Sure I understand..

What about foo_podz ?

Check this topic. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47320
It should apply to your situation.

You don't need the iPodService for unmounting - just use the windows remove removable stuff feature.

It's not actual unmounting. It's unproper and also cuts the power supply from the ipod, which unmounting doesn't.

Where have you heard that?
The windows removal flushes the cache and removes the drivers for the device - just like the ipod unmounting does. But the windows unmounting notifies the OS that is has done so (makes the icon in the taskbar disappear) - so it is even mor "proper" that the ipod unmounting.
I don't think it's possible at all at software-level to stop the usb power supply.

iPodService definately has a special way of doing it. I only use firewire, as I don't have USB2.0, but with firewire, using the windows unmounting unmounts it permantly, ie. the only way to re-mount it is to reconnect it. However it keeps charging. But when iPodService unmounts it I can re-mount it whenever I without unplugging it or interrupting charging.

So the only difference is that the iPod unmount doesn't unmount completely but only certain layers of the driver - this stops you from beeing able to access the ipod, but it can be remounted.
But I don't see why windows unmounts the iPod unproperly - just because it unmounts it completely?

(For Firewire the same is true as for USB - the OS doesn't have control over the power supply the port provides)

I think iPodService polls the device to check that it isn't doing an operation, which windows unmount sometimes doesn't do... All I can tell you is that I've seen an iPod get fscked by unmouting it with windows. It generally won't cause a problem if you're not doing anything, but I regard it as the same kind of thing as directly unplugging it.

That's just not true. There are 2 reasons why you should never unplug a hard-disk (like the iPod as seen by windows) without unmounting it:
1. There might be a file opened by an aplication - if the file is written at the moment of unplugging, the file will get corrupt.
2. Even if no file is opened, all harddisks have a writing cache - that means even thought the application thinks it has written the file, windows hasn't. So you have to make sure the writing cache is empty before unplugging the device.

Windows does ensure that no file is locked and the writing cache is empty. You can try it: open a file with an application that locks it (lock != open). I think MS Word does - then try to windows-unmount it: error.

Suddenly removing the connectivity (not the power-supply) of a hard-disk should never affect the drive at all (but it may or quite probably will affect the data on it).

Install the plugin, connect your iPod, open foo, file->ipod->load library, go to the new playlist it creates, select all the songs you want to copy, right click->file operations->move, rename, or copy files, set it to copy and pick the naming format and destination you prefer, click Run. That will copy them to your hard drive for you.

Should foo_dop allow duplicate files to be copied to the iPod?

Thx.

Windows does not cache data on removeable disk drives by default. Plug in your Ipod, goto Device manager and see for yourself. Theres no harm to unplugging the ipod provided you know that nothing is writing to its database. In foobar this is practically a nonissue since foobar only accesses the disk when you tell it to.

Hello,

is it possible, with foo_dop or another plugin to set the soundcheck value to the replaygain value without having an ipod connected? Since the Information is stored in the file's metadata I don't see any reason why this feature is only available by copying the files to the ipod. Since foo_pod messed up my ipod database and all my rating and playing counters were lost i manage my ipod only by itunes but i'm looking for a tool which can set the soundcheck value to replaygain levels. Not only for using on ipod but also for playback in iTunes.

Anyone an idea?

Greetings, Kamil.

I believe soundcheck is stored in a database, not in the files. As such, the answer would be 'no'. Categorically. Sorry.

The soundcheck vlaue is stored as a comment tag in the file´s metadata. It starts with "iTunNORM ....."

I found only one program that can set the soundcheck value to the replaygain value but it doesn´t work with m4a files and also has some problems with different kinds of ID3 tags. I tried to modify the source code to fit my files, but I only got it to work with mp3.

You can find it here:
http://uclc.info/ipod/

For sure it would be much easier to make a separate option in foo_dop or foo_pod to equalize the values because it already seems to work.

Good Night, Kamil

You'd probably have to have a modified mp4 parser to do that.

While that is the case, (and correct me if I'm wrong) the iPod does not actually read any metadata from the files, it uses the database.

I may be wrong, but as far as I know, if the data isn't in the database, it doesn't matter what metadata exists in the files or not or what format it's in. It means nothing when it comes to operation of the iPod.

Yeah, but I think he wants to import replaygain data into iTunes too, which will read the file tags.

That's the point. I want the files to have the right soundcheck value in the metadata corresponding to the replaygain value. Then I would transfer them to ipod with the standard itunes procedure. I just want iTunes to manage my ipod database instead of any other applications but with the corrected soundcheck values. If foo_dop olny changes the database entry without changing the metadata (because ipod apparent can't read it), I'm in the wrong thread

AFAIK foo_dop makes no modification to the files, at all.

