New 160GB iPod...

[sidewinder]

Just picked up the new I-Pod 160Gb Classic today and loading it full of Conns and Mosaics..

Had to track one down at an Apple store (strange buying experience - no cashpoints - just a load of roving sales bods with laptops and card readers. Total chaos ). Not quite yet on full distribution here in the UK. First impressions are very good indeed in terms of usability. In terms of sound, vinyl it aint..

Edited September 29, 2007 by sidewinder

[Guy Berger]

I got mine this week as well. Currently doing the tedious "move" of music from the 20 to the 160. Unfortunately my laptop only has about 2 gigs of free space so I am doing it in installments.

To enjoy all of this new space, I am re-encoding my music in 192. No clue if I'll be able to hear a difference on my $15 headphones...

Guy

[mjzee]

I got mine this week as well. Currently doing the tedious "move" of music from the 20 to the 160. Unfortunately my laptop only has about 2 gigs of free space so I am doing it in installments.

To enjoy all of this new space, I am re-encoding my music in 192. No clue if I'll be able to hear a difference on my $15 headphones...

Guy

Saw an interesting article in Maximum PC, where they performed a blind listening test comparing 128 to 256, using both the Apple earbuds and $400 headphones. The quality of the headphones mattered far more than the encoding rate.

[John L]

In fact, I don't think that is what they are doing, which would be something like misadvertisement. They simply mean that, of 160 GB, 149 are free for music or videos, and the rest of the capacity is being taken up by the operating system and other items.

(160 * 10^9) / 2^30 = 149.011611938

Please accept that.

I accept that just fine. What I don't accept is 160GB≠160GB

[vibes]

I got mine this week as well. Currently doing the tedious "move" of music from the 20 to the 160. Unfortunately my laptop only has about 2 gigs of free space so I am doing it in installments.

To enjoy all of this new space, I am re-encoding my music in 192. No clue if I'll be able to hear a difference on my $15 headphones...

Guy

You've gotta get some more storage. With portable external hard drives going for so little these days, I'd put that at the top of my list of things to buy. It sounds like you're going to have to delete your files from your computer as soon as you transfer them over to your iPod. That's going to become a lot of lost work if anything should happen to your iPod.

It took me over five hours to transfer ~125GB over to my iPod, and that was stuff that was already ripped/encoded. You're going to be busy for a long time!

[sidewinder]

Something tells me that with video also to be put on there, I'm going to use up "160" Gbytes without much trouble. Having said that, I can't seem to transfer the video stuff from dime so far..

Nice to have all of the Mosaic Selects readily accessible in one place.

I must admit that I-Tunes and the user-friendliness of the touch-wheel/display are big plusses so far. Apple have got that bit of engineering worked out real well.

Edited September 30, 2007 by sidewinder

[sidewinder]

Have now got this gizmo working in video mode, thanks to the Nero Recode MP-4 conversion. Two videos from dime (Miles Davis 1971 Berlin and 1973 Vienna) have come out really well. Next up for loading will be a couple of San Francisco Jazz Collective concerts.

[Uncle Skid]

In fact, I don't think that is what they are doing, which would be something like misadvertisement. They simply mean that, of 160 GB, 149 are free for music or videos, and the rest of the capacity is being taken up by the operating system and other items.

(160 * 10^9) / 2^30 = 149.011611938

Please accept that.

I accept that just fine. What I don't accept is 160GB≠160GB

Seagate to repay customers over inaccurate gigabyte definition:

...alleged that Seagate's use of the decimal definition of the storage capacity term "gigabyte" (GB) whereby 1GB equals 1 billion bytes, was misleading to consumers because computer operating systems instead report hard drive capacity using a binary definition of GB, whereby 1GB equals 1, 073, 741, 824 bytes -- a difference of approximately 7% from Seagate's figures.

[baptizum]

On gripe: I am currently living far away from home, and therefore rely 100% on iPods and iTunes for my music. I had generally tried to avoid buying music on iTunes because of copy protection, but still bit the bullet when I couldn't find the music elsewhere (for example, the Verve-Impulse iTunes only reissues).

