Does it mean that the total shown on foobar is a cumlative total for times played on pc + times played on ipod eg:

Play a song on pc 10 times -> transfer to ipod and play 3 times -> connect ipod to back to pc:

Does play_count on foobar for the version kept on the pc show:

13 times ( pc play_count + ipod play_count)

or

3 times ( Ipod playcount overwriting pc playcount data)


sorry if thats not very clear

In your example, foo_pod would report (in the IPOD_PLAY_COUNT metadata item, so it wouldn't overwrite any other component's metadata) that the song had been played 3 times. I purposefully made it so that foo_pod would only consider songs that had been played on the iPod itself, since Foobar doesn't store the play count without an optional component.

But I'm willing to reconsider counting both iPod and Foobar plays, if people think that is the right thing to do (I noticed that iTunes seems to count plays in both iTunes and on the iPod).

Great release! Thanks for including my idea about sorting the files read from the ipod db.

I'd like to chime in that it would be nice if foo_pod had an option to work in concert with the playcount plugin to maintain the number of times you've played a song in foobar and the ipod. It would make the playcount actually useful for someone like me who plays music more on the ipod than at home.

Yeah I can't really understand why the playcount from foobar2000 isn't counted in either. It would be the only sensible and semantically correct thing to do, as it would reflect many times the file actually has been played. Also, if iTunes does it, I think there should be no question that this is the way things should be done.

Or, alternatively, a preferences item to choose between them: "iPod count, foobar2000 count, or both"

hi,

the readme for 0.9.3 talks about improvements with the NERO encoder presets for transcoding. I can't find that anywhere in the config. The config only has lame and faac. ???

thanks,
sascha

I totally second (third) this.

The preconfigured presets are only for LAME and FAAC, but you can use just about any command line encoder with the Custom Encoder Settings options.

To use Nero's AAC encoder, first you need put a copy of NAACEnc in your Foobar2000 directory. Then go to the foo_pod Transcoder preferences, select Use Custom Encoder, and click the settings button.

This image demonstrates how you should set the settings for use with NAACEnc (you can modify the "-internet -qf" part depending on your encoding quality choice).

For the next version of foo_pod, I might add a set of radio buttons to choose between FAAC and Nero, now that a good command line interface for Nero is available. Or maybe just squeeze some Nero defaults in there as well.

Why use commandline at all? Why not use foo_nero diskwriter or similar and make it graphical?

+Reardon

I could make it graphical (by that, I assume you mean have a progress dialog) with the current transcoder, at least for LAME and FAAC.

The reason I am using the command line interface is because it makes it easy for anyone to add support for a new encoder/interface (like NAACEnc). Also, I personally use LAME, FAAC, and NeroAAC, which would mean that I would have to interface with 3 separate libraries as opposed to having a single piece of code that works with everything today and in the future.

Hi there,

First off: foo_pod is fantastic -- thank you Aero and any other developers who've been involved. I wouldn't have bought my iPod were it not for this component -- Apple should be cutting you guys in.

I've been using foo_pod successfully for a month or so, but I still feel like I'm probably not using it "correctly". That is, the standard use case is not obvious to me

1) How are most people managing what's on the iPod? Just via the "Load iPod Songs to Foobar 2000 Playlist" and then "deleting selected" and "send files to ipod" etc?

2) I had been syncing to a single playlist... but that smokes any smart playlists on the pod which is a bit annoying (though not terrible)

3) If I transfer a bunch of files to the iPod and then rate some of them on the (disconnected) iPod, is there a way to have those ratings automagically persisted back (when the pod is docked) to the source files in my main collection (as ID3 tags or something)? Same goes for things like play count, last played, etc...

Ideally meta info would live on in the actual source mp3 file on my HDD (as opposed to only on the ipod), thus allowing me to wipe the ipod clean periodically but not lose ratings and other meta info.

Technical question: how does the iPod determine sameness in files? If I try to copy the same track to the pod twice, obviously it doesn't make two copies of it. Is it hashed, or based on tags, or filename, or something else?

If these are answered somewhere else in this (long) thread, I apologize, but I wasn't able to find them.

Any input or suggestions is appreciated -- Thanks!

First of all, apologies for this OT message.

I have just received a new 20G click-wheel iPod and I'm looking for a general advice about how to get the most out of it (and this is the place I trust most for this kind of question ).

I'd like to use it as portable MP3 player (of course) and to transfer data between office/home PCs (Win2k/XP-Pro, USB2.0).