You should back up your iTunesDB file, and try using foo_dop, if you haven't already. It is of a much higher quality than foo_pod and you will probably find it does not mess up your database, and that you can scrap iTunes altogether (don't uninstall it though because the iPodService is useful)

Ok, I think, I'll take a look on foo_dop when I'm back from my vacations. The thing that was very disturbing for me using foo_pod is, that it doesn't have a multi column overview. iTunes has a great search function in my opinion and I also use very often the different sorting options, looking at the ratings, the play counter etc.

In foo_pod you can only see the files and everything else is available in the properties of each file. I am a big fan of foobar, especially because of it's ability to playback files in archives, but i never have more than a few albums at the same time in foobar. In contrast to that, I have now over 2500 files on my iPod and the iTunes interface is very helpful to keep an overview.

Just set up a ColumnsUI formatting string and make your rating, etc. columns available...

Will there be a possibility to use MTP-compatible devices with this, or perhaps a similar plugin?

Just copy the files individually. it's mass-storage, anyways.

Eh? Sorry, your post made 0 sence to me. I want to use Foobar to keep track of everything. Also, MPT isn't MSC at all - That's the entire thought behind it.

What if, per example, I were running an unservicepacked WinXP? Not that I do, but there's Foobar, but no MTP (afaik).

MTP on XP comes with WMP10, not any service packs. Still wouldn't be on a machine with no updates and an original XP release installed.

As I understand it MTP is very different from how ipods work so it would be pretty unusual to see this plugin support it. There are open source media players like Amarok that support MTP devices and libraris too like libmtp, so it shouldn't be impossible to make a foobar plugin to support them. Just need to find a developr actually interested in doing it.

Hm, all of them make mention of requiring Service pakc 1 or higher, though. Perhaps WMP10 is no go on WXPSP0? I do not know - I merely would love to sync using Foobar.

I've been using Anapod for transferring non-audio files and managing playlists. dop for everything else. dop would be complete if it could peform on the fly transcoding using the Converter when transferring non-compatible file types (or ND/chaptered MP4 files) and playlist management, but it more than sufficient for my use currently. I've never actually used iTunes to manage an iPod. If you install the iPod Updater application, you get iPodService, btw.

PS - Writing the iTUNESNORM or whatever other iTunes specific tags to metadata can be implemented in a plugin that could implement a "Write ReplayGain data to Apple Soundcheck tags..." function and place it in the ReplayGain menu. I assume it could also add an Advanced Preference and associated hooks to into the ReplayGain scanner to allowing writing these tag types as well as the standard replaygain tags when using the scanner. Maybe this could be a fun project to learn writing foobar2000 plugins for me (or someone else).

I'm not sure if this has been asked already but is their anyway to add or delete playlists from your ipod with foo_dop?

Does anybody know what the benefits are of having the ipod service installed. I do not used it and have used foo_dop sucessfully?

I think it just lets you use the unmount ipod command in foo_dop.

@Mike

Thanks for the response.

Bugreport : foo_dop seems to reset itunes specific tags in the database, i.e. "don't play when shuffling songs" -- is this possible?

After the initial sprint start the development seems to have come to a stop for while. Just out of curiosity, will the plugin ever leave alpha status? I have been using it for quite a while now and never had any problems with it. Great job!

Chris

I think musicmusic took the summer off, so once hes around again there may be more work on this plugin.

The iPod software has been updated to version 1.2...

Apparently they finally managed to implement...gapless playback!

Well...thing is foo_dop seems to be incompatible with the new firmware. Mounting/Unmounting doesnt work anymore since the update.

Chris

No its not meant to and shouldn't be doing that (at least the field you mention). I'll test myself later.

Just don't use those commands. I will remove then from the next build, they are more trouble than they are worth.

Yay! he's back! All praise the great musicmusichammed.

I have used foo_dop for a while now. 2 days ago i formatted my ipod. then i used anapod to send 1 file to the ipod so there was a database file for foo_dop to find. then i sent the rest of my songs to my ipod. They are definitly on my ipod, i can see them all in the FXX folders. however, the ipod doesn't see them. even after using rebuild databse the songs do not show up. any idea why this is happening?

It is a bit of a pain that foo_pod isn't supported with 0.9. I didn't like iTunes so I uninstalled it and used foo_pod exclusively. I will test foo_dop but I am in the process of moving house, so reluctantly I have downloaded and installed iTunes again as a temporary measure. Hopefully when I get settled in I can remove iTunes again and continue with 100% foobar2000.

Sounds like corrupted/invalid database. But usually foo_dop would fix that when re-writing if it can actually read the DB.

Does foo_dop see the songs when you use its load library feature?

You could try starting the DB off with a different program. Next version of foo_dop has a feature to "prepare" a blank ipod (makes empty database) so can use it with foo_dop.

Otherwise, I heard of some issue like this with rockbox and latest ipod nano firmware.

