PMP Board FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): Contribute here!!

Bard · 03-01-2006 10:46pm #1

I'm going to build an FAQ for this forum. You can help by posting a "frequently asked question" and suggested answer on this thread.

NOTE: NEW THREADS ON THIS FORUM THAT ASK QUESTIONS WHICH ARE ANSWERED IN THIS F.A.Q. WILL BE CLOSED BY THE MODERATOR WITH A LINK POINTING HERE.

I WILL WIKIFY THIS F.A.Q. SOON

I'll get the ball rolling with these couple:

Question: What's the difference between an iPod and an MP3 player?

Answer:

iPod is a brand of MP3 player manufactured by Apple Computer Inc. There are many other MP3 players available on the market and not all of them are called iPods, although for many people, the word "iPod" has become synonymous with MP3 players, just as "hoover" has become synonymous with "vacuum cleaners". Keep in mind that the iPod is just a brand - one of many brands, and is not necessarily the best of them just because they have the biggest marketing budget.

Question: Can I play my MP3 player through my car stereo, and if so - how?

Answer:

Yes you can. There are a few ways of doing this. Firstly, if your car stereo has a cassette player, you can get a cassette adapter in any half-decent computer or electrical store for about €10-€15.

If it's a more modern car stereo, however, it'll have a CD player instead of a cassette player. In this case you still have a couple of options. First, check if it has a line-in connection on the back. Usually, this will consist of a pair of composite (phono) connectors in red and white (or red and black). If these are present, they can be either a line-in or a CD changer connection, so double check in your stereo's manual to be sure. If it's a line-in, you can run a cable directly from the MP3 player's headphones or line-out socket to that. That cable should cost you about €5-€10.

Alternatively, there are some new car stereos (such as this one) which have USB connections for MP3 players. These stereos play the MP3 file themselves, treating your MP3 player as an external hard drive.

If you don't have a tape deck, a line-in on OR a USB connection, MP3 player dock, etc. in your car stereo, there is no LEGAL way of listening to your MP3 player through it. All is not lost, however. You can get an miniature FM transmitter, such as the Belkin Tunecast or the iTrip. These connect to your MP3 players headphones socket and transmit the sound to the radio in the car stereo on an FM frequency of your choosing. However be warned that they are still illegal to use in the UK and Ireland (although not in various other European countries and the USA), but as the legislation is due to change soon, you may now discuss how/where to get them on this forum. These were recently legalised in Ireland and the UK.

cairo_parisian · 03-01-2006 10:51pm

Do I need a PC to use my PMP?

Yes, in the majority of cases, access to a computer is nessecary to use your PMP. First of all, the CDs with your music on them need to be "ripped" into a computer file format such as mp3 (or similar) and then, usually through the "USB cable" transferred from PC to PMP.

^ could do with a good edit i suppose.

Bard · 03-01-2006 10:59pm

Question: Is there any alternative to using Apple iTunes to put music onto my Apple iPod from my PC?

Answer:

Yes, the following software packages are also available for this task:
Anapod Explorer

EphPod

XPlay

MediaMonkey

... more here

cairo_parisian · 03-01-2006 11:10pm

How many songs would a 5/10/20/XGB sized PMP hold?

It depends! The music from your CDs can be ripped at different "bit rates" and this will effect their size in terms of memory. Of course, the lenght of your songs, 1minutes to 10minutes etc. will effect the final size also. The format (wav/mp3/acc) will also effect the size of the music file. However, if you rip consistently at 192 kbps mp3 you should get, on average, about 200-250 songs per GB (purely an estimate)

A good question to answer would be - what is the best way to rip my CDs (format, bitrate etc.)

tman · 03-01-2006 11:30pm

you might want to add the ml_ipod plugin for winamp to the list of iTunes alternatives, Bard.
trés handy for winamp users
(feel free to delete this post btw)

Bard · 04-01-2006 12:04am

Nah, no need to delete the post, tman. Credit where credit is due. Thanks for the suggestion.

Bard · 04-01-2006 10:05am

Question: How do I convert my own DVD's to files so I can watch them on my portable media player?

Answer:

There are many programs available for doing this, including:
AutoGK

(Feel free to suggest more)

Mactard wrote: »

handbrake will do the job nicely: http://handbrake.m0k.org/ direct DVD to ipod format ripping. Open source and excellent.

IceHawk · 05-01-2006 1:14pm

Question: Does (Media Player X) support (File Format Y /Plug-and-Play /Windows Media Synchronisation /ID3 tags /other)?