1) What are the *minimum* SW requirements? I'd stay away from iTunes, if possible, and use Fb2k/foo_pod: what other program (if any) is needed?

2) Can I have both functions (player and data repository) at the same time or are they mutually exclusive?

3) I'll read with interest any suggestion or comment from you and pointers to *good* source of information on the subject.

Thanks for your time.

Alessandro

You only need foobar/foo_pod.

You can use the player while copying files to the Ipod.

This thread is actually a pretty good place to read up on how the Ipod works.

Thanks for your reply Mike.

> You only need foobar/foo_pod.

That's good news: had a look at iTunes and quickly got rid of it... brrr...

> This thread is actually a pretty good place to read up on how the Ipod works.

Well, sure... but it's a bit time consuming (and perhaps too "technical" for me): guess I'm looking for a "foo_pod for dummies" guide .

Anyway, I'll tinker about with it for a while and try to figure out its basic features.

Regards.

Alessandro

Hi again!

Congrats to Aero, Otto and everybody here for this great plugin!

It's really simple to use and quite fast.

Now a few questions:

1) In Preferences / iPod Service tab: Device Name, Owner's Name and Enable Disk Mode are empty and greyed out: is this normal? And is Stop iPod Service on Exit recommended or should I leave it unchecked?

2) I set foobar to write APEv2 and ID3v1 tags, but some files contain old ID3v2 tags too: foo_pod, if I'm not mistaken, seems to be using the latter to write info in iPod db. Is it possible to set foo_pod so that it uses APEv2/ID3v1 first?

3) What is the Enable Sync checkbox? I tried checking it but I see no difference...

Thanks.

Alessandro

Thanks!


That probably means that you don't have iTunes/iPod Service installed, or iTunes is already running when you start Foobar2000. iPodService is necessary to utilize those features, but foo_pod works perfectly well without it.

I would recommend setting Set iPodService on Exit unchecked, but if you don't have it installed in the first place, it won't do anything.



foo_pod gets the metadata information directly from Foobar, and never directly accesses tag information. So your problem really is with Foobar, and how to get it to use APEv2/ID3v1 tags instead of ID3v2.


After too many people accidently wiped out their iPods because they didn't understand how the Sync Current Playlist/Sync All Playlists features worked, I added that checkbox to ensure that the user had to explicitly enable the sync features (and read/ignore a short message explaining how they work). So if that checkbox is not checked, you won't see the Sync Current/All Playlist options in the foo_pod menu.

Thanks for taking time to reply, Aero.Well, as I said I tried iTunes but soon uninstalled it. In task manager, though, I still see an iPodService running: are you saying I don't need it at all? Is it perhaps necessary only for firmware update or iPod format/reset?Not sure I understand: does it mean that there's no solution to this problem or are you implying I'm not using foobar correctly?But after checking it I still couldn't see those options: I'll check again as soon as I'm back to work.

One more thing: I suspect my home PC has USB V1 (when I connect the iPod it warns me about a high speed device being connected to a low speed hub, or something like that). I have no problem accessing it through Windows Explorer, but in foobar I don't see the iPod playlist (as in my office PC) and if I send the same song multiple times it doesn't raise an error. I therefore suspect foo_pod should not be used with USB V1: is that correct?

Regards.

Alessandro

iPodService isn't really necessary at all. If you install the iPod Firmware Updater software, it will get installed. Basically, if you install iTunes or any Apple iPod related software, it gets installed. foo_pod can use it if it's there, but it doesn't need to be there. Realistically, it doesn't make any difference whether it's there or not.


I think he's not implying it so much as he's flat out stating it.

foo_pod doesn't care what kind of tags you use because it doesn't access the tags directly. It simply accesses foobar's information, which can come from APE, ID3v1, ID3v2, whatever. If foobar says that the name of a song is "Big Empty" then foo_pod accepts that as the word from god. Where foobar gets that information from is not up to foo_pod. So if you're getting the wrong info into the iPod, the problem is that you have something set badly in foobar itself.


No, that's not correct. foo_pod treats the iPod as a drive letter. It doesn't care how it's connected because all foo_pod is doing, really, is writing data to and from a drive. Now it does interface somewhat to the iPodService, which does more than that, but it doesn't have to do so. If you remove the iPodService, some of the problems might go away. Or not. It's not an easy thing to say without trying different configs to see what works.

Hi Otto, thx for joining!
Well, the service starts as soon as I connect the iPod and I wasn't able to stop it manually. Not a big deal anyway, I suppose I can live with it. I always grant the benefit of the doubt, just in case...

