4th Gen 40Gb ipod - transferring files

[mellingwhite]

I am a television producer and I want to be able to use my ipod to take my music into different edit suites - some Mac and some PC based.

So a few questions:

1) can I simply plug my ipod into any PC with XP or Win2000 and have it show up as an external hard drive even if the computer does not have specific drivers or Itunes installed? I do not want to have to install any new software on the PC.

2) can I plug my ipod into any Mac and have it show up as an external hard drive even if the computer does not have Itunes? I also do not want to have to install any new software on the Mac.


3) Assuming both answers are "yes", can I then simply drag and drop individual songs onto the hard drive of the second computer?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Gerard

[AndyH]

Welcome to iPodlounge!

Originally posted by mellingwhite
I am a television producer and I want to be able to use my ipod to take my music into different edit suites - some Mac and some PC based.

So a few questions:

1) can I simply plug my ipod into any PC with XP or Win2000 and have it show up as an external hard drive even if the computer does not have specific drivers or Itunes installed? I do not want to have to install any new software on the PC.
Assuming that your iPod is Windows-formatted...yes, you don't need to install any drivers or software on the other PC's in order to use the iPod as a "mass storage device". You simply need to "Enable disk usage" in the iPod Preferences (via iTunes).

Originally posted by mellingwhite
2) can I plug my ipod into any Mac and have it show up as an external hard drive even if the computer does not have Itunes? I also do not want to have to install any new software on the Mac.
Yes.

Originally posted by mellingwhite
3) Assuming both answers are "yes", can I then simply drag and drop individual songs onto the hard drive of the second computer?
No, not via iTunes. You'd need a third-party application to do that.

I'd also suggest reading these iPod 201 articles:
Copying music from iPod to computer (http://www.ipodlounge.com/articles_more.php?id=5090_0_8_0_M)
iPod Synchronization and Using your iPod as a Hard Drive (http://www.ipodlounge.com/articles_more.php?id=5029_0_8_0_M)

[mellingwhite]

Many thanks for your reply.

So in order to transfer my own music files that I have ripped from my own CDs to another computer, I have to install third party software on that second computer. Or, secondly, I have to transfer my music files onto my ipod in "hard disk mode" in which case I cannot listen to the files that I want to transfer. This seems mad, especially since I am not doing anything illegal. As a TV Producer, I pay a fee to both copy and use the music.

What happens if I simply connect to another PC and select the option in My Computer to view the "invisible" files on my ipod.

Can I not drag and drop then, without having to use third party software?

[aquatika]

Yes, you can do that. The down side is that the iPod breaks up all the music and puts it in different folders.

I can't recall how the folders are named but it's not logical, so you might end up with 10 songs (all from different albums) in a folder called 001 then another 12 songs (again from different albums) in a folder called 032 and so on. So while you can copy and paste the files, it means you have to hunt for the ones you want first.

[rhodri]

you could just send all the music files to one pc i know hotmail has a 10 meg attachment send so u coudl send a couple of songs at one time and them re download them onto your pc with i tunes