Help! trying to decide about IPod... (1 Viewer)

[DustinLC]

I've been spending some time at the ilounge and thought this comment help resolve a question above:


So the best possible sound on a 20G Ipod will give you about 1300 songs. About 87hrs if assuming it's about 4min per song. That's fine with me since I listen to orchestra music under very quiet condition that requires the best sound quality.

Now my question is, 87hrs of 320kps on my computer HD! What kind of space is the collection going to occupy?

For all of you who have 20G or higher, you have 20G or higher of music on your computer?

 

[Scott L]

Let's at least try this:

320kbps and 60 seconds in 1 minute, 60m in an hour so:

320 * 60 seconds = 19200 * 60 minutes = 1152000 * 87 hours = 100,224,000kb

So over 100 gigs? Is my math wrong (somehow I think it is)?

And just fyi 320kbps isn't lossless. That's more like 700kbps.

 

[DustinLC]

Scott, we're talking about rate of encoding and not the actual size of the files, aren't we? So your calculation wouldn't be correct.


Is that through your experience with ipod? From the quoted person, it seems that she means "Apple Lossless" does 320kbps. I'm sure there's no such thing as absolute lossless but it's the best the itune can do?

The 87 hrs was only an estimate based on what the quote said and it did say it's "almost" max capacity (34 out of a 40G so it would be for a 40G more than 174hrs at Apple Lossless encoding).

 

[Ted Todorov]

On the durability issue, my first iPod (a 20GB 2nd generation) has been going strong for 2.5 ~ 3 years now (does anyone remember exactly when they came out?) Extreme temperatures -- not a problem -- it survived last NY winter (the Hudson froze over), and just came back from 6 months in Ethiopia with my GF, and where they had 110F.

I can't speak about skipping, because I am not a runner -- but it certainly has survived normal use with occasional sprints for a traffic light or the bus without skipping.

I've had a 40GB, 4th gen since they came out, and couldn't be happier, except that it is still too small for my music collection (strictly from my CDs). I rip AAC at 256kbps, which is probably overkill, but I look at it as a backup for my CDs, plus I use it to DJ for parties from time to time, and over good quality sound systems at loud volumes, quality does count.

Ted -- another satisfied iPod customer (im)patiently waiting for the 80GB version...

 

[Ted Todorov]

Apple Lossless is indeed absolute lossless, and from what I know the bit rate averages to around half of an uncompressed CDs 1.5mbps data rate, i.e. ~750kbps.

The 320kpbs refers to the maximum bit rate that a iTunes will encode in either AAC or MP3. 320kbps AAC, is very high quality, though certainly not lossless. For those who don't wish to have any compression at all, lossless or otherwise, iTunes will also allow you to import in uncompressed AIFF format, and the iPod will play AIFF as well.

Ted

 

[Jason Adams]

Whats really the difference between lossless and uncompressed? I mean, if its the same size, then why not go with uncompressed to be absolutely sure that bit perfect sound quality is maintained?

 

[DustinLC]

Can someone answer the question of whether 20GB ipod songs = to 20GB space on your computer HD. I know it's sort of a silly question but the alternatively is that all of you owning 20-40GB ipod is using 20-40GB of your HD space to store music.

That's a lot of space if you're an active guy like me who also has all these imovie going on . I mean, I only have 80GB on my Mac. If I do get a 40GB ipod, I'll have to use half of my computer space for music ? lol! I must be missing something here.


This inquiring mind also want to know . All along I thought Apple Lossless is uncompressed AIFF.

 

[Jason Adams]

Yes. But HDD MP3 players in general dont hold exactly what they say they do. For example...a 30 gig one actaully holds 28 gigs. But there shouldnt be any reason why exactly 20 gigs of data wouldnt remain exactly 20 gigs of data transferred to another hard disk.

 

[Ted Lee]

dustin, afaik, you're correct. storage on the ipod equates to the same amount of space on your hd. i don't do the auto-synch thing though...not sure if that changes things up or not.

i have a dedicated hd ... just for my mp3 files. so i just copy stuff to my ipod as needed. but yes, i am (essentially) using the same amount of hd space in two places.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

right, but this isnt exclusive to mp3 players. anyone who has ever bought a hard drive knows about this. when they sell a 20 GB ipod (or any storage device), it isnt really 20 GB. it is 20 billion bytes. the true definition of a GB is 2^30 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes. multiply that by 20, and you have 21,474,836,480 bytes. that is the true definition of 20 GB. however, the ipod doesnt have 21,474.....bytes, it has 20,000,000,000 bytes, which is closer to 18.6 GB.

that said, 18.6 GB on the ipod will be exactly the same on your computer as well.

