iTunes Match experience thus far

[kornchild2002]

Something positive actually happened today. I had disabled iTunes Match while I was straightening out my library. I essentially deleted every iTunes Match file for content that I had a lossless source of. That way I wouldn't have to worry about listening to edited songs again. I then re-encoded my lossless files to my old 192kbps VBR standard and enabled iTunes Match. It was smart enough now that it didn't duplicate my files. Before, I would have a 12 song album. Each song would be repeated once so that I would have one lossy and one lossless version. Before, iTunes Match would either match or upload both versions of each song making that 12 song album now take-up 24 songs on my iTunes Match account. Not anymore, iTunes Match ignored the duplicated songs.

It was still a little buggy as it would sometimes match/upload the ALAC version of the song or the lossy edition. It wouldn't always choose one or the other. Still, that is a huge improvement over what I had been previously experiencing.

[WhoWantsATaco]

What about, um, unofficial live recordings? How does Match handle those? Does it just upload them as you've tagged them.

[ScoobZ]

Originally Posted by WhoWantsATaco

What about, um, unofficial live recordings? How does Match handle those? Does it just upload them as you've tagged them.

Yes. Anything not in the iTunes store gets uploaded.

[kornchild2002]

There are some things not in the iTunes Store that are matched as well. Both Back in Black and Who Made Who by AC/DC were matched yet they aren't in the iTunes Store.

Either way, you are right about unofficial live recordings. iTunes Match will simply upload them with the tag specifications that you have entered. I have recorded a few songs (myself) throughout high school, college, and grad school. I have about 20 songs in total and iTunes Match uploaded those. So, somewhere on Apple's servers, my music exists.

[decafjava]

So any updates on itunes match? Has anyone else among the regulars here given it a try? I have read elsewhere smart playlists are still not working correctly. That was the main reason I am avoiding it so far.

[kornchild2002]

Nothing has changed for me with iTunes Match. Some things have gotten better. For example, songs that were previously uploaded are now matched. However, the whole experience is sub-par. Apple still hasn't fixed the issue with corrupted songs despite me e-mailing them extensive information about each song multiple times. I have 7 matched songs that are corrupt. I e-mailed Apple, they asked for all of my information along with info regarding the songs, and never got back to me. I responded to the same e-mail and they asked the same questions. I sent all of the info again and they never got back to me. Rinse and repeat about 3 more times before I gave up.

This isn't the first time I have had issues with corrupt material on the iTunes Store and the person on the other end (likely in a call center in a country that will not be named) not understanding. There was one time when I downloaded an album from the iTunes Store (it was during the first week when they offered 256kbps DRM-free albums back in ~2006). It was only an 11 song album and 4 of the tracks were bad. They had strange audible blips in them. I e-mailed Apple, the person didn't understand. I responded telling them to listen to each song at certain time points, they still didn't understand. They let me re-download the album 10 times (you previously couldn't do this), that didn't fix the issue, and they still didn't understand. Finally my e-mail was forwarded to someone in the states (or a higher up manager) before my album purchase was refunded along with Apple fixing the problematic tracks and letting me re-download them one more time. It took 3 months for all of that to happen.

So I am not going to hold my breath for Apple to fix their current issues with corrupted songs through iTunes Match. Performance does seem to be a little faster now but there are still problems, some of which I have encountered since day one and aren't fixed. One issue that annoys the Hell out of me is that new releases aren't always in the iTunes Match database right away. For example, I can get up and go purchase a new CD on Tuesday (the typical release day for new music). I get home, rip the CD, and iTunes Match is uploading the files despite the album being in the iTunes Store (and has been in there for 10-11 hours). However, later that afternoon, I can remove the album from my iCloud account, add the songs again to iTunes Match, and they will be matched.

Apple did manage to fix the duplicate issue I was encountering where both the lossy and lossless versions of songs were being counted twice (taking me way over the 25,000 song limit). Now each song, so long as it comes from the same album and artist, is only counted once.

[Randy_M]

Well, just upgraded to iOS 5.1 and iTunes 10.6, and the iTunes Match problem of not updating Last Played and Playcounts is NOT fixed.

Seems like a missed opportunity to me.

[ScoobZ]

Anyone still using Match? I signed into the iTunes store this weekend for the first time in three months. iTunes Match did it's thing, which I thought would be fine, as it hadn't in a long time. Much to my chagrin when it was done I found playlists that I had long ago deleted returned, the contents of many non-smart playlists had changed, the play count and last played date for many, many songs was changed (sucks for time based smart lists).

Of course I had a fresh backup of my .itl file and was able to revert just fine but I'm curious as to why it happened. I found this site that describes some of what happened to me and what purports to be a "fix" but I'm not anxious to try it out just yet.

How to reset iTunes Match (without losing metadata or playlists) (Wired UK)

Thoughts?

[kornchild2002]

I'm still subscribed to iTunes Match and will probably renew when it comes time. $25 a year isn't bad and allows me to swap out files for higher quality versions. Plus I kind of like the idea of being able to access my music anywhere I have the internet and may end up switching my iPhone over to iCloud syncing. I'm still thinking that part over especially since I am now on a limited ~2GB a month plan (splitting a 4GB a month plan with someone else).

There are still some bugs which confuse me to no end. For example, I can take an mp3 album and add it to iCloud. It will upload every single song except for one that will be matched (I want them all to be matched). All of the songs are of the correct length and have the appropriate track tag info but they are still uploaded. I can convert those songs to Apple lossless from within iTunes and add the newer files to iCloud. They are all matched. The performance isn't nearly as wonky as when Apple first started doing it but things could be better. I am still coming across problems where I match a track with curse words and the iTunes Store version that is downloaded turns out to be edited.

I haven't encountered your problem simply because iTunes Match connects to Apple's servers everyday for me. Any changes that I make in my iTunes library today will be uploaded the next time I start iTunes or tomorrow morning.

[ScoobZ]

iTunes Match connects to Apple's servers everyday for me.

Are you the only Apple ID on that computer? We have a few accounts and only mine does the Matching. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Anyway, yeah, I'll probably renew for another year because I do like the higher quality conversion capability. I still have about 7,000 songs I'd eventually like to upgrade. I just have to be careful how I manage it so my lists don't get fouled up.

Still haven't tried that "fix" I posted above. I may give it a whirl over the Christmas holiday when I have some time.

[kornchild2002]

Yep, I'm the only Apple ID on my computer and the only user on my computer as well. iTunes Match still goes online every single time I start up iTunes again (or even wake my computer).

[ScoobZ]

Originally Posted by kornchild2002

Both Back in Black and Who Made Who by AC/DC were matched yet they aren't in the iTunes Store.

They are now!

AC/DC Now on iTunes - Businessweek

w00t!