Windows version of iTunes ? [Archive]

Shaun Stuart

10-18-2003, 11:02 AM

I know this is off topic but a lot of pocket pc users seem to be mp3 lovers so i thought I would post here.

Anyone using the new windows version of iTunes - I downloaded but can not purchase any music - i get the following message

"we could not complete your music store request. There is not enough memory available. There was an error in music store please try later"

any ideas why this is ?

Jonathan1

10-18-2003, 01:32 PM

I downloaded and installed iTunes Thursday when it came out. I've downloaded about 30 songs so far with no problems. I'm most likely not going to be going to far into ACC downloads because no one other then iTunes and Mac support this format. (Forget about playing the music on your PPC, thanks apple :roll: )

I'd recommend trying the old fallback of uninstalling, reboot, reinstalling the app. Its also possible that Apple's servers are getting the crap kicked out of them at least in terms of registration. I know that D/Ling is working fine. I just D/Led a new song about 10 minutes ago and its 7:30AM CST here.

On another side note I have to admit .99 is rather addicting and the added ability to stream the tracks to the other systems in my house is just down right cool. I truly believe it’s the best DRM system that has been released to date.

GoldKey

10-18-2003, 01:42 PM

Jonathan1

10-18-2003, 01:49 PM

(Forget about playing the music on your PPC, thanks apple :roll: )

Have not experimented with any of these pay per download services yet, but am very interested, but only if I can get plain old MP3's that I can put on any device. Is the only way to do this is to download songs, burn an audio CD, and then re-rip the songs?

As far as I know yes you have to burn, rip, repeat. You will not find any site that does simple MP3 downloads because its easily pirated.

Since the AAC format (Which is an MPEG standard go figure why it isn't being used more.) is DRMed you can't do a simple convert. So its a royal PITA for users who want to play it on anything other then their iPod. I've been arguing this point over and over and over at macrumors.com they just don't GET it. :( Broad support for all devices is necessary for any music store. I had held out some hope that iTunes would do AAC to WMA conversion. NOT.

Jonathan1

10-18-2003, 02:00 PM

Shaun

I've been doing a little digging. Do you have Norton Firewall? It appears there is a problem with this software, and possibly other firewall software?? , and iTunes.

Go to http://discussions.info.apple.com/

Click on iTunes ->> Click on iTunes for Windows. If I had to guess there is a port in there iTunes is using specifically for accessing the store not your typical port 80. Browsing the site it appears the details are still being worked out as to exactly what the problem is but if I had to guess its either a firewall on a router you have or on a computer because that appears the be the common denominator in all the instances on Apple's board.

Shaun Stuart

10-18-2003, 02:43 PM

Jonathan1

10-18-2003, 06:35 PM

Jonathan1

Thanks for the response - you were right it was norton that was causing the problem - I disabled it and the program works fine - Only problem that Apple do not make clear is...you cant buy the content outside the US.

I live in the UK and would like to get legal access to songs but it seems we are going to have to wait.

Surely this should be made clear before you download the program!

Ya. That is a problem. :? Last I heard iTMS won't be available for Europe until 1st-2nd quarter of next year. It sucks but I think it’s mainly due to the number of regional laws between the various countries as well as international laws governing copyrights. Hopefully Apple or someone else will get this worked out. I figure once someone irons out the legal issues it will open the floodgates for the other music stores to start peddling their wares. Heck Apple hasn’t even gotten iTMS available to Canada yet. Much to the dismay of many a Canadian. It’s a real mess right now.

ctmagnus

10-18-2003, 07:57 PM

Heck Apple hasn’t even gotten iTMS available to Canada yet. Much to the dismay of many a Canadian. It’s a real mess right now.

We do, however, have puretracks™ (http://www.puretracks.com). Haven't tried it yet, though.

Janak Parekh

10-18-2003, 08:23 PM

Since the AAC format (Which is an MPEG standard go figure why it isn't being used more.) is DRMed you can't do a simple convert. So its a royal PITA for users who want to play it on anything other then their iPod. I've been arguing this point over and over and over at macrumors.com they just don't GET it. :( Broad support for all devices is necessary for any music store. I had held out some hope that iTunes would do AAC to WMA conversion. NOT.
Well, Apple is pushing AAC because they can't stomach the idea of paying MS license fees for every piece of music sold and every iPod sold. They're doing fairly well, too -- the iPod is the most popular music player today, and Apple is hoping to attract new companies to the AAC platform, which may very well happen.

