now, and my daughter just recently acquired an iPod, so I'm reading this for the first time.

I must say I am very impressed - I mean it - by the quality of this work. The plug-in & the documentation are very complete, as a total noob on this I was able to make it run quickly and it works very well.

Many thanks to Aero, Otto42 and Quazi.

/man

I'm experiencing exactly the same problems too. Any luck figuring this out?

Besides transcoding to m4b, is there any other way to send files to the iPod that will appear in the Audiobook menu only? Could an mp3 just be tagged a certain way to appear as an audiobook on the iPod?

PS - Sorry for the double post but I felt this was a separate topic.

Not yet, but I haven't tried reinstalling the _dll, either. Part of me is tempted to leave it alone, as everything else seem to be fine. I'll try the reinstall later today - if it seems to work, I'll let you know...

Old post, I know, but it seems like I've found the source of a problem I'm having.

I installed foo_pod 0.9.9n on my work machine (PC) and was able to do some iPod (60GB Photo) syncing, which is fantastic, because I really like fb2k's interface. However, when I go home to my Mac and open iTunes, my columns are all messed up to the point that the Name column for all my iPod playlists is gone altogether.

Since there is no fb2k/foo_pod for the Mac, is there any way I can fix this, short of blowing out the existing database?

Does this version work with fb2k 0.9?

If not, when can we expect the update?

1) No

2) When Aero decides to write it.

I had the same problem, and the only way I could fix it was to nuke the entire database.

i haven't updated my ipod since early january because i had been using betas. i hope we can see aero's first foo_pod compatible with .9 very soon.

Agreed.

Any idea where to find foobar2000 v0.8 ? Only the 0.9 seems to be available on the website.

Thanks!

i am trying to update my ipod with the date and album present in the album tag

here is my code for the album box in the advanced options tab:



after clearing the entire memory and using foo_pod to put my music back, i only get some albums with the date tag

most of my albums have date tags

anyone have any ideas

update@antoniost - replacing the _dll fixed it.