CJ

 

[Thomas Newton]

With lossless compression, none of the original data is permanently lost. The tradeoff is that you can rarely get compression ratios of more than 2:1 on audio. A 128 Kbps MP3 or AAC file has a compression ratio of something like 10:1 or 11:1. The price for that is that you cannot exactly reconstruct the input file.

 

[Scott L]

^^True! Think of lossless compression as Zip files. Every file within can be unpacked, bit for bit, back to the original WAV or AIFF. This goes for Apple lossless, WMA lossles, APE, FLAC, SHN, etc...

And in case you didn't know, DVD-A and SACD both use 2:1 lossless compression natively. MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) for PCM and DST (Direct Stream Transfer) for DSD. Confused yet?

 

[Gary->dee]

That's the prime reason why I'm interested in transferring music from a CD directly to an iPod or the like, bypassing the need to store anything on my computer. I'm working off of a notebook and I don't have an additional hard drive I could commit to music. I know I could get an external HD but I don't wanna go there. And I know that whatever ends up on my computer I could just delete once it's on the iPod, but again for me the preferable scenario is not to utilize my computer's HD at all in the process of filling up an iPod.

If I can transfer both audio CD's and data CD's containing MP3's straight to the iPod then that would be the lick.

 

[DustinLC]

But then you can't organize your music in the ipod right? You wouldn't have the ability to create favorites ect....

 

[Christ Reynolds]

nope. at the ipod tech specs page, it says a mac or a PC with a firewire or usb 2.0 port is an ipod requirement.

CJ

 

[Jeff Adkins]

No. If you don't do the "auto-sync", then you don't need to keep anything on your HD. I have about 12 gig on my Ipod, but less than 1 on my HD.

If there's anything I would add here, it's that I strongly advise against the autosync option. First, it's a terrible waste of HD space. I have no desire to store all my CDs in both my computer and my Ipod.

Second, you have to be very careful with your ITunes software not to delete anything. Last, if you ever plan on connecting it to another computer...forget it. I did some of my ripping at work, some at home. It was very convenient and there's no way I could've done it with auto-sync.

Also, I recommend downloading a piece of software called Ipod Agent. It's the only way to transfer songs from your Ipod back to your computer as ITunes doesn't allow this.

Jeff

 

[Ted Todorov]

I respectfully, but strongly disagree with Jeff. Far from being a terrible waste of HD space, having a copy of your music on your HD is an indespensible backup. I've got over 40GB of music on my HD -- think of the endless hours I've spent ripping it from my CDs. My time is precious, but HD's are amazingly cheap ($112 for a 250GB SATA drive at Outpost) The possibility of breaking or losing your iPod are real, and spending a couple of bucks on an extra HD beats the hell out of having to spend weeks re-importing your CD collection.

If settings are left at their defaults, you get prompted *twice* before iTunes lets you delete anything, hardly a risky situation. I am agnostic on whether to use autosync or not -- I didn't use it with my 20GB iPod, I do use it with the 40GB (there is an option to uncheck in iTunes any music you don't want on your iPod.)

Lastly, I'm unfamiliar with Windows software, but on the Mac side there are numerous utilities to copy stuff from iPod to Mac.

Ted

 

[Christ Reynolds]

i agree with ted. while having 19 GB free may not be easy for everyone, it's not so bad anymore. i use it with my ipod, and i like having a backup of my music, should anything go wrong with either copy. there are plenty of options for copying songs from the ipod to a windows pc.

CJ

 

[Ted Lee]

i agree with ted t as well (ted's are rarely wrong around here...) you'd shoot yourself if your only copy of mp3 files went bad. in my case, in addition to my dedicated mp3 hd, i have an external hd with *another* copy of my mp3 files ... just to be super safe. it's taken me weeks to rip all my mp3s...i'm not about to lose them.

besides, in my case, i only have a mini ipod, but have nearly 40g worth of mp3's. there's (obviously) no way the auto-synch function would work for me.

as cj (and others) have also said, there's alteratives to itunes for copying songs to/from the ipod.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Really? Then that somewhat changes my opinion on autosync. I've read numerous posts at Ipod Lounge from people who lost everything by plugging their Ipod into a friend's computer. I wasn't aware it prompts you since I've never used autosync.