Too bad the music industry doesn't realize the value of a standard, free, fair-DRM-enabled music format -- they're letting the whole market splinter. I bought one album from iTunes, because it's only available as an import CD and would cost three times as much to get in a physical form, but for the foreseeable future I'll be buying (non-copy-protected) music CDs so I'm not locked into one format. That said, the iTunes setup is very, very slick. :)

--janak

Tom W.M.

10-19-2003, 03:21 AM

I've downloaded and installed it, and I have to say that iTunes is the best music organization app that I've ever used. Every other one I have tried pushed me away with a cluttered UI or unclear features, but iTunes makes doing what I want it to do very easy.

I haven't tried to purchase any tracks yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it. The DRM looks just about as fair as DRM can be when it exists at all.

The only real problem with the program is the speed of the UI. I'm not having the horrible problems this guy (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4841) had, but window resizing is noticeably sluggish (not that my PC is anything like fast).

Jonathan1

10-20-2003, 07:10 AM

The only real problem with the program is the speed of the UI. I'm not having the horrible problems this guy (http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=4841) had, but window resizing is noticeably sluggish (not that my PC is anything like fast).

I've spent quite a bit of time going over iTunes for Windows. The UI is quirky but tolerable. Apple recommends a 500Mhz CPU to use iTunes which is what I have on my Latitude. It runs fine and I'm willing to bet you could run it on a 300Mhz system but the its the UI where you need those extra MHz. (That and the obvious encoding process.) If you monitor the CPU usage when resizing a window you'll see that it eats up 80%-100% of your CPU. Before you start slamming Apple try the same with a, nonMicrosoft application. Try resizing it with the "Show content while dragging" option in windows on. You will also see that it eats up a high % of your CPU. Where things get really weird is if you simply click and hold the edge of the iTunes Window and just hold it there. You don’t even need to resize the Window for it to eat away at the CPU. Another weird thing I found is when you open iTunes, at least for me a 4 of my puters, it eats anywhere from 18MB to 32MB of RAM. Minimize the window and maximize it again and you will see that number drop to 7-8MB in size.
For some reason Apple's GUI is more CPU intensive then the other apps and I'm wondering if its because Apple may have tried to make all their code nondependent on the OS. (API's etc.) I'm not a code jockey so I don't know jack squat about coding but if I wanted to make sure any future updates MS made to their OS didn’t break my app I would make it as OS independent as possible. *shrugs* Maybe that’s what Apple did and its sacrificing some UI speed because of it. All I know is the UI resizing issue becomes less when you are dealing with a system with a 1.5GHz or higher CPU.
It’s still going to be my app of choice for my music jukebox but there is room for improvement. If nothing else Jobs quote of "Best software ever released on Windows was just a tad bit premature." :roll:

ChristopherTD

10-20-2003, 08:13 AM

Not quite PPC related, but I have an Apple iPod (one of the original 10GB models) and I have used it from the outset, under Windows, with a free program called ephPod that is very fast, and does just what you tell it, so you can manage the music on your iPod manually. This prevents unpleasant surprises when iTunes decides to remove a track from the iPod because it is no longer on your computer (a real pain for a friend with an ancient iBook with no disk space).

I loaded iTunes out of curiousity, it took 50 minutes to index the 13Gb of music on my disk, but fortunately it didn't decide to rename and move all the files (as another ephPod user discovered).

As others found, iTunes is heavy on system resources, and being a UK user I am unable to use it to buy music. I don't listen to music on my laptop, it is merely a repository for files that eventually find their way to my iPod, and I couldn't find any way in iTunes of making a playlist. This is probably me being excessively dim, but I couldn't figure it out.

So iTunes, while pretty, really didn't deliver anything for me that ephPod doesn't already do, and ephPod has a much smaller footprint. Maybe when they figure out a way for non-US folks to buy music, I might give it another go.

If you have a windows iPod, you might like to look at ephPod, which IMO beats MusicMatch and iTunes for simplicity and performance...