AAHHHH. The reason i formatted my ipod was because i had rockbox on it! I thought i completely uninstalled it however. Well i am patiently waiting for the next version with blank database option. BTW, foo_dop does NOT see the files when it loads the ipod playlist. it only see the single file transfered via anapod. Hope this helps...

Couple things.

• Gapless playback seems to break when uploading through foo_dop. ie, if I encode with iTunes AAC, and upload the tracks through iTunes, gapless is preserved, but if I upload through foo_dop, gapless is broken.
• Feature suggestion: I'd really like some sort of way to scribble over the SoundCheck info in place on the host. Even if that means mucking around with the iTunes database directly.

Excellent work btw

Of course, current version of foo_dop doesn't write the gapless info to the iTunesDB.

The good news is I've taken a look at the iTunesDB generated by iTunes 7 and worked out where the gapless info seems to go.

Bad news: One of the fields is "byte offset from the first audio frame to the 8th-from-last audio frame" (the explaination I found here). I don't think I can calculate that using interfaces from foobar2000 SDK. Well maybe I can by messing around with input interfaces, I'll give it a try at least, but it would be slooow.

Other data (encoder delay, encoder padding) I can pull from tech info. But I think that they are only populated for LAME encoded MP3s. I don't know about Nero enocoded MP4s (Let alone iTunes/Quicktime MP4s). Its also a problem if the fields get renamed in future version of foobar2000 like some other ones.

Hi, this is my first post here, but I've been lurking for years. I registered to make a suggestion.
First up, thanks musicmusic for this great component, it really is a great help in minimising the amount of time I have to use iTunes.

My suggestion is: For MP4 Videos, instead of worry about whether the mp4 IS in fact a video. Why not just add an option: "Send Mp4 as Video" and leave it with the user?

I thik this makes sense, because people who want to use foobar will have to convert their videos to the correct format (if they are not using iTunes) So they should already know which files are videos...

since everyone is throwing there $0.02 in; i will as well.

first. Music- it's very nice to have you back. and i'll alwyas be grateful for the work you're doing.

second. i would love to see playlist management implemented before gapless, video, and the other bells and whistles that apple decided to put into iTunes 7. obviously others will want the bells and whistles but hey, that's why this is only worth 2 cents.

again thanks for all the work.

Yes, it would work for MP4. I'll consider it.


Well, yes adding gapless isn't as straighforward as I would have hoped. It doesn't help I don't have a compatible iPod to test it.

Next version will have better compatiblility with iTunes 7. So at least you can use iTunes for gapless scanning and foo_dop won't undo it. It also uses metadata from the files (and keeps a cache) rather than using the metadata from the iPod's database for display in foobar2000. Its slower (especially first time) but at least allows for possibility of metadata field mappings in the future (and it works beter in general..).

musicmusic with iTunes 7 adding gapless playback to the iPod, is their any chance for you to add support for auto track splitting. I have many mixes that are in CUE+MP3 format, and it would be great if foo_dop could use the CUE to split the one big MP3 file into multiple tracks with the proper gaplass data.

Would this even be possible with foobar2000?

I don't think it is...

I have an additional request, though. Is there any way we could transfert rating tags to the ipod ML, and if so, what format should they be in? 1-5? 0-100?
Do you know if it would be possible to code (easily) a piece of software that took the itunesML rating info and pushed it as metadata on the ipod?

Also, for smart playlists, are they automatically generated on the iPod at every load? I thought I noticed them being created on iTunes, and transferred as regular playlists. If that's the case, perhaps we could send autoplaylists as playlists on the iPod?

Will iPod sync in iTunes undo anything foo_dop has done, in case of further metadata rehandling?

Thanks for your time,
Tristan.

I f**kin' hate the new gapless feature !!! You can't disable it anywhere. It wades straight in and screws any custom tags you might have created with foo_pod. Is there any word on making custom tags with TAGZ using foo_dop ? I can't wait !

'Add as video' would be great - its the only reason I'm using itunes in the first place. Even then it's such slow sh1t. Tell you what itunes - just load it to the pod and let me worry about compatibility. AARRRGH. iTunes is absolutely anathema to iPod. How can one be so great, and one so awful. New 5.1G pods are actually a step back too. Much slower to load, and to locate files to playback

cheers

Niels

0-5 I think.

I don't understand.


No Idea, sorry.

No Autoplaylist API => Not possible

Yes, maybe even including deleting all your songs sent by foo_dop from your iPod.

You're welcome


Yes, I noticed it rewrites all the metadata in the DB also

But foo_dop 0.3.0 TEST will be released soon. Then after iTunes has done it once, it shouldn't do it again (until you send more files using foo_dop..)



It would be easy to add after 0.3.0. Maybe for 0.3.1. Only configuration is worrying, there are quite a few fields these days..


Now I bought a "5.5G" iPod Video it could be more motivation for me to add it

BTW do you find that the games (e.g. breakout) go jerky during MP3 playback?