iTunes 8.0

Crimson · « **on:** 10 Sep 2008, 01:51 pm »

I downloaded iTunes 8.0 last night and here are changes I've noticed:

1. Grid View: A sorting option that displays all your albums, artists, etc. in a user-adjustable grid array of album artwork, similar to viewing your entire photo library in iPhoto. Not bad.

2. Genius: A 'smart' playlist generator based on the tune currently playing. It will create a playlist from your own library as well as recommend music from the iTunes Store. So-so.

3. Preferences: The Advanced preferences pane has changed to only allow manipulation of what used to be Preferences > Advanced > General (setting the library path etc.). Changing import settings is now part of the Preferences > General pane, and I can't seem to find the options for burning.

If anyone else notices any other changes, please let me know.

EDS_ · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 02:17 pm »

Quote from: Crimson on 10 Sep 2008, 01:51 pm

I downloaded iTunes 8.0 last night and here are changes I've noticed:

1. Grid View: A sorting option that displays all your albums, artists, etc. in a user-adjustable grid array of album artwork, similar to viewing your entire photo library in iPhoto. Not bad.

2. Genius: A 'smart' playlist generator based on the tune currently playing. It will create a playlist from your own library as well as recommend music from the iTunes Store. So-so.

3. Preferences: The Advanced preferences pane has changed to only allow manipulation of what used to be Preferences > Advanced > General (setting the library path etc.). Changing import settings is now part of the Preferences > General pane, and I can't seem to find the options for burning.

If anyone else notices any other changes, please let me know.

I can't find any burning options either. I really like the grid view.

Toka · « **Reply #2 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 05:04 pm »

I'm not sure how it happened, but 8.0 somehow messed up some of my personally scanned album covers...it added a white "edge" to some of them, which I was always careful to crop before importing the artwork. Its possible I somehow didn't make them perfectly square, and the Grid View added that back in, but it was annoying. I had to re-scan a few last night, but it looks even better now anyway (I learned a trick or two since then).

EDIT: Oh yea, its very annoying that you can't turn off the iTunes Store links anymore...I found a command line on a message board that will take them out, but I'm always leery of doing that (for no good reason...I'm just paranoid). Dig the new visualizer, though!

ZLS · « **Reply #3 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 05:21 pm »

"... I can't seem to find the options for burning."

Is it possible that the 'Burning Option" was eliminated for so called legal reasons?

nathanm · « **Reply #4 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 06:03 pm »

I'll be damned, no disc burning! I wouldn't doubt it was for legal reasons as that was a surefire way to burn\reimport iTunes-purchased songs. (Although very tedious) Admitedly, disc burning is sort of a buggy whip kind of feature given current technology. I did use it for awhile for making car mixes, but abandoned the practice and bought a Shuffle iPod.

iTunes Store can be disabled under the "Parental" tab, or are you talking about something else?

Toka · « **Reply #5 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 06:14 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 10 Sep 2008, 06:03 pm

iTunes Store can be disabled under the "Parental" tab, or are you talking about something else?

That will take out the links I was talking about (the little round arrows that show up in your playlist), but it also kills the store (I sometimes download the freebie TV shows and whatnot...plus Podcasts). Prior versions had an option in Preferences that would let you keep the store open but would take out the arrows...no dice here. And I didn't notice the no disc burning but that stinks...100% of my library is my own imported music via CD's, and I would sometimes make/burn a playlist for the road. Not a HUGE deal, there is always a workaround, but it was convenient for the 2-3 times a year I would use it.

EDS_ · « **Reply #6 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 06:21 pm »

Guys you can burn w\ iTunes 8.0. Shove in a disk and open iTunes > (the familiar burn tab/icon with appear at the bottom right of the screen) > click burn and several options including burn speed, audio CD etc. appear.

It seems to work fine.

yooper · « **Reply #7 on:** 10 Sep 2008, 08:44 pm »

One thing I noticed... still no support for FLAC.

I know.. I know, Apple's gig is ALAC. Can't blame a guy for hoping.

Mark

rancew · « **Reply #8 on:** 16 Sep 2008, 09:39 pm »

Anyone know how to get rid of an album cover image from iTunes?

Here's my issue specifically:

iTunes can only get the album artwork if the iTunes store sells it, as I understand it. If the album art is obtained this way and I want to remove it (I've had a couple albums where iTunes got the wrong album cover), then I can right click on the album cover and then click the command to remove album cover art.

However, if iTunes can't get the album cover for me, I'm left to search/copy/paste on my own. Sometimes the cover I paste ends up not to my liking (usually because of either being too low-res or having a white border). When I try the same procedure as above, nothing happens. The only solution I've found is to delete the album all together, then re-rip and start all over.

Any other solution for this?

Crimson · « **Reply #9 on:** 16 Sep 2008, 09:51 pm »

You may want to try the following: Highlight the first song of the album, hit Command I, click on Artwork, highlight the cover and then hit Delete. Click Next and continue.

Toka · « **Reply #10 on:** 16 Sep 2008, 11:16 pm »

Quote from: Crimson on 16 Sep 2008, 09:51 pm

You may want to try the following: Highlight the first song of the album, hit Command I, click on Artwork, highlight the cover and then hit Delete. Click Next and continue.

That process has always worked for me as well.

low.pfile · « **Reply #11 on:** 17 Sep 2008, 12:05 am »

Two ways for deleting artwork, depending on how the artwork was obtained.