Janak Parekh

10-20-2003, 03:57 PM

Not quite PPC related, but I have an Apple iPod (one of the original 10GB models) and I have used it from the outset, under Windows, with a free program called ephPod that is very fast, and does just what you tell it, so you can manage the music on your iPod manually.
Yes, I've used ephpod since day 1 since I got my 30GB iPod. It is miles ahead of using MusicMatch Jukebox. That said, iTunes is much more convenient in that it has playback, download, ripping, and burning support. I used to use CDex + Quintessential Player + ephPod, but with iTunes I can combine all three with seamless iPod support. Considering I have CPU cycles and RAM to burn (a 2GHz/768MB at home and a 3GHz/1GB at work), iTunes runs great. :) I agree with Jonathan that they could probably optimize the UI codebase, though.

I won't be throwing out ephPod, though, for one reason: it allows you to copy music back from your iPod. iTunes doesn't, and I assume that was to placate the record companies, but it's an annoying limitation. I want two-way sync, darn it, so I can move music between home and work!

I don't listen to music on my laptop, it is merely a repository for files that eventually find their way to my iPod, and I couldn't find any way in iTunes of making a playlist. This is probably me being excessively dim, but I couldn't figure it out.
Just click the little plus button on the lower-left-hand corner... or File, New Playlist. Am I missing something?

--janak

dean_shan

10-20-2003, 06:59 PM

Winamp 2 forever! I'm not realy big into the library management systems. I do that my self with folders.

spursdude

10-21-2003, 12:56 AM

No WMA support... :(

Otherwise I really like it, but it's just useless to me without WMA support.

Right now I'm kinda stuck between Windows Media Player and QCD. On the one hand, WMP has a ton of media organization features, but it's really quite bloated. On the other hand, QCD is light, has great capabilities, but no media library.

Hopefully QCD will add in an iTunes-ish library.

Janak Parekh

10-21-2003, 03:50 AM

Winamp 2 forever! I'm not realy big into the library management systems. I do that my self with folders.
I have too, and have for years, but I have to admit iTunes is way slicker. ;)

No WMA support...
Yup, and you'll likely never see it. Apple is pushing a competing standard -- AAC. If you need WMA, stick with MusicMatch or WMP.

--janak

spursdude

10-21-2003, 04:22 AM

No WMA support...
Yup, and you'll likely never see it. Apple is pushing a competing standard -- AAC. If you need WMA, stick with MusicMatch or WMP.

--janak
Yeah, I pretty much figured considering it's Windows Media Audio... not exactly something Apple likes. QCD is serving me well with the Hotkeys, Transparency, and Resumer plug-ins and the MMD3 skin. :D

Janak Parekh

10-21-2003, 04:38 AM

Yeah, I pretty much figured considering it's Windows Media Audio... not exactly something Apple likes. QCD is serving me well with the Hotkeys, Transparency, and Resumer plug-ins and the MMD3 skin. :D
Aieee! Another MMD3 skin user! It's been at the tops of the charts for quite some time now. I think I'm the only one that finds that skin garish. :lol:

I still use QCD/CDex pretty heavily for Oggs that I have. Good stuff, especially the gapless (not crossfading) play.

--janak

ChristopherTD

10-21-2003, 09:47 AM

Just click the little plus button on the lower-left-hand corner... or File, New Playlist. Am I missing something?

No - it was me being dim, I discovered this later when I reinstalled iTunes to check something else out...

palmsolo

10-21-2003, 11:37 AM

I'm new to this online music thing and was wondering is there another service that creates a library of music on your desktop and allows you to purchase songs for 99 cents that is directly compatible with Pocket PC devices?

I saw something about a new Napster coming out. Will this service allow for direct MP3 downloads?

Bruno Figueiredo

10-21-2003, 02:41 PM

On a side note, for all of you interested in bypassing DRM for songs that you own and want to convert to mp3, there is Mp3 Audio Recorder that records anythings that is played on your speakerphones. I use it to record interviews from web radio. Works like a charm.

dean_shan

10-21-2003, 06:10 PM

spursdude

10-21-2003, 11:22 PM

Aieee! Another MMD3 skin user! It's been at the tops of the charts for quite some time now. I think I'm the only one that finds that skin garish. :lol:

I still use QCD/CDex pretty heavily for Oggs that I have. Good stuff, especially the gapless (not crossfading) play.