The only setting I'm aware of is Standard inputs --> MP3 tag writing (where, as I said earlier, I selected "APEv2 and ID3v1"). I also (recently) checked "remove ID3v2 tags while updating", but some MP3s still contains old v2 tags. I understand this is OT here, but can you tell me where/what to change in foobar to solve my little problem? Or maybe I should remove ALL ID3v2 tags from my files? If so, can this task be automated somehow (masstagger or some other tool)?

Cheers.

Alessandro

PS: I confirm I can't find the Sync options: are they supposed to be accessed via the right-click/foo_pod menu or should I look elsewhere?

Geez! Found it. Now I feel really stupid!

Alessandro

Ahh, but not as bad as you'll feel if you destroy some music on your iPod by not fully understanding sync. Think of it this way: syncing will replace everything on your ipod except what you're syncing, whether its a single playlist or multiple playlists.

Used properly, it can be helpful.

foo_pod playlist displaying wrong information.

I use Anapod Explorer to add songs to my iPod. For indexing purposes Anapod changes the MP3 filename to XXXX.mp3, for example 4685.mp3. But it keeps all the tag information in the file - you can verify this by finding an ANapod file on the iPod in Explorer and dragging it to your harddisk. MP3 tags are preserved.

When I first do "Load iPod songs to Foobar2000 playlist" the song information is all displayed correctly and can be read with "Properties".

However if I use the iPod playlist to actually play files from the iPod, the filename of the track being played appears in the playlist and all "Properties" information disappears. It can be restored by selecting "Load iPod songs to Foobar2000 playlist" again.

Apologies if this has been posted before - I couldn't find any relevant info in this thread.

Answering my own question...

It's because I have used MP3Gain on the files, which stores MP3Gain and Replaygain information in an APE header. When foobar2000 finds an APE header, it doesn't look for any more information in any other headers.

This is a shame because it limits foobar. Plenty of people will have used MP3Gain on gigabytes of MP3s before they started using foobar.

I guess when foo_pod gets data from the iPod it gets it from the iTunes database on the iPod. The information used to build this database HAS used all the available headers.

foo_pod doesn't transfer ID3 data to iPod if APE tags exist in source file

Please excuse my many postings to this forum - I've just found foo_pod and I'm
very keen on it. But last night I used foo_pod in anger and found another
problem, which stems from the same root cause as my previous posting ("foo_pod
playlist displaying wrong information")

On my PC I have thousands of MP3s which I ReplayGained using MP3Gain. MP3Gain
adds an APE tag with ReplayGain data.

Because foo_bar will only read APE tags if a file has them - ignoring all other
tags - files added to a playlist for sending to iPod do not have ID3 data. When
these files are sent to the iPOd with foo_pod, artist/abum/track/title ID3 data
is not sent. They do not appear correctly on the iPod - they appear all mixed
up in one huge directoy called [Artist].

I can't see a way around this unless foo_bar can be persuaded to send ALL tag
data to foo_Pod.

Any ideas?

You might want to ask about the APE vs. ID3 tag issue on the General or Support forums. I don't have any control over how Foobar2000 obtains the metadata, although theoretically, I could parse the ID3v1 tags directly in foo_pod and optionally use that data. Still, this is really a Foobar problem, so I'd like to see if addressed there.

I don't know how to make Foobar read both sets of tags, but one solution would be to find a program that can fill in the APE metadata values based on the ID3v1 tag. Maybe Foobar can do this with MassTagger...I'm not sure. Ultimately, you might just want to strip the ReplayGain out of your files using Foobar2000->ReplayGain->Remove Replaygain info from files, then recalculate it using Foobar. I have done something like that myself, and although it can take a long time to complete (depending on the number of songs and speed of your computer), it does work.

Remove the APEv2 tags and then complain to the author of MP3gain for mucking up your files. Plugins have no control over what tag type gets read, and Peter has said he doesn't plan on dealing with files that have conflicting tag data because there is no way to consistantly tell which tag should be read.

Edit: This thread explains some of the problem:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....5964&hl=mp3gain

After reading that, I think the best solution would be to get Peter to allow the user to manually set the tag priority, so that people who are useing mp3gain can set ID3v2 higher then APEv2.

This thread also has further information, and a reply from Snelg (the author of
MP3Gain and a foobar fan) explaining why MP3Gain was coded in that way

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....opic=21730&st=0

Hey all,


I think I've managed to read through most of this thread, but haven't yet found how to delete files from the ipod, without using the sync feature.