Answer:

Possibly a seperate sticky with a list of popular MP3 players and the features of each

Bard · 06-01-2006 11:20am

Question: How do I convert my existing video files to the format used by my Apple iPod?

Answer:

There are a few programs available for this task, including:
Videora iPod converter

ImToo iPod Movie Converter

HandBrake

WinFF

Bard · 06-01-2006 4:56pm

Question: How do I normalise the volume across all my MP3/WMA/etc. files so that when listening to them, the volume isn't jumping up & down between tracks?

Answer:

There are a number of freeware/shareware programs available for this task. [Anyone care to suggest any, please?]

Question: How do I manage the ID3 tags, WMA tags, Vorbis comments, etc. in my audio files so that they, and my file names, are consistent throughout my whole music collection?

Answer:

You can use a freeware/shareware program for this task. One such program is Mp3tag.

Makaveli · 07-01-2006 12:39am

Question: The max volume on my player seems to be quite low. Is there anyway to increase the volume?

Answer:

If your player is European, ie bought in the EU, it comes with European firmware. Due to legislation passed there is a limit on the volume, to get around this you can flash the firmware on your player to that of another reason. For example with an IRiver, you would flash it with the Korean firmware or with Creative the American firmware.
Flashing your firmware will not void your warranty, however a bad flash could damage your player, so be careful, follow instructions and check feedback online about the firmware version you want to flash it to.

neGev · 07-01-2006 2:16pm

Question: How do I normalise the volume across all my MP3/WMA/etc. files so that when listening to them, the volume isn't jumping up & down between tracks?

Answer: There are a number of freeware/shareware programs available for this task such as mp3gain

Civilian_Target · 25-02-2006 11:15pm

Question: How can I find out which players support OGG vorbis?

Answer:

The xiph foundation that started vorbis as a format keeps a list of all vorbis compatible players in their wiki here --> http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers

Question: How do I manage the ID3 tags, WMA tags, Vorbis comments, etc. in my audio files so that they, and my file names, are consistent throughout my whole music collection?

I'd recommend the Godfather http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Tag-Editors/The-GodFather.shtml for sorting all your music - it's a bit tricky to get to grips with at first but it's extremely powerful and does an excellent job of sorting a large music collection.

Karoma · 25-02-2006 11:21pm

Q: (How) Can I copy music to my computer from my iPOD?

A:
The iPod (Like many MP3 players) was designed to be the destination of a one-way trip for your music. This design was intentional supposedly to prevent people “stealing” music. The truth is that not everyone who wants to upload songs from the iPod to a computer is stealing music. It’s perfectly acceptable use to copy songs that you own back off the iPod. Right, with justification aside…

The music is stored (Rather chaotically) on the iPod in a hidden folder called iPod_Control.

The free, and awkward way:
In Windows, you simply have to open explorer.exe and open the iPod-drive.
Ensure that Hidden Folders are visible (Tools -> Folder Options -> View-> Hidden Files and Folders should be set to Show Hidden Files and Folders).
Open iPod_Control, and the sub-directory that is Music (Although: I’ve found it better/easier to Search as opposed to exploring the folders.)
As you’ll see-it’s a mess with numerous folders, and tracks from the same album spread over these folders. Also, it seems that later iPod firmware revisions have obfuscated file(name)s further.

So it’s advisable to use programs to save you pulling out your hair…

Mac-specific:
Senuti – “everything in reverse” – it offers a built-in search facility, and displays playlists. It’s essentially iTunes in reverse (Hence the name!)
OmniWeb – it’s a (Commercial) web browser. Just drag the iPod folder over and you get a nice list of folders…

Windows-specific:
EphPod (Free, and excellent. It has been around a good while…)
XPlay - http://www.mediafour.com/products/xplay/ - (Commercial – I’ve never used it TBH)
PodUtil - http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/software/podutil.php - (Freeware)
Anapod Explorer - http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/ - Anapod Explorer lets you access your iPod's contents from any Web browser and play its music via any MP3 program of your choice. You can edit song tags directly on the iPod. It also has an embedded database engine (Anapod-SQL); so you can search the iPod using almost any criteria and generate reports in HTML or XML. (A free trial is available)
CopyTrans - www.copytrans.net - useful for retrieving your music, ratings, playlists, playcounts to your PC (14 day free trial available for download)
SharePod - http://www.getsharepod.com/ - free your ipod.

Linux-specific:
Many of the above solutions will work, or have been ported – just add “linux” to a google search.