--janak
Using MMD3 on compact mode at the top of my screen with the transparency plug-in makes it pretty slick... not garish... :twisted:

I tried the gapless, but even at low settings, it still cuts out quiet beginnings of songs that I really don't want to miss. I like the cross-fading part a lot more.

Janak Parekh

10-21-2003, 11:27 PM

I tried the gapless, but even at low settings, it still cuts out quiet beginnings of songs that I really don't want to miss. I like the cross-fading part a lot more.
Hmm. I'm talking about, in the Crossfading DirectSound plugin, turning on Gap Removal but leaving the "Remove leading and trailing silence" (and, of course, crossfade) off. I use it with even soft classical music and it's perfect.

Of course, YMMV. :)

--janak

IntegraPrelude98

10-22-2003, 04:01 PM

Janak Parekh

10-22-2003, 04:05 PM

this may be a stupid question....I downloaded an album off itunes last night. It says the file are m4p files, is that the same as the MP4's I heard about a while back? If so is it possible to play them on my ppc? thanks
They are "protected" MP4 audio content, but are not playable on a Pocket PC, as there is no MP4/AAC player for Pocket PCs (at least so far). You can rip music for your Pocket PC using iTunes from CDs, but you can't use iTunes Music Store downloadable content on anything but an iPod right now.

--janak

IntegraPrelude98

10-22-2003, 04:20 PM

The one thing i found odd was that under the options for cd burning you can choose to burn the cd as an .mp3 format cd. Does it convert the files to mp3 for those cd players that can play mp3 cds??? Another quick question...is the mp4 the format where they can track how much it is played and everything that i heard so much about last year or so??? thanks for all the help :D

Janak Parekh

10-22-2003, 05:10 PM

The one thing i found odd was that under the options for cd burning you can choose to burn the cd as an .mp3 format cd. Does it convert the files to mp3 for those cd players that can play mp3 cds???
That's a good question. I don't know. You can certainly burn an audio CD in the worst-case and rerip it as MP3...

Another quick question...is the mp4 the format where they can track how much it is played and everything that i heard so much about last year or so??? thanks for all the help :D
No. It's so that it's protected against unlimited copying. Once you've "activated" a machine, you don't need to be connected to the Internet to play music.

--janak

Weyoun6

10-23-2003, 09:15 AM

Yah I'm using it too...

I think the interface is very "easy", but once you go beyond simple library manegment there isnt much there. The music store is very slick, as well as the music sharing system. But the whole time I am using it, I am always asking my self why is there such hoopla about this being the "greatest audio player ever". I mean it doesnt play anything other than mp3 or AAC, and there are not very many advanced features in it, and right now there are no plugins for it. It eats a ton of memory/cpu. I offten am getting choppy playback. Itunes Music store is nice, but I am dissapointed with the quality of the files. No matter what, 128kbs is not very good quality for me atleast. It sure isnt CD quality. over all, I'm just left with a feeling of "unhh"

I'm sorry - i just wanted to vent after getting slammed in forums by mac-natzis that think that if I dont like everything apple makes I must be either insane or a MS toady. I'm still on my search for a good all-in-one media player, havent found one yet. I'll return to my winamp/foobar/moodlogic combo for right now....

klinux

10-23-2003, 05:50 PM

Janak Parekh

10-23-2003, 08:38 PM

I think the interface is very "easy", but once you go beyond simple library manegment there isnt much there. The music store is very slick, as well as the music sharing system. But the whole time I am using it, I am always asking my self why is there such hoopla about this being the "greatest audio player ever".
If you go into Library, and hit the Browse button, and use that for a while, you'll get rapidly addicted to the three-pane UI. I was very blase about it too, but I noticed the three-pane browsing interface was not on by default.

I offten am getting choppy playback. Itunes Music store is nice, but I am dissapointed with the quality of the files. No matter what, 128kbs is not very good quality for me atleast. It sure isnt CD quality. over all, I'm just left with a feeling of "unhh"
Choppy playback may, of course, be symptom of another problem -- I'm not experiencing that on my 2GHz and 3GHz machines. However, iTunes is definitely memory hungry and is not for older machines. I'm reasonably happy with the quality of the tracks I bought, but it really depends on the genre of music.