• send playlist to ipod : will not delete files
• sync this playlist: will delete files but this prevents using multiple playlists
• sync all playlists: i would think the reverse would be what is desired: instead of syncing all playlist _except_ the ones you mark as 'do not want to sync', it would be easier to 'sync all selected playlists' or 'sync all playlists marked for synchronisation'.

As a side remark, when you use smart playlists is it normal that randomization always seems to randomize in the same way? I have created 2 smart playlists. When I play either of them, they successfully select only the songs matching the criteria, but though my ipod is in shuffle mode I always seem to hear the same songs...

Otherwise a great job on the plug-in!

I'm not at a computer with foo_pod loaded right now, but I believe you can just right click the song, choose the foo_pod menu and choose "remove from iPod".

As Lew_Zealand mentioned, just Load the iPod playlist, then you can select the file(s) you want to delete and select "Delete file(s) from iPod".



That is the iPod's fault - foo_pod is just telling it to randomize the songs included in the smart playlist, and it is up to the iPod to do the randomization. I (and others) have noticed that the iPod's randomizer is fairly repeatitive.

hi, new ipod/foo_pod user here

one thing that irritates me about ipod is the handling of various artist albums, because i browse by genre>artist on the ipod theres like a bazillion artists with just one song from a VA album.
my tags are like this: %various%='rebirth of cool', %artist%='smoke city' %title%='underwater love'

i wonder, would it be possible to give foo_pod the option to parse the tag info like this....?
if %various% exists, write %various% to the artist field in ipodDB and write %artist%~%title% in the title field in ipodDB

anyway, thanks for the great plugin, soo much better than having to deal with itunes

Thanks!

I have, as a long term subproject, to add scripting support to foo_pod, so you could dynamically change the metadata stored in the iPod database, as you are suggesting.

foo_pod currently does support an alternate set of metadata, mostly to support people with tags in non-Latin based languages (that don't display well on the iPod).

In the preferences, there is an item called "Alternate Metadata Prefix". What that does is instructs foo_pod to look for metadata starting with that value (POD_ by default), and use that instead of the regular metadata. So for example, if you have a song with ARTIST set to "The Artist" and POD_ARTIST set to "Various Artists", foo_pod will write "Various Artists" to the iPod database, and the song will show up as Various Artists on the iPod.

So all you need to do is find a program that you can transfer the tags to POD_* (foo_pod supports TITLE, ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, COMMENT, COMPOSER, and TRACKNUMBER for use with the alternate metadata prefix). I think Foobar's MassTagger can do this, but I only have limited experience using it, so I'm not sure.

Aero,

Any news on the Playlist Generator front?

Unfortunately, I haven't had any free time in the past 3 weeks in order to seriously work on foo_pod. I'm close to finishing up a contract, so after that is complete, I'll hopefully have some cycles to put into foo_pod.

But before this latest rush, I was able to get a really good start on CUE sheet parsing and some work on the Playlist Editor. I was able to get playlist renaming, adding, and deleting hooked up, but I had some problems adding support for dragging Foobar songs to build a playlist.

I have to suggestions that would signifcantly increase my use for the iPod.

1. Allow foo_pod to have an Auto-Update function where it compares the music files stored on iPod to those in the Album List database. I think would be a very simple function to create.

2. I like the idea of browsing my audio collection on my hard-drive with the album list. An "album list" for the iPod it makes managing my iPod a lot easier then scrolling through a huge playlist.

Why not just create a playlist of your album list, and sync with that?

Is this what you're looking for? http://www.foobar2000.org/foo_albumlist.zip

First off, many thanks for a great product. It does almost anything I can think of.

I did run into a really weird problem recently, though. I looked through the past 5 pages or so of this thread and didn't find anything on it.

A majority of my music is full albums FLAC'd and then Matroska'd. With iTunes, I would just transcode it to mp3, load those files and copy them over. I figured that the transcode feature of foo_pod would allow me to skip this step. However, when I highlight such an album and select Send Files to iPod in the right context menu, it only transcodes the first song and then quits as if it was all done.

Is this expected behavior? Am I doing something wrong?

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm not very familiar with Matroska, but I believe it is a container format that bundles up an entire album as a single file and has something like a cue sheet to present individual songs, correct?

The problem is that Foobar doesn't do a very good job with such formats, and it looks like a single file to components like foo_pod. I was/am working on support for cue sheets, but for right now, you will just get a single song.

