We > Me: Joe Morel's Blog : Windows Media Player

Fixing the Zune in Five Steps?

joemorel — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:46:41 GMT

As you probably know if you follow this blog regularly, I'm a big digital music fan that's been trying to move from iTunes to a Microsoft-based platform for over a year. I bought a Zune right after the Zune's release in November, and I've generally been happy with it.

Today Engadget posted a short piece on five things that would improve the Zune against the iPod. I agree with some of the points in the article, like releasing firmware that fixes the DRM-skipping problem and adding podcasting support, but don't think that the list really does much to help differentiate the Zune from its competitor(s). Here's five things I'd love to see with the Zune (or future Zunes) that would help me recommend it over an iPod to a friend:

Make My Zune Flash-Based and Nano-Sized - Let's face it, very few people really listen to all 30 gigs of music they have. In fact, it's impossible to listen to all of the songs in one day. I remember reading somewhere that the average music collection on an iPod is around 1,000 songs--or about 4 gigs. Apple realized it with the Mini and the Nano--smaller is better. And videos? Really? Do most people really care?
Dump the WiFi...give me Bluetooth - WiFi is a PIA on mobile devices. The only mobile device I've used with great WiFi support is the Nintendo DS, and that's because they have a great input device. Why do I really want to share music with other people on the bus? I really don't want to listen to what the creepy guy that's muttering to himself is listening to. What I would like is wireless headphones and wireless syncing to my computer. Bluetooth 2.0 can give me this. And...wait...you could use Bluetooth to send songs to each other as well.
Push the Subscription Music! - I love subscription music. For $14.99/month, I can listen to over a million songs. I can listen to the new Shins album without buying it or waiting for a radio DJ to select tracks off of it to force feed me. I can listen to that old Steve Winwood song "Valerie" without having to actually spend $0.99 to own it. I can listen to playlists of stuff that I might not like to see if I do. We recently used the Zune client at a birthday party. It was amazing--you could literally cue up everyone's favorite songs. Why we are marketing people squirting songs to each other while they are snowboarding instead of showing them how the Zune offers a seamless subscription experience is beyond me.
Let's Define "Social" Before We Join It - The WiFi sharing is social. Even here in Redmond though, there just aren't enough people to squirt music to. What's truly social though is the Internet. Why not allow people to upload their playlists and ratings to a central "ZuneCenter"? A new, smarter Zune client software could compare your playlists and ratings against thousands of other people, and recommend a playlist. If you have a Zune Pass, this playlist can contain songs you've never even thought about downloading. Every day, a new music experience is synced to your Zune, waiting for you to try music that people like you have implicitly recommended. Now that's social. Maybe you start flagging songs in this playlist. The software might recognize that the songs you are flagging are all from a few discrete people. You can use the Zune software to browse their collections...wow there's a lot of potential here...
SDK - Yes, yes, I know. Microsoft wants to keep the Zune ecosystem "pure". Let's face it though...the Zune software is missing some major pieces that I should be able to download plugins for. Providing an SDK for people to programmatically manipulate the library, create playlists, download songs from the Zune Marketplace, and generally extend the software would enhance the Zune experience much more than it would detract from it. You can't use the iTunes/iPod closed-system example here--iTunes has had an SDK for a long time that have enabled very cool plugins.

What feature do you think the Zune should add to become more competitive, or is Engadget right on?

Moving iTunes Library to Windows Media Player – The Final Word

joemorel — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:34:00 GMT

I've gotten lots and lots of questions about my previous couple of posts about how to move your music library from Apple's iTunes to Windows Media Player over the past couple of months. Jerry Leynes of Jacksonville, Florida has cleaned up and augmented my posts along with a few others to create a definitive guide to getting your library moved over, along with clarifying text that I was missing. Jerry's text below is about how to move the music all the way from iTunes to the miniSD card for his Sprint Pocket PC, but the instructions should work for any Windows Media Player compatible MP3 player (including Creative Zen, iRiver MP3 players, Toshiba Gigabeats, etc.) Thanks to Jerry for the well-written and very useful post!