I'm sorry - i just wanted to vent after getting slammed in forums by mac-natzis that think that if I dont like everything apple makes I must be either insane or a MS toady. I'm still on my search for a good all-in-one media player, havent found one yet. I'll return to my winamp/foobar/moodlogic combo for right now....
Don't be - you're not obligated to use iTunes. At least, not here. iTunes isn't a panacea, unless you carry an iPod. And that, of course, is Apple's point. :lol: I still use Quintessential Player as an Ogg player in my office...

--janak

Jonathan1

10-23-2003, 08:44 PM

http://www.digitalnetworks.philips.com/InformationCenter/Global/FArticleSummary.asp?lNodeId=764&channel=764&channelId=N764A2175

This is a program from Philips that should playback AAC and MPEG-4 video files on PPC. However, you will have to rename your .m4a files to .mp4 in order to make it work. I have not tried it so I cannot tell you whether it would playback purchased iTunes songs. Someone want to try it out?

I have an iPod (and a Mac) so I don't use my PPC much anymore for music.

Hmm while this software would probably run AAc files since files from iTunes are DRMed you couldn't simply drag and drop them. Apple would have to support the PPC and knowing Apple they won't be doing that anytime soon :(

Janak Parekh

10-23-2003, 08:46 PM

Hmm while this software would probably run AAc files since files from iTunes are DRMed you couldn't simply drag and drop them.
Not from within iTunes, but you can certainly copy M4P files around in a filesystem. The DRM in iTunes is fairly weak -- it doesn't go anywhere near the hoops WMA lets you go through. I've copied my M4P files between my three "activated" computers without any problems.

--janak

Jonathan1

10-23-2003, 08:51 PM

I'm sorry - i just wanted to vent after getting slammed in forums by mac-natzis that think that if I dont like everything apple makes I must be either insane or a MS toady. I'm still on my search for a good all-in-one media player, havent found one yet. I'll return to my winamp/foobar/moodlogic combo for right now....

Welcome to my world. :lol: I've been considering getting a PowerBook since this summer, I'm in a holding pattern until a G5 shows up, and have been browsing the various Mac boards. I get slammed for being a PC zealot there. But I have no love lost for MS so I get slammed when I support Macs on Windows boards. Ya ya I know..... :boohoo: Can't we all just get along? :hippy: To be fair I've found www.macrumors.com to be amazingly level handed when it comes to Windows and PC's with your occasional zealot hanging out. :razzing:

klinux

10-23-2003, 11:50 PM

klinux

10-23-2003, 11:57 PM

Welcome to my world. :lol: I've been considering getting a PowerBook since this summer, I'm in a holding pattern until a G5 shows up, and have been browsing the various Mac boards. I get slammed for being a PC zealot there. But I have no love lost for MS so I get slammed when I support Macs on Windows boards. Ya ya I know..... :boohoo: Can't we all just get along? :hippy: To be fair I've found www.macrumors.com to be amazingly level handed when it comes to Windows and PC's with your occasional zealot hanging out. :razzing:

Man, don't I know. The zealotry of Mac users is legendary. The bad thing is that neither field really knows too much about the other and make stupid uninformed comments defending their platform of choice.

Being a dual platformer works for me. Join the ranks of us! 0X

Janak Parekh

10-24-2003, 02:19 AM

I don't about iTunes being all that memory hungry or slow. It runs fine on my 700 Mhz iBook (384 MB RAM) fine and I rip things to 192kbps AAC. It also seems to run fine on my VIA 900 mhz (notoriously slow - more like Celeron 600) 512MB machine fine too. The caveat is I haven't really used iTunes all that much on PC. Why when you can do it on a Mac? :)
In my experience, it eats ~ 30MB when in use on a PC, plus it uses a few processes in the background to handle things like CD burning. I think it has its own webbrowser built in, among other things. It's also a little sluggish, which might be an artifact of porting the hybrid brushed metal/Aqua look. Again, not an issue on my machines, but I could see it being a problem on older one.