Other software:
As the iPOD continues to to be popular, new software emerges frequently. Have a browse of the following sites for other / new software:
http://www.versiontracker.com/
http://www.download.com/

(Edit [Bard] : Added CopyPod & addedURLS for other software)
(Edit [cremo] : Updated URL's)

forkart · 09-04-2006 3:59am

Bard wrote:

Question: How do I convert my existing video files to the format used by my Apple iPod?

Answer:

Just download yasa ipod video converter. It can help you convert video files to ipod mp4 format in ease. It works great.

http://www.yasasoft.com/ipodvideoconverter/

Lambsbread · 09-05-2006 4:26pm

Makaveli wrote:

Question: The max volume on my player seems to be quite low. Is there anyway to increase the volume?

Found this for the Sony NW-A3000/1000 (works a treat!!)

Answer:
1. Press HOLD to put the player in hold mode.
2. Hold down LINK and press in order UP, DOWN, OPTION, UP, DOWN, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT, PLAY/PAUSE, OPTION.
3. Press HOLD to turn hold off. You will now be in test mode.
4. Press RIGHT to display menu items
5. Press UP/DOWN until you get to “OTHERS”
6. Press RIGHT to display next menu.
7. Press UP/DOWN until you get to “SP SET”
8. Press PLAY/PAUSE, “ON/OFF” is displayed.
9. Press OPTION, “ON/OFF” will be selected.
10. Press PLAY/PAUSE and it will be entered.
11. Exit play mode by pressing and holding BACK for more than a few seconds, release, and then turn the player off.

Bard · 25-06-2006 8:31am

Lambsbread wrote:

Found this for the Sony NW-A3000/1000 (works a treat!!)

Answer:
1. Press HOLD to put the player in hold mode.
2. Hold down LINK and press in order UP, DOWN, OPTION, UP, DOWN, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT, PLAY/PAUSE, OPTION.
3. Press HOLD to turn hold off. You will now be in test mode.
4. Press RIGHT to display menu items
5. Press UP/DOWN until you get to “OTHERS”
6. Press RIGHT to display next menu.
7. Press UP/DOWN until you get to “SP SET”
8. Press PLAY/PAUSE, “ON/OFF” is displayed.
9. Press OPTION, “ON/OFF” will be selected.
10. Press PLAY/PAUSE and it will be entered.
11. Exit play mode by pressing and holding BACK for more than a few seconds, release, and then turn the player off.

Good god, it's like a cheat code for a game on the Sega Megadrive...

Tar.Aldarion · 18-09-2006 4:32pm

Fatality?

Pal · 25-10-2006 8:47am

Question : how do I play IPOD videos on my TV

Answer : Connect a camcorder AV lead ( 1/8 inch jack) to the IPOD headphone outlet.

Connect the AV leads as follows to your TV
Red lead => Yellow TV socket
Yellow lead => White TV socket
White lead => Red TV socket

A camcorder AV lead can be picked up for under a tenner.
apologies if this is old hat but it works and is cheap.

Bard · 25-10-2006 11:24am

Pal wrote:

Question : how do I play IPOD videos on my TV

Answer : Connect a camcorder AV lead ( 1/8 inch jack) to the IPOD headphone outlet.

Connect the AV leads as follows to your TV
Red lead => Yellow TV socket
Yellow lead => White TV socket
White lead => Red TV socket

A camcorder AV lead can be picked up for under a tenner.
apologies if this is old hat but it works and is cheap.

Thanks for the tip. No more can Creative and Apple get away with selling us their "special" A/V lead for 30-odd euro! Hurrah!

Bard · 30-10-2006 1:53pm

Q. How can I back up my iPod to my PC without using iTunes?

A. Use iPod->Folder

Makaveli · 25-02-2007 11:22pm

Question: How do I convert x format to mp3? How do I convert bitrates of my mp3s?

Answer:

Download dBpoweramp. This freeware program will allow you to transcode your audio files (changing format or just changing bitrate). You may have to download additional plugins to gain support for certain formats (all plugins can be found on the site).

Additional Note: transcoding your files will result in further loss of quality. Converting from one lossy format to another is generally a bad thing to do. The files are already highly compressed and the transcode is further compression. You cannot transcode a file from 128KBps to 192KBps to get a better quality file, all you're doing is making the file size bigger and degrading the audio quality.

Makaveli · 25-02-2007 11:32pm

Question: How can I configure Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to get the most out of ripping my cds?