Deleting the Artwork for an entire album

If the artwork was downloaded from iTunes:

1. In List view of you Library (text list). Select all the songs in an album. (I use Command-A)
2. With all the songs highlighted, Control + mouse click (or right mouse button) and in that menu choose "Clear Downloaded Artwork"

In Rancew's situation (or if you are using your own image file for Artwork) to delete the artwork for an entire album, you can:

1. In List view of you Library (text list). Select all the songs in an album. (I use Command-A)
2. Command-I, In the "Info" tab of the pop up, check the Check Box in "Artwork" section,
3. Click in the Artwork window (empty)....will get a highlight halo
4. Press keyboard Delete.
A progress dialog box appears showing the songs being processes.

cheers, ed

Crimson · « **Reply #12 on:** 17 Sep 2008, 11:34 am »

Ed,

Good one, there. I'd have never thought to click on the blank window.

rancew · « **Reply #13 on:** 17 Sep 2008, 11:24 pm »

Thanks for the feeback, guys.

Ed's process worked like a charm

- way to go!

Loftprojection · « **Reply #14 on:** 18 Sep 2008, 01:56 pm »

Since we are talking about iTune, maybe I can ask a question to the experts here! Hopefully it's not too stupid a question, obviously I'm not too good with iTune!

Anyway, I have all my albums in Apple Lossless format right now. I want to buy myself an iPod Shuffle for the gym so it will be too small for Apple Lossless music format. I'll use some kind of "converter" like "max" which was suggested in another thread to create low size mp3 files but do you guys know a way of doing it so I can have both my Apple Lossless album files and the same album in mp3 format in the same iTune library? Thanks for any suggestion or if there is a document I should read don't hesitate to point it out to me. Thanks.

Crimson · « **Reply #15 on:** 18 Sep 2008, 03:13 pm »

Quote from: Loftprojection on 18 Sep 2008, 01:56 pm

Since we are talking about iTune, maybe I can ask a question to the experts here! Hopefully it's not too stupid a question, obviously I'm not too good with iTune!
Anyway, I have all my albums in Apple Lossless format right now. I want to buy myself an iPod Shuffle for the gym so it will be too small for Apple Lossless music format. I'll use some kind of "converter" like "max" which was suggested in another thread to create low size mp3 files but do you guys know a way of doing it so I can have both my Apple Lossless album files and the same album in mp3 format in the same iTune library? Thanks for any suggestion or if there is a document I should read don't hesitate to point it out to me. Thanks.

I may be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that iTunes converts content to 128 kbps AAC while syncing with a Shuffle. If that's not the case, do the following (assuming you're running iTunes 8.0):

1. In iTunes, got to Preferences>General>Import Settings and select AAC at 128 kbps. Click OK.
2. Now highlight the songs in your library that you want to convert. Click Advanced>Create AAC version. iTunes will then convert your selection to AAC (MP3).
3. Now you'll have both bit-rate versions available in your library.

You can sort them by either adding Bit Rate to your View Options, or by setting a Smart Playlist to include all files under 150 kbps (do not set the filter to 128 kbps as some some tunes may be converted with a bit rate that is slightly higher or lower).

IMPORTANT: After converting your files, make sure to set your import settings back to ALAC or else future rips will be done as 128 kbps AAC.

Loftprojection · « **Reply #16 on:** 18 Sep 2008, 06:41 pm »

Quote from: Crimson on 18 Sep 2008, 03:13 pm

I may be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that iTunes converts content to 128 kbps AAC while syncing with a Shuffle. If that's not the case, do the following (assuming you're running iTunes 8.0):

1. In iTunes, got to Preferences>General>Import Settings and select AAC at 128 kbps. Click OK.
2. Now highlight the songs in your library that you want to convert. Click Advanced>Create AAC version. iTunes will then convert your selection to AAC (MP3).
3. Now you'll have both bit-rate versions available in your library.

You can sort them by either adding Bit Rate to your View Options, or by setting a Smart Playlist to include all files under 150 kbps (do not set the filter to 128 kbps as some some tunes may be converted with a bit rate that is slightly higher or lower).

IMPORTANT: After converting your files, make sure to set your import settings back to ALAC or else future rips will be done as 128 kbps AAC.

Great, thank you very much Crimson. With instructions like these I should be able to master it!

nathanm · « **Reply #17 on:** 18 Sep 2008, 06:59 pm »

If you want to just use the option to convert to 128K on the fly when syncing. (Settings tab of the iPod) If you do it manually to the library files themselves then you've just got a bunch of duplicate files.

With the settings option the 128K versions will exist on the iPod only and your original higher res files will remain.

I tried the 128K option on my Shuffle at first, but it was too slow. (well, part of that was USB 1.0 I suspect) Besides, it holds more than enough songs at 320K to get me through my commute.

geowak · « **Reply #18 on:** 25 Sep 2008, 03:27 pm »

Anyone encountered any volume or graphic equalized problems? Such as distortion???

Also, when playing a song, sometimes the music "cuts out for a sight brief moment periodically"
very annoying!! This happened with the previous Itunes as well

I think it might be a RAM problem, not sure

Any ideas??

nathanm · « **Reply #19 on:** 25 Sep 2008, 03:58 pm »

What's your system configuration? It could be EQ causing clipping, the USB bus freaking out with too much data, a network congestion issue or a sound card issue. If it was RAM I'd suspect you'd be getting lots of other non-iTunes problems. Check the System Profiler to see if all the modules checked out or not.