I seem to have read somewhere that the DRM for .m4a is within QT not within the actual song as older version of QT seemed to be able to playback the purchased content. In any case, IMHO, I thought the DRM on iTunes songs are fair. The problem is not that it is DRMed so that it is difficult to playback on a portable device (you can play the song on unlimited # of iPod) - it is just that there is not a player yet!
Yes - overall, I have the least # of problems with iTMS's DRM, so I use it. I think there is SOME DRM information within the song, but it may be easily playable if someone learns how to "skip" it. I have a suspicion this will happen sooner rather than later, and the ramifications are going to be interesting.

--janak

ChristopherTD

10-24-2003, 10:12 AM

Apple have released 4.1.1 of iTunes that fixes a few problems, including iPod support (it now spreads the files evenly across the iPod file structure which avoids song "skipping").

I think there are a few performance enhancements as well.

I have installed the update and am trying to like it!

I have now discovered that existing playlists can be "imported" using File/Import, so I think that covers all bases for me.

DrtyBlvd

10-24-2003, 02:00 PM

I like it because it's simple

Musicmatch/WinAmp just didn't work for me - for whatever reason, I couldn't take to them; WMP is OK I guess, and works fine; RM is never getting anywhere near any PC I ever own - I have a really really unbalanced dislike for it :devilboy: but iTunes? ;

iTunes? I'm in love - Plug the 'pod in and away I go. I even like the minimised desktop version - for the first time ever I have one that is open on the desktop all the time - My sound card hasn't worked this hard since I got it.

Simple, easy and straight forward.

Sometimes, just sometimes, that counts for a lot! The challenge of working out how stuff operates is fun, but I need a 'comfy old sweater' every now and then - iTunes fits that bill, so far, perfectly. One specific I LOVE is the ability to have the iPod as a separate window to the iTunes listing; full view drag and drop.

Colour me a happy camper;)

(And, no doubt, when (if) we get the £0.99p downloads, a broke camper) :lol:

Janak Parekh

10-24-2003, 03:37 PM

Apple have released 4.1.1 of iTunes that fixes a few problems, including iPod support (it now spreads the files evenly across the iPod file structure which avoids song "skipping").
Whoa. Wait a second -- are you sure it didn't do that before? 8O One would think that it would spread files, as ephPod has been doing that for years and that the iPod's directory structure already has F00 through F19...

--janak

ChristopherTD

10-24-2003, 03:52 PM

Whoa. Wait a second -- are you sure it didn't do that before? 8O One would think that it would spread files, as ephPod has been doing that for years and that the iPod's directory structure already has F00 through F19...

--janak

That is what it should have done, but the first release didn't!

Janak Parekh

10-24-2003, 03:54 PM

That is what it should have done, but the first release didn't!
Indeed. I just installed 4.1.1 and the "spread" is much better now. You'd think they'd have gotten this straight by the 4th generation of iTunes.

Another interesting difference from ephPod is that it uses the actual filenames, as opposed to ephPod which uses a unique short name...

--janak

ChristopherTD

10-24-2003, 04:06 PM

[quote=ChristopherTD]Another interesting difference from ephPod is that it uses the actual filenames, as opposed to ephPod which uses a unique short name...

--janak

Indeed, also iTunes 4.1.1 seems happier with my ID3 Tags (from EAC/Lame) and I feel almost ready to try using iTunes to "rebuild" my iPod. First I guess I need to remove all the ephPod copied content and then sync a playlist or two from iTunes. I hope by default that iTunes doesn't decide to auto-sync as I have only a small 10GB 1st gen iPod and 16GB of music and books.

Janak Parekh

10-24-2003, 04:07 PM

I hope by default that iTunes doesn't decide to auto-sync as I have only a small 10GB 1st gen iPod and 16GB of music and books.
Well, you can change the settings pretty easily in iTunes. I'm going to do a rebuild, but only after I rerip everything into AAC.

--janak

ChristopherTD

10-24-2003, 08:41 PM

OK I have taken the plunge, and it was pretty painless.

By default auto-sync is turned off. I turned on partial sync using marked playlists and this works as expected.

For me the biggest advantage over ephPod is that I can work with iTunes when the iPod is disconnected. I don't connect that often, and being able to fiddle about with playlists separately is great. The kids are busy making their own selections now.