In Jerry's words (please note this is not for songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store!):

Converting iTunes music files to MP3 format, transferring these to Windows Media Player 11 using MusicBridge freeware, Synching these into Sprint's PPC-6700 Pocket PC

I have just finished a three hour process of doing this and am now listening to my former iTunes music listings for iPod on my Pocket PC, so I know the process works:

Download and Install MusicBridge (Freeware): http://www.download.com/MusicBridge/3000-2141_4-10530688.html?tag=lst-0-1

1. Open up iTunes.

2. Click on Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Importing .

3. Change your "Import Using" drop-down to "MP3 Encoder".

4. Exit from your preferences and go to the main library view in iTunes. You may want to sort all of your music by "File Type".

5. Highlight all of your unprotected AAC files. (You can not convert or play songs you purchased from the iTunes Music Store because of a lock Apple is forced to put on the files called "FairPlay".)

6. Right-click, and select "Convert Selection to MP3".

7. It'll take awhile…be patient.

When all the files have converted to MP3 format: Close iTunes.

Music Bridge does not actually add songs to your Windows Media Player (WMP) library…it only synchs the metadata about those songs (song names, ratings, playlists, etc.) Before you use MB you need to actually add the song files from iTunes to your WMA Library. Following instructions are for WMP 11, but may work for WMP 10.

Open WMP.
Hit F3.
You get an "add to library" drop down box with a list of folders that WMP is monitoring for new media files. If you don't see this list, click on "advanced Options" then click on ADD Navigate to the root folder holding your iTunes music files. This path will ususally be c:\My Documents\My music\itunes\itunes music.
Click OK. WMP will scan the folder and all its subfolders and add those music files to your library. Any AAC files and music purchased from the iTunes Music Store will be skipped.
When the import is finished exit WMP and open Music Bridge From the "Synch from iTunes" box chose "All Data" confirm this when asked: Do you really want to….."
Watch and wait as your data is synced.
When this is done open WMP and check to see that the files are indeed there.
Next connect your PPC to its sync cradle and start the sync program (for MP3 players, just connect your MP3 player to the PC and turn it on.) It will look for the new files and load them onto your miniSD storage card (you must have this to load music files on because there is not enough internal memory in the PPC to hold the files. Strongly recommend the 2GB miniSD card. You must set up a sync relationship between WMP and your miniSD memory card. Just follow the instructions on your PPC to do this…its easy When the sync is completed open Windows Media on the PPC and touch "menu".
Select: Library and hit menu again, select "Update Library"
All your music files will be transferred onto the "Storage Card" in your PPC.
To play music, now open WM in the PPC, go to Library, select Storage Card, select the album or artist or genre you want to play and hit play.
It works!

Note: Since I've written this, I've left Microsoft. If you'd like to contact me directly with questions about this, please feel free to visit my website at http://whostheboss.net.

Moving from iTunes to Windows Media Player, Part II

joemorel — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 04:31:12 GMT

About six months ago I tried as best as I could to document my experiences moving from iTunes to Windows Media Player, and my attempts to preserve as much metadata as I possibly could during the move. I was really the most concerned with my song ratings, which are central to my listening experience, but also tried to demonstrate how to move playlists and libraries over. I didn't think that my little blog entry was going to be read by that many people, but apparently I was wrong—it gained a little bit of Google-juice and I was off to the races. I now get a few mails from people a week trying to get their libraries moved over from iTunes to Windows Media Player, and now that we are quickly approaching Christmas, nervous parents have been contacting me more than ever trying to get their kid's new MP3 player stocked with music before Christmas morning.

There are a couple key things that people are having trouble with, and they all revolve around music file formats. In an ideal world, all music files would work on all devices. We all know that we don't live in an ideal world. Apple (and Microsoft) would like you to use their more locked-in formats to keep you from easily moving from device to device. Apple uses a format called AAC and Microsoft uses WMA. As expected, iTunes won't play WMAs and Windows Media Player doesn't play AACs. This makes migrating a bit of a pain.

The key is that MP3s are the lowest common denominator—both programs play MP3s without a hitch. The key is to get iTunes to convert your AAC files to MP3s. Here's how to do this:

Open up iTunes.
Open your iTunes preferences (EditàPreferences) and go to the "Importing" tab.
Change your "Import Using" drop-down to "MP3 Encoder".
Exit from your preferences and go to the main library view in iTunes. You're going to want to sort all of your music by "File Type".
Highlight all of your unprotected AAC files. (You can not convert or play songs you purchased from the iTunes Music Store because of a lock Apple is forced to put on the files called "FairPlay". Ironic, huh? Please do not email me to ask for ways around this restriction—it's currently illegal to )
Right-click, and select "Convert Selection to MP3".
It'll take awhile…be patient.

