Potential iPod Mini owner - but first a question.

[madmook]

Hi all.

I am currently looking to buy an iPod mini, and I've never used an iPod before, so I have a few basic questions about the functionality of iPod. Many thanks to anyone and everyone who can help me out.

My main reason for wanting an iPod is because I want to be able to carry all my music CD's with me (so to speak; I mean all the music, of course). The iPod would be a perfect candidate for this job. Currently, I am using a Sony MiniDisc player, and while it has been great for me, I find I can only fit 3-4 CD's worth of music on one minidisc. With the iPod, I should be able to fit ALL the music from my music CDs together, without carrying and changing discs. So here is my question:

On my MD player, when I burn a CD, it puts all of that CD's tracks into a "group". So when I burn 3 different CD's, there are 3 groups on the one minidisc. When I listen to the minidisc, I can skip tracks individually or I can skip to the next group. Which is good when I want to change "albums", rather than having to skip through all the tracks individually. My question is, does the iPod have this type of functionality? Can I sort the music on my iPod into groups (don't want Norah Jones mixing it up with AFI, and the like) and then skip ahead/backwards through groups rather than individual tracks? The only documentation I've read that is similar to this is assigning playlists, but that only mentions the iTunes software, not the iPod player.

Oh, and one quickie question: I can select what bitrate and format I want iTunes to copy CD music into, right? I.E. Turning CD music into AAC or MP3 tracks? I've never used iTunes before.

Thanks in advance for reading and for any replies. :)

[Tirinal]

The iTunes playlists transfer over to the iPod itself. So, yes, you can group music into whatever groups and whatever order you wish. You can even make the playlists on the iPod itself.

iTunes can convert files into AAC at whatever bitrate you wish. I'm fairly certain it can't convert into mp3. There are plenty of free programs out there that will do it for you though.

[Minty Fresh]

Yeah...the way the iPod and iTunes organizes music is really nice. When you load the music onto the iPod...it puts it into several "groups" that you can get to it with. Artist, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers....It divides them up...so if you want to see all the songs on it...choose songs, or if you want to search for something by Albums, choose albums....and so on. You can make your own playlists too...on the fly. With the On-The-Go feature...it allows you to create playlists right there on the iPod...by selecting the songs, and adding them to it...for a playlist. You can also que up entire albums if you want. You can rate the songs as well...and have itunes automatically create a playlist for you...based on the ratings you give songs.

And yes...you can choose the bit rate you want to use, by going into preferences.

Hope this helps...and good luck on your purchase....you won't be sorry!

[madmook]

Great, thanks for the quick replies, guys.

One thing: when I make the playlists, can I assign them their own names? So, for example I can put all the songs in one album under a playlist that has the name of the actual album?

And once I have all my playlists sorted out, can I skip around through my playlists (rather than through individual songs)?

Thanks a lot!

[red devil]

You actually wouldn't even have to do that much. If you want to have the iPod separate songs by album, just encode in iTunes, and it will create ID3 tags that include the artist, album, song, etc. Then when the tunes are transferred to the iPod, you will be able to browse by artist, album, etc.

[Tirinal]

What he said. Should you want to though, you can name your playlists whatever you want. You will be able to skip between them, but there won't be a button that does it. You'll have to do it through the main menu.

[madmook]

Going through a menu or arranging by album, well that's more than good enough for me!

Thanks a lot guys, my mind is made up: I want an iPod mini!

CompUSA better have some silver ones in stock! :D

[iJman]

Originally posted by Tirinal
...iTunes can convert files into AAC at whatever bitrate you wish. I'm fairly certain it can't convert into mp3. There are plenty of free programs out there that will do it for you though.

Yes it can! iTunes is programmed when you install it to import music in 128kbps AAC, but through the preferences you can change it to import in something like 192kbps MP3. Entirely possible. I don't import in AAC, I import in MP3. ;)

[Commodus]

Tirinal's incorrect about your importing options: you can import into AAC, AIFF (raw CD audio), MP3, or WAV formats. You can also choose the default bitrate and whether or not the encoding is variable bitrate (VBR) on the formats that support it. On an iPod mini you would never want to use AIFF or WAV - they sound great, but they have the least compression and would only really come to life if your mini was feeding sound through an external amp.

And if you're wondering: yes, you can have music in multiple formats on the iPod, and they can be part of the same playlist.

[arsolot]

Another point for madmook or anyone else interested in acquiring an iPod: iTunes is free software. madmook doesn't need to wait for his mini to see how iTunes works. Most of his questions relate to how iTunes works, and can be answered by downloading iTunes and seeing for himself!