Answer:

EAC is a very good piece of free software for ripping your cds. It takes a little bit of work to configure it properly but once done you wont have to configure it again and you will get very good rips.

First off download EAC from here.
Next up you will need to download the lame encoder. You can get this here. v3.97 is the latest stable version of lame.

After you install EAC follow this guide to configure it to your optimal preference. This is probably one of the best and most straight forward guides out there for configuring EAC to your needs.

That's it, enjoy your ripping.

_CreeD_ · 01-05-2007 1:50pm

Question:
What are the best CODECs to use for my PMP?

Answer:
Effectively whatever doesn't make you feel like you just lost too much in the conversion from the original. Some people hear mp3 as CD quality, others hate it. The same is true for the deficiencies in almost every Codec.
The only absolute fact here is that Lossless will beat out Lossy compression. The most widely supported Lossless compression format is FLAC and it provides a perfect copy of the original at approx. half the size. After that the relatively unsupported MPC is the undisputed king of audiophile quality lossy compression. However whereas most other lossy codecs are aimed at the best quality at 128Kbps MPC only really shines at bitrates > 200. i.e. At 128Kbps even old mp3 is much better than MPC but at 270 no other lossy codec at any bit rate can touch it. OGG is generally held to be the next highest quality lossy codec, though again support is less than it deserves. AAC/WMA/MP3 are debatably close, each has it's strengths when compared to the other but also have enough obvious weaknesses to ensure there is no standout winner.

art · 14-05-2007 9:54pm

Q. How can I make my player's battery charge last longer?

A. There's a number of issues to consider with battery life (ie charge) on a MP3 player so bear in mind the following:

1) Backlight: starting with an obvious one, but the longer it is on, the less your battery will last ...

2) Use: Do you switch it on, ride home and switch it off or do you sit in your commuter vehicle of choice, flicking between songs, fast forwarding, checking the contents of your playlists and generally doing things whilst listening to tracks? Remember, every click, flick or button press requires battery power (particularly relevant for players with hard disks).

3) Video options: Any kind of video being played will ravage through the battery compared with just straight sound.

4) Headphones: How big are your headphones? Different, essentially bigger, headphones will draw more power from the player than standard earbuds.

5) BitRate: Are your tracks encoded at a high rate? The higher the rate of encoding, the more power needed to decode the tracks.

6) DRM: Are you listening to DRM enabled tracks, eg WMA downloaded from a subscription site? The player expends extra power each time you play a DRM enabled track in order to check the license is genuine. This also affects iTunes store downloads in AAC format, though to a slightly lesser extent.

7) EQ settings: Again, you are adding processing which is adding to the draw on the battery. Normalising functions like "Sound Check" on the iPod also require processing power and hence are lessening your battery's charge.

They are just some of the issues to consider when seeking longer battery charges: depending on what you feel is important to your experience of listening to music, simply choosing to play MP3s encoded at the standard rate or setting up playlists that avoid the need to hunt around for songs on the go, and so on, can have significant benefits to the length of time available to you to play your favourite songs!

Comhra.... · 28-08-2007 9:50pm

Hey
How can I put my DVDs onto my ipod?

Karoma · 28-08-2007 9:54pm

Comhra wrote:

Hey
How can I put my DVDs onto my ipod?

Step 1. Remove the DVD from its case.
Step 2. Place the ipod on a flat surface
Step 3. Place the DVD on top of the iPOD.

Or, try some of the software listed in this sticky. ex: yasa ipod video converter.
or http://www.wikihow.com/Put-DVDs-on-your-Video-iPod
or www.google.ie
or RTFM - presumably it's mentioned

Soundman · 28-08-2007 10:39pm

Karoma wrote:

Step 1. Remove the DVD from its case.
Step 2. Place the ipod on a flat surface
Step 3. Place the DVD on top of the iPOD.

Best answer EVER!

440Hz · 30-09-2007 12:39pm

iPodDisk Another handy one for ipod to computer copying.

Creamy Goodness · 30-09-2007 2:30pm

440Hz wrote:

iPodDisk Another handy one for ipod to computer copying.

that's mac os x only though, unless having a macbook has made me totally blind that i can't see a windows installer

forestfruits · 12-07-2008 5:07pm

Im sure this should be straight forward but im lost!

new laptop - with vista- lost the disc i got with itunes on it for ipod mini many moons ago! Now i thought it should be a case of goin into itunes and downloading the updated version onto the new laptop and off I go.

Not the case- any ideas what im doing wrong?

PMP Board FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions): Contribute here!!

Comments