Voila! You should now have MP3 copies of all of the music you ripped from CDs to your library. Please note that this technique does lose quality, so if you're an audiophile, you're going to want to use the good ole fashioned "rip from CD" method directly from Windows Media Player first. Just remember to tell Windows Media Player to rip to MP3—don't get stuck in this mudhole again! J

Zune from the POV of a Gadget Junkie

joemorel — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:55:00 GMT

Anybody who's ever been over my house knew that this was going to happen, and it wasn't going to take long. Given that I have a week here of laid-back-ness here in my hometown of Medina, Ohio, it seemed like a perfect time to graduate to joining the hoard of other Microsofties that have been reviewing the Zune. I purchased a black Zune at my local Office Max right before I left town. The first thing that was interesting is that although the employees there knew that they had Zunes in stock, they couldn't really explain to me why I would want one. I explained that I was a Microsoftie, and then chatted with the salesperson in the store for a few minutes, trying to outline the key reasons why somebody would want to buy a Zune over an iPod (in my words: bigger screen, subscription music, wireless beaming of songs, and a commitment from the team to continue to add new cool things to the player.) He then asked why this wasn't on the homepage of http://www.zune.net, and how all he saw when he was there was a bunch of indie bands and not much on what they were trying to sell. I agreed, and mentioned how I had to go to Engadget to figure out that his store was even selling Zunes. Hey, marketing--I know we want to sell "cool"--but we are also trying to sell 30 GB MP3 players with wireless on them. Some people might want to know where to buy them... :)

Anyways, I think you've seen plenty of articles about the player itself, so I'm not going to get into it. I love the interface, and the screen is a pleasure to use. I haven't beamed any songs (surprise, surprise), but I'm loving having album art taking up the whole screen and having a *very* responsive UI (the Gigabeat was prone to little 3 second freezes.) My major qualm right now is that the album art is all fuzzy and ugly--it's downloading and upscaling a 200x200 image in a 240x240 space, and it's not a pretty result. Hopefully we'll see this fixed with a software update in the next month or so.

What I want to concentrate on is the client-side, desktop Zune software. It's very obviously a skinned version of Windows Media Player 11, but it feels much more responsive. When I click the Zune icon on my desktop, the Zune app shoots up in a couple of seconds. Windows Media Player was notorious for making me wait 15-20 seconds on my Core Duo iMac (inside of Windows XP), so this was a welcome change. The software works as advertised, supporting "Auto-Playlists", rating, and album art surfing. Sweet! The real beauty in the software is that this is the first time I've used a subscription service and had it work 100% reliably, out-of-the-box, with my player. Maybe this whole closed-ecosystem thing isn't so bad after all. I signed up for my two-week Zune pass trial, and downloaded a bunch of playlists from the Zune marketplace. Damn, this was awesome. Hey--here's a custom "Ella Fitzgerald" playlist...click "Download", and voila--it's in my library, as a playlist. Done. End of story. The next time I plug in my Zune, that playlist is sitting there waiting for me. Wow. If you've never experienced this all-you-can-eat style of listening to music, you really ought to try it. It's like being given the keys to a Virgin Megastore (yea, it's still missing some more obscure indie stuff), and being told--the CDs are all yours--have fun! For $15 a month, this is a no-brainer.

After playing with the store and the player, I still echo Josh's comments--the "Welcome to the Social" Zune, should, well, have more social features that even iTunes supports. The most obvious one is that we need a way for users to upload their own playlists, collaboratively weight them, and have the ability to subscribe to RSS-style feeds of your "music network" playlists. Maybe I want to be kept up-to-date on what Sara is listening to down the hall. I want that feature. Maybe I want to find Joe Morel number 2, somebody on the other side of the world that just happens to like the same stuff as me--I want to know when he finds a new album he thinks is sweet. Coupled with a $15 Zune Pass, these features are super-compelling, and in my opinion, more social than beaming a song at a time to other users on the bus.