My computer broke down and I bought another one. All of my iTunes files were backed up on external hard drives. So no problem... almost. When I tried to access my copy-protected iTunes files, it asked for a password to authorize my new computer to use them (keep in mind, you only get 5 chances to do this. After thant, the copy protected files will be locked away from you, even though you bought them!) But it turns out that you need to go through the iTunes Store to receive the authorization. Unfortunately, where I am living, I only have a dial-up internet connection at home that is not powerful enough to interact with the iTunes Store.

So I am stuck. I bought a bunch of music at the iTunes Store that I am now denied access to.

you realize you can avoid this by illegally ownloading?

[Aggie87]

On gripe: I am currently living far away from home, and therefore rely 100% on iPods and iTunes for my music. I had generally tried to avoid buying music on iTunes because of copy protection, but still bit the bullet when I couldn't find the music elsewhere (for example, the Verve-Impulse iTunes only reissues).

My computer broke down and I bought another one. All of my iTunes files were backed up on external hard drives. So no problem... almost. When I tried to access my copy-protected iTunes files, it asked for a password to authorize my new computer to use them (keep in mind, you only get 5 chances to do this. After thant, the copy protected files will be locked away from you, even though you bought them!) But it turns out that you need to go through the iTunes Store to receive the authorization. Unfortunately, where I am living, I only have a dial-up internet connection at home that is not powerful enough to interact with the iTunes Store.

So I am stuck. I bought a bunch of music at the iTunes Store that I am now denied access to.

you realize you can avoid this by illegally ownloading?

I hope you're joking, and not promoting illegal downloading.

[baptizum]

On gripe: I am currently living far away from home, and therefore rely 100% on iPods and iTunes for my music. I had generally tried to avoid buying music on iTunes because of copy protection, but still bit the bullet when I couldn't find the music elsewhere (for example, the Verve-Impulse iTunes only reissues).

My computer broke down and I bought another one. All of my iTunes files were backed up on external hard drives. So no problem... almost. When I tried to access my copy-protected iTunes files, it asked for a password to authorize my new computer to use them (keep in mind, you only get 5 chances to do this. After thant, the copy protected files will be locked away from you, even though you bought them!) But it turns out that you need to go through the iTunes Store to receive the authorization. Unfortunately, where I am living, I only have a dial-up internet connection at home that is not powerful enough to interact with the iTunes Store.

So I am stuck. I bought a bunch of music at the iTunes Store that I am now denied access to.

you realize you can avoid this by illegally ownloading?

I hope you're joking, and not promoting illegal downloading.

im not joking.

i find it to be the best marketing tool available to rising artists. i wouldnt own half the albums i do if i didnt preview them (omg illegally) first.

Edited November 4, 2007 by baptizum

[DukeCity]

you realize you can avoid this by illegally ownloading?

I hope you're joking, and not promoting illegal downloading.

im not joking.

i find it to be the best marketing tool available to rising artists. i wouldnt own half the albums i do if i didnt preview them (omg illegally) first.

Here we go...

[Templejazz]

Call it sad, but I've always been a couple years behind technology. I finally experienced a Playstation II when I graduated college in 2002, and I just recently learned what an iPod is all about. Picked up an iPod Nano and am having a ball loading crap onto it. Everything from tunes I want to learn, new Conns, all kinds of stuff. Still I wonder. How can something the size of a credit card carry 1.5 + DAYS of music.

Sorry, I've had a bit of wine tonight and I'm loose with the brain/thoughts/fingers.

[John L]

Those who want a 160 GB iPod better snatch it up fast. It appears to have been discontinued in favor of a 120 GB.

[Jim Alfredson]

I love my160gb! I still only have 25gb on it, however.

[sidewinder]

I love my160gb! I still only have 25gb on it, however.

I think I've put on even less than that - and that includes a bundle of Miles electric period videos.

[John L]

Well, I have a 520 GB iTunes library, and am living away from home and my CD/LP collection. So I was rooting for an even larger iPod.

[GregK]

Any idea if the price will come down? I doubt it will as it is being discontinued for a smaller hard drive version, but I'd really like to get one. My 30GB is just too limiting.

