storing large music collections re. itunes

kinaldo

I was wondering if this is a common iTunes problem in managing obese music collections or if it's a problem with my laptop. I was thinking of trying out Mediamonkey but have always been a big fan of the iTunes interface and general simplicity so am reluctant to change.

On my old (slow!) laptop everything was hunky dory. Since then I've added about 10% to the collection and on my new (fast) laptop iTunes seems to be having great difficulty managing things. When it changes from one track to another the laptop usually slows down to the point where I have to wait about 5 seconds before I can do anything, and the track will often stops and start if I'm browsing the media library. If I try to change tracks manually it's even slower. This has become beyond annoying now and I've even tried upgrading to iTunes 7.

I don't actually store my music files on the laptop itself (last time I tried that it went into meltdown) - I have them all on a Maxtor hard drive, but as I said, my old banjaxed laptop never had any trouble in accessing and playing them. The collection, while quite large, should be managable at 37gb and over 8200 songs.

nuttz

itunes = rubbish, in all aspects

Look for something more lightweight. E.g. winamp or similar

Victor_M

I agree with Nuttz, Itunes is absolute rubbish, use it only for updating your Ipod.
Winamp is the best media player for laptop listening. It loads your music library faster, is easier to navigate and jump from songs to song and doesn't put much strain on your pc/laptop.

aidan_r

ditto winamp, the latest windows media player 11 beta supposedly handles large collections very well, but itunes, realplayer, musicmatch and some others suck at handling large libraries

challengemaster

what could be causing the slowdown is a lack of ram and depending on what resources itunes is using. try winamp like suggested above ^_^

kinaldo

challengemaster wrote:

what could be causing the slowdown is a lack of ram and depending on what resources itunes is using. try winamp like suggested above ^_^

Yeah I have loads of ram about 1gb which is more than twice that of my old laptop I think. I might try using Winamp but I've never really been a fan.

Froot

I dont like Winamp but I have to agree that most of the mainstream media players should be used for just that, playing media, full stop.

Try Foobar2000, its another media player like Winamp but I prefer it for some reason.

jozi

I dont think its a software problem, not with a resonably new pc with a gig of ram.

I had a problem with my removable drive in my laptop (i can replace my dvd rive with a harddisk) where winamp had trouble playing music, browsing or moving files on the drive cause complete slow downs in winamp.
I'll have a look can i find the thread. From memory it had to do with DMA or UDMA.

Jozi

EDIT: go into Control Panel -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> right click Primary/Secondary IDE Channel -> Under the Advance Settings Tab select DMA from the pull down menu's.

If for some reason you cant change them, uninstal the IDE Channel and reboot, they should be reconised as DMA enabled drives now.

Not sure if its your problem but its worth a shot

kinaldo

jozi wrote:

I dont think its a software problem, not with a resonably new pc with a gig of ram.

I had a problem with my removable drive in my laptop (i can replace my dvd rive with a harddisk) where winamp had trouble playing music, browsing or moving files on the drive cause complete slow downs in winamp.
I'll have a look can i find the thread. From memory it had to do with DMA or UDMA.

Jozi

EDIT: go into Control Panel -> IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers -> right click Primary/Secondary IDE Channel -> Under the Advance Settings Tab select DMA from the pull down menu's.

If for some reason you cant change them, uninstal the IDE Channel and reboot, they should be reconised as DMA enabled drives now.

Not sure if its your problem but its worth a shot

Thanks, just got around to trying this but they're already DMA enabled. I tried using Winamp and it's very fast alright but not great for browsing. I suppose I can try out Mediamonkey which looks quite good. Tis a shame though cos I really like the new iTunes jukebox style artwork browser amongst other things but it simply cannot handle my music library. I'll certainly miss iTunes.

Makaveli

foobar when customised is the best media player I've used. It takes up less memory than most other players and with the right components installed can handle large music directories.

I'm in the process of transfering my music to my new pc and foobar with the album list plugin rocks.

nuttz

just posted yesterday, sounds like the latest version of itunes is even more rubbish than usual (please excuse the pun)

kinaldo

nuttz wrote:

just posted yesterday, sounds like the latest version of itunes is even more rubbish than usual (please excuse the pun)

Good news for me that means I can just hold out until they release 7.0.1

juliuspret

I use MediaMonkey:
www.mediamonkey.com

Works very well on large collections and with a little tweaking works great for me!