Another social feature that would be great is the ability to add commentary to songs inside of the Zune Marketplace. When I'm listening to a song, one of my "Now Playing" views, instead of trippy visualizations (does anybody use those?) would be the ability to view reviews and commentary that other Zune users have uploaded about the songs, like blog comments or a forum thread. You could then post yourself, and be further drawn into the community of Zune users. (For example, Jeremy makes a very insightful post about the newest Ben Folds album that I really identify with. I then click on Jeremy's name, and can browse his playlists, and, boom--I've found a new music influencer.)

The possibilities of these features are really limitless, and I truly believe that the Zune is the first device that's truly going to allow this to happen, given the fact that it's the first player to have a reliable subscription service attached to it. So, to the Zune team--I'm assuming we can expect all of these community features implemented by Christmas, right? :) Maybe you could call Santa and see if any elves are any good at C++...

Zune Questions Answered (For Josh…)

joemorel — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:25:00 GMT

Josh just posted a bunch of questions on his blog about the Zune. I don't have all of the answers, but he should have known that I was going to jump all over his post. Here you go, boss:

About Windows Media Center Integration

Q: Can Zune Marketplace purchased songs be streamed through media center extenders? What about songs from the subscription service?

A: Jeremy and I tested playing a DRMed Zune file in Windows Media Player today. It worked. That means that Zune files should play just fine through Media Center--you just need to setup WMP to monitor your Zune folders. I haven't tested this yet, but I'm confident that it will work (I've been able to play DRMed files on my extender as long as I have recent licenses for them.) Just a bit of advice though—Xbox 360 supports all media sharing now, and supports the Zune software out of the box. It's not as pretty of an interface, but you'll be better off using the Xbox 360 interface rather than the Media Center Extender.

Q: Does the Zune automatically sync with Media Center video and TV recorded content?

A: The short answer is no. You can set the Zune software to monitor folders for new video content though, so if you use a program to automatically transcode your DVR-MS files into WMV files, just tell the Zune to monitor the output folder, and voila—you have recorded TV on your device. (By the way, if you've never tried this before, you should know that transcoding an MPEG to WMV takes about one minute for one minute of video on a mid-range Pentium 4. Don't expect to do a "quick sync" right before you walk out the door if you want to watch last night's Daily Show on the bus…)

Q: Does the Zune download and properly place Album art for your music libraries (already ripped) so that you can have good album art in Media Center?

A: Kinda. It uses the same stuff that WMP11 uses, which means that the album art stuff is spotty. It will probably scoop the art for about 65-70% of your albums. If you ripped the CD and used CDDB, the likelihood goes up. If you downloaded it from a "friend", it's highly likely that it won't work (the ID3 tag has to be correct.)

Random

Q: How has importing libraries and playlists form iTunes worked for you?

A: Gizmodo reports that the iTunes library synced over great, along with song ratings. Not sure about playlists, although if you have problems, it'll be with Smart Playlists, not standard ones.

Q: Can you use windows media connect or the zune software to stream music between multiple computers in the house?

A: The Zune software only supports sharing to an Xbox 360. Lame. Once again, if you

Q: Do you think the Zune.net site itself should actually be more… social? I was surprised that it didn't duplicate the forums and social networking services ala xbox.com. They could have had playlist sharing, Zunetag pics ala gamertag pics that show the last few bands I've played, etc. I can dream right?

A: The website is bad. Not only does it not have any community features (or good support features), but doesn't even help you find where to buy a Zune. Lame. What's really lame is the inability to create and share playlists from within the Zune software (iTunes has it) or the ability to store your "library" of Zune Pass songs online. That's a killer feature of other subscription services, such as Napster, Rhapsody, or Yahoo Music (URGE doesn't have it either…)

Q: How do you like yours so far?