[Uncle Skid]

iPod classic refreshed, only comes in 120GB flavor now.

[WD45]

I was waiting for the new ipod line to be announced, as I am considering upgrading from my 1st generation 2gb Nano. I have to swap things out a couple of times each week, which is more trouble than it is worth.

Now I can't decide which to choose. I thought about the old 160, but I have had many people talk about the hard drive failing -- moving parts, and all that. I use mine a lot, at least 3-4 hours each day, so the flash memory of the Nanos is appealing.

I had considered the new Nano, maybe the 16 GB. The touch is cool, but maybe too big for what I am used to. Decisions...

[Soulstation1]

i still want one of those touch screen IPODS

[A Lark Ascending]

I went from a 20gb mp3 to an 80gb ipod in the summer.

The 20gb was rapidly filling up (thus the purchase of the new one).

The 80gb is less than 1/3 full and has so much music on it that I don't think I'll be needing anything bigger.

What a wonderful invention.

[kh1958]

Any idea if the price will come down? I doubt it will as it is being discontinued for a smaller hard drive version, but I'd really like to get one. My 30GB is just too limiting.

The 160 gb is still available on amazon, and the price has come down to $285.

[Jim R]

I got mine this week as well. Currently doing the tedious "move" of music from the 20 to the 160. Unfortunately my laptop only has about 2 gigs of free space so I am doing it in installments.

To enjoy all of this new space, I am re-encoding my music in 192. No clue if I'll be able to hear a difference on my $15 headphones...

Guy

Saw an interesting article in Maximum PC, where they performed a blind listening test comparing 128 to 256, using both the Apple earbuds and $400 headphones. The quality of the headphones mattered far more than the encoding rate.

At the risk of putting my tech ignorance on public display, I'm bringing this back up to see if I can get some feedback. I just did a little experiment myself, and the result seems to match up with the aforementioned Maximum PC test.

After nearly filling up my first iPod with downloads, curiosities, selected videos from Youtube, and music from a variety of genres other than jazz (generally everything BUT the music I love the most- all the classic jazz in my CD collection), I opted to buy another iPod and start ripping my jazz CD's so that I'll be more inclined to actually listen to them again. I know, I know. Everybody's got their own way of surviving in this cruel world. So anyway, with the price having dropped drastically since my original ipod purchase, I just bought another 160 GB model, and began pondering whether I can actually get most (all?) of my roughly 2600 CD's onto this thing. Apple's general guideline suggests 30,000 songs (4 min. per song; encoded at 128 kbps). Okay, so the first thing I realized is that I've never bothered to change the default (128 kbps mono, 256 kbps stereo) setting in iTunes. Oddly enough, one of the first CD's I've just experimented with ("Presenting Cannonball Adderley", on Savoy/Denon) is a mono recording, but iTunes is telling me that it was in fact encoded at 256 (and indicates "stereo") when used the 256 setting. Anyway, that's not what's puzzling me. I ripped "Kind Of Blue" three times, at 128, 256, and also in lossless. After ripping to iTunes, I synched all three versions to my new iPod. I listened carefully to all three in iTunes (using two different pairs of earbuds), and I literally could not detect any difference in sound quality- even playing the same tune in the 128 version followed immediately by the same tune in lossless. I tried the same experiment on the iPod, and the result was the same. The sound quality differs considerably in terms of comparing the earbud sound (and I already knew that), but comparing the three different bit rates on the same earbuds leaves me puzzled. Could there be some technical factor here that I'm overlooking?

At any rate, I'm not very picky about sound quality anyway, and I'm leaning toward going with 128 kbps and maximizing my storage space, but if there's something I'm overlooking here and I can figure out how to get improved sound via lossless, I might rip some discs at that higher quality rate. Btw, I understand that a pair of high quality headphones might make me see (hear) things differently, but I'm not sure about that option yet, for a variety of reasons which I'll set aside for now.

Interested in hearing about the experiences and points of view of some of our ipod veterans...

Thanks.

[Jim R]

I should add that when I ripped at 128 and at 256, I had selected the "AAC" encoder.

I just read this online discussion page, and most of it went right over my head...