So you aren't doing anything wrong, and I'll need to add support for such formats in the future.

I really like foo_pod. Whenever I use it however, I have to go into iTunes and delete the playlist that is created in order to be able to view my songs on the iPod. If I don't delete that playlist, nothing is visible. As soon as I delete it, everything works. Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction? I'd appreciate it

That's pretty weird...I can't ever recall seeing that or hearing someone else report it. Apparently you can reproduce it, so the next time it happens, please select the "Export iTunesDB As XML" option in the foo_pod menu, zip up the XML, and email it to me so I can see if I can see what is going on.

I've just finished reading through this entire thread. Whew, that was long but very informative.

First off, I'd like to say a big thanks! to Areo (and Otto42) for all of the hard work. I've almost completely replaced iTunes on my 4thGen 20GB.

I record talk radio on my PC and transcode the shows into M4A format. I would like to "convert" these to M4B so I can use bookmarks and faster playback. Unfortunately the stars aren't quite in alignment for this to work with FooBar+foo_pod.

I am currently using iTunes to load the M4B files onto the iPod. Once they are there, foo_pod does a great job with them.

What I would love to see is a command in foo_pod that would convert an existing M4A file into M4B. To do this it would rename the filename on the iPod and then update the ipod database to reflect the file name change. This would allow me to use foobar to place the files on the iPod and switch them over to M4B without having to involve iTunes.

I've tried to do it manually, but there doesn't seem to be any way to re-import an XML export so I'm kind of stuck.

Thanks again.

Hmmm...I have never used bookmarking on the iPod, but this article seems to back up what you are saying about just changing the file extension to "m4b " (with a space on the end). I'll look into it more tonight, but since you mentioned that you are already transcoding, try this:

Go to the foo_pod Preferences, Transcoder tab. Then select custom encoder, and (assuming you are using FAAC), set it as follows:

Encoder: faac.exe
Extension: m4b (remember the trailing space(?))
Parameters: -q75 -w - -o %d
Format is: lossy
Highest BPS: 24
Tag: default

(you can put whatever you want for the -q (quality) setting, but -q 75 or lower would seem to be appropriate for voice recordings).

Now when you transcode your recordings, use the custom encoder and it will write out m4b songs and database entries. I can't test it right now, but it if the article is correct, this method should work. It won't change the recordings you already have on your iPod, though, so I might still do a context menu function where you can select one or more m4a songs on your iPod and convert them to m4b. The only problem is that Foobar isn't set up to treat m4b as audio files, so you won't be able to play them back in Foobar.



Yeah, I have been meaning to implement that. Originally, I was just going to do it so you could import smart playlist settings, but I decided it might be useful to have a complete import functionality.

Hey Aero. Can you include in the next version a transcoded file processing abilities similar to the diskwriter's like passing files through the DSP and, more importantly, imposing ReplayGaining (dock line out doen't have Sound Check in the 3G as you know)? I bet you can just borrow that code from the diskwriter source like you borrowed code (the whole code even ) from the clienc file writer.
I plan to retransfer files to my iPod, transcoding them all so I figured I'd wait for these features first.

So how's that contract going? Profitable? I don't wanna sound pushy, but when do you think you would resume work on foo_pod? I understand that paying programming jobs would be way up higher on the list, but I'm just wondering if you have any foresight into how long it would be.

Thanks again for all the work you put into this wonderful plugin. Not a single iPod interfacer even comes close to it. Apple ought to get a contract with you before they loose you to those other guys who have a contract with you.

Actually, there is already a DSP filter that is applied by default - Advanced Limiter. So I really just need to hook up a GUI to control the DSP filters applied during transcoding. I considered it for the last release, but other than a limiter, there aren't many DSP filters that are useful (maybe EQ or Crossfeed being the exceptions). So maybe I'll hook just those up, for simplicity. ReplayGain could also be hooked up without much trouble, although a ReplayGain -> Volume conversion might be more useful, since it would be effective on both transcoded and normal files.


I'm actually just wrapping up a contract, so I'm enjoying a little extra free time right now. But for what it is worth, stepping back from working on foo_pod has given me some different insights needs to be done.

As for a timeframe, I can't really say - although next week is looking promising. I'd like to get a few more features in, then call it a 1.0 release and decide where to go next.


Heh...that would be fun. I'm sure I could hang out with Steve Jobs, tell him all of the deficiences in the iPod, how I would do it better, and get fired - all in the same day!

