iTunes Meets Windows in October! (1 Viewer)

[Stu Rosen]

I'm getting an error message terminating the install "1607: Unable to install InstallSheild Scripting Runtime." on WinXP Pro.

I had the same problem, and just re-booted the computer and re-downloaded the software. Worked fine.

 

[Stu Rosen]

I know music match jukebox has almost the functionality of iTunes except for purchasing music.

MusicMatch 8.1 has a music-selling function, now.

 

[Kevin Porter]

I just downloaded this baby and have bought about $4 worth of songs.

At Last by Etta James
Batman Theme Gotta love that da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da quality of the song.
September by Earth, Wind and Fire
and a Green Onions cover (I was duped. Thought it was the original)

This thing is great. I dig the user interface about 20x more than the bland Windows Media Player one. It reminds me of my iPod. Any reccomendations to get my collection going?

P.S. I searched for Green Onions but was met with not 1 but 3 covers for it. I cannot find the original by Booker and the MGs. Does it even exist on iTunes?

 

[Peter_A]

Excellent article about iTunes for Windows below:

http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/03q2/i-tunes-1.html

As for myself I tried it but uninstalled it due to it's annoying file system, I can't purchase songs here in Canada, and the fact they use the AAC format which means I could not use what I downloaded in my car CD player unless I burn them as a normal CD. I pretty much only use MP3 CD's in my car now.

 

[Dave Bennett]

Peter, burn them onto an audio cd(a cd-rw) then just rerip them into mp3 for the car. that's what I've been doing so I can play them on my TDK Mojo and in my JVC car deck. As for the file system, if you uncheck "keep my music library organized" it doesn't touch your files at all.

 

[cwhite]

I'm using it now and loving it. Reminds me of the heady days of Napster. Check your Preferences because it will allow you to burn your music to CD as MP3s.

 

[MickeS]

The thing that bugs me the most after using it a few days is that the selection of music is pretty abysmal when it comes to my preferred genre, metal. None of the artists I searched for were found (among them were Nightwish, Iced Earth, Edguy, Hammerfall). I was hoping to at least find the latest Hammerfall CD. Maybe these artists don't have distribution in the US? Even a big name like Iron Maiden has many albums on there that are only partial or by song only (which makes them more expensive than $9.99).

I wish they had "metal" as a genre on there too, now it's just "rock" which is a pretty wide genre.

 

[Michael Napier]

If you are experiencing stuttering or skipping when playing MP3s or CDs in iTunes, try going to your Quicktime settings in Control Panel, and set the SoundOut option to wave out. That worked for me.

 

[Patrick Cate]

I've found iTunes for Windows to be just as responsive as just about any Windows app I've used. Of course, I'm running a 3.0ghz P4 with Hyperthreading and 1 gig of ram, so I'm not sure that's saying much.

I have a couple of complaints about the library browser, but regardless, it's become my default music player. So far it's only crashed once on the first day I installed it, but I haven't had any stability problems since.

I haven't used the music store, and probably won't, since I still prefer ripping my own CD's with EAC and encoding with LAME to make sure the quality is up to my, probably too high, standards.

From what I heard Apple actually makes little if any money off the music store at the end of the day though. Apparently the main reason for the music store is to sell more iPods, which definitely brings them a profit.

 

[Angelo.M]

Speaking of encoding, any thoughts as to the quality of the encoder in iTunes, as compared to similar programs (like MusicMatch) or more dedicated software (like EAC/LAME or CDex)?

 

[NickSo]

Just FYI, iTunes 4.1.1 is out!

Just about to restart to complete installation...

Like I said in the COMPUTER/HTPC forum, it feels much less bloated and sleeker-feeling...

 

[DennisK]

Has anyone tried to copy their downloads to a Nomad Zen. The itunes web sites talks a lot about the IPOD but doesn't mention compatability with any other systems. I couldn't find it in their FAQs either.

Thanks, Dennis

 

[Patrick Larkin]

iPod only.

 

[Chris Farmer]

Really? No other MP3 players then iPod? That's surprising, on the Mac it supports a gajillion and a half. Given that every other feature/quirk from the Mac version got ported (down to the Aqua scroll bars and non-Windows use of the "maximize" button) I'm very surprised that support for other players did not.

 

[Thomas Newton]

That's surprising, on the Mac it supports a gajillion and a half.

I don't recall the Mac version as having support for auto-syncing with players other than iPods. (There's support for burning audio CDs and MP3 CDs, but MP3 CD players are not quite in direct competition with 40 GB iPods.)

 

[Kevin Porter]

Man iPod syncing is easy with iTunes! There is actually an eject button. I used to have to turn off the computer before my precious white brick would say OK to disconnect.

 

[Chris Farmer]

The auto-syncing on the Mac is iPod only, but you can drag and drop songs from your library to just about any MP3 player. It shows up in the same sidebar as your library and playlists, you just drag the MP3s or playlists over it and they're copied.

 

[John-Miles]

You know i havent read this whole thread, but I have to say I will not get on the Itunes band wagon, one I am assuming the price is 99 cents american? well damn that adds up to be about q5 dollars for a 10 song album, for that much im thinking its at best a dollar or two cheaper than the actual CD. I would much rather have the benefit of a physical CD

 

[Chris Farmer]

That's true enough John, although most of the time you can buy the entire album for $10 straight, cheaper then most CDs. The main use for iTMS isn't to sell albums though, but to answer the "I only want one song off the album, the rest is crap" crowd. And one dollar for one song in AAC is much cheaper then $13 for one song on CD.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Well, I just put iTunes on my Windows 2000 Pro P3 450 mhz /w 128k RAM. After what you guys were reporting, and what the requirements stated, I didn't think I had a prayer.

True, at first it crashed my machine, but after fiddling around with the registry a bit and upgrading my OS to service pack 4, it works fine. True, it's a resource hog; but not at the levels I'd been anticipating. I guess I just spend too much time with Photoshop and Premiere running concurrently. Considering how late it is, I didn't get to really test the audio quality of the playback, other than that there's no jumps. I shall have fun tommarrow.

(One other thing, besides the ipodservice.exe which I haven't managed to get rid of, there was a startup program called ituneshelper.exe that was a key factor in my bootup problems. Off a hunch, I disabled it and it doesn't seem to affect the functionality of the program one iota. Your mileage may vary.)