Aero, thanks for your reply about using the transcoder to turn an m4a file into a m4b. Also interesting that the article you referenced suggests using "m4b " and not "m4b". I've been using "m4b" with i tunes for a few days already and its worked just fine.

I didn't want to transcode the files again (they've already been from wav to mp3 to aac) so I decided to take a short cut:

Encoder: xcopy.exe
Extension: m4b
Parameters: %s %d
Format is: lossless
Highest BPS: 16
Tag: default

For those following along at home, this ends up simply copying the temp file to another temp file with the magic m4b extention. No transcoding needed and its very quick.

Now I only need to make sure I don't accidently leave transcoding aac files enabled when I do a big sync/copy.

Aero, any chance you could add another logic grouping to the transcoding section. I'm thinking "Transcode AAC files below xxx kbps". And maybe have it trigger a seperate script...

Or maybe adding "convert to m4b" action somewhere is easier?

Thanks again!

What is the state of maintaining "ratings", "number of plays", and "date last played" data when using foo_pod?

This thread has discussed it, but I'm not clear where it stands now. Am I correct that these values are read from the iPod and added to the Foobar database, but not written out to the iPod on a sync?

Slightly OT...
What are the proper TAGZ codes to get "ratings", "number of plays", and "date last played" data in Foobar? I'm using the Columns UI and I've added a column for %rating% which seemed to work okay, but I can't figure out the others. Is there a big list of these somewhere? I couldn't find one searching with goodle.

Firts: Kudos for developers of this great plugin!

Then my little issue; in the Smart Playlist Editor once I've pressed the Add Button, I cannot see any choice in two of the drop-down menu: I mean if I try to change "Artist" or "Contains" no drop-down choice is showed ("All", "Songs" and "Random" are working...).
Am I wrong in something or what?

I'm running foo_pod with f2k 0.8.3 on a wk2 SP3 machine

Thanks in advance for your support and I'm sorry for my bad english.

BoneJazz

The EQ would be just fine. Figured it would be better to make it so you can just make your own DSP stack or to pass the files through the DSP stack configured in the DSP manager for personilization's sake, but if it's too time consuming to do it that way, just drop it and do only those DSPs which are important.
Apart from that, I'm not sure I understand this concept you talk of: "ReplayGain -> Volume coonversion." I don't know what you understood from what I wrote in my last post, but what I was thinking of is simply hard-encoding the RG calculations on the transcoded file's volume like diskwriter can do if you tell it to use RG in processing.

There are 3 ways (in general) to get ReplayGain corrections onto the iPod:

1. Permanently modify the audio file so that its volume is changed. The advantage of this is that it will playback at the correct volume level on all players, even if they don't support ReplayGain. The disadvantage is that the file is altered, and you can't switch off the ReplayGain adjustments on the iPod.

2. Use the SoundCheck database field in the iPod database. This is nice because it is already implemented in foo_pod and it can be switched on/off as needed on the iPod. The downside is that the SoundCheck adjustment isn't available through the Line Out port on 3G iPods (it does work on 4G iPods, though).

3. Use the Volume database field in the iPod database. The major differences between SoundCheck and Volume is that Volume can't be turned off, but it is effective through the Line Out port on 3/4G iPods.


I don't currently have a way to map ReplayGain values to Volume values, but it shouldn't be too hard to work something out. Once that is ready, it would just be another choice in the Preferences - to either apply ReplayGain corrections to the SoundCheck or Volume fields in the database. Most people would want to use the SoundCheck entry, but if you have a 3G iPod and want ReplayGain through the Line Out, you would choose the Volume option.

I did some experimentation with iPod bookmarks tonight, and had some interesting results.

First of all, I cleared up another entry in the iPod database (Otto, if you're out there, mhit::unk6 is the bookmark time, in milliseconds). The really weird thing this database field is only used if the filename ends in ".m4b". The exact same file, named ".m4a", with the exact same database entries doesn't make use of the bookmark. Technically, this could work for any supported iPod audio format, but for whatever reason, Apple is restricting it to their "protected AAC" audio book format.

So while the good news is that I can create bookmarked in foo_pod, the bad news is, like I mentioned before, that Foobar isn't set up to handle .m4b files. So my earilier suggestion to transcode to file extension "m4b" won't work, since Foobar can't update the metadata after transcoding, so the transcoding fails. I added a temporary workaround in foo_pod to make this work for testing, but the real solution is to get Peter to add m4b to the list of supported file extensions in mp4_parser.cpp, or at least find someone to rebuild foo_input_std.dll, and add M4B to the list of extensions.