A: I don't have one yet, I have a Gigabeat S, which is what the Zune was based on. I've been going back and forth about buying a Zune. If I do, it will be for the following reasons:

Zune Marketplace is the best subscription service I've seen performance-wise. It's fast, and using a Zune, I can actually be confident that the thing will work (unlike Napster and Yahoo Music, which are buggy beyond belief.)
The screen is beautiful. It's big, and that's great.
It's durable and light. I think it's a tad too big, but it isn't going to scratch like my whimpy iPod. Honestly, I should never have to buy a plastic case for a plastic device. Apple—the iPod's pretty, but a road warrior it is not.
The platform is only going to get better. Microsoft might not have everything correct right now, but I've seen the speeches, and we're determined to be the best in this market. The device has features (such as the WiFi) that aren't really important right now, but could really make the thing compelling in coming months. The software is only going to get better, and I believe that the integration between Windows, my Xbox 360, and my Zune is going to be great. (It's the officeàportableàliving room trifecta that I've been dreaming about for years, slowly morphing into reality…)

Oh, and Josh. If you want to, I'd be more than happy to spend your money to buy a Zune and better flesh out this blog entry… J

Windows Media Player 11 Beta 2 Released

joemorel — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 05:30:00 GMT

If you follow my blog, you know about my experiences migrating from iTunes/iPod to the Windows Media Player/PlaysForSure world. I was impressed with some of the ideas and functionality of the first beta of Windows Media Player 11, but still felt that much needed work.

I just saw that the Windows Media Player team has released beta 2 of WMP11 to the web. I just downloaded it, and I noticed already that the player is much snappier than the first beta. Download it now and check it out!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia

This Time It's For Real--I'm Selling My iPod

joemorel — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 04:02:00 GMT

For those of you who have been keeping up with the blog, I've been going through a migration from iTunes and the iPod to Windows Media Player and my Gigabeat S. I'm now happy to say that I'm ready to complete the switch--I'm officially selling my iPod--through Windows Live Expo:

http://expo.live.com/ViewListing.aspx?lid=127610

I can honestly say that I'm ready to be officially released from my four year stay an iPod user...but they are still beautiful devices. I'm excited to see what the Zune has in store... :)

Using MusicBridge to Sync Windows Media Player with iTunes

joemorel — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:22:00 GMT

In my previous post about migrating from iTunes to Windows Media Player, I mentioned a small applet called MusicBridge to sync the metadata between the two program's libraries. I wasn't extremely clear on how to use the applet, and I've received a couple of mails and comments asking about exactly how to use MusicBridge.

MusicBridge doesn't actually add songs to your Windows Media Player library--it only syncs the metadata about those songs (song names, ratings, playlists, etc.) Before you use MusicBridge, you need to actually add the song files from iTunes to your Windows Media Player library. The following instructions for doing this are for Windows Media Player 11, but may also work with WMP 10 as well:

1.) Open Windows Media Player.

2.) Navigate to File-->Add to Library, or just hit "F3".

3.) You get an "Add to Library" dialog box with a list of folders that Windows Media Player is monitoring for new media files. If you don't see the list of folders, click on "Advanced Options". Then click on "Add".

4.) Navigate to the root folder holding your iTunes music. By default, this will be at "My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music". (Remember that the absolute path of your My Documents folder is usually c:\documents and settings\<Your Login Name>\My Documents".)

5.) Click "OK". Windows Media Player will scan that folder, and all of its subfolders, and add those music files to your library. Any AAC files, or any files you bought in the iTunes Music Store will be skipped.

6.) When the import is finished, exit from Windows Media Player and start MusicBridge.

7.) From the "Sync from iTunes" column, choose "All Data".

8.) Watch and wait as your metadata is synced.

Voila! You should have all of the MP3 and WMA files in your music library imported, with iTunes ratings, into Windows Media Player. MusicBridge isn't perfect--it messed up a few of my tags and doesn't transfer Smart Playlists, but it works.

Good luck!

Moving from iTunes to Windows Media Player (and what’s up with album art?)

joemorel — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 09:26:00 GMT

UPDATE (12/18/06): By popular demand, I've added an article on how to convert your (unprotected) AAC files in iTunes to MP3s that can be played on any MP3 player or program.

UPDATE (11/27/06): This blog entry is about how to get your iTunes library and metadata in sync with Windows Media Player. This article will not help you move songs you bought on the iTunes Music Store over to Windows Media Player. This is because of a layer of copy-protection Apple puts on their files called "FairPlay", which they have not licensed for use on a computer outside of their own iTunes software. I've also been playing with Microsoft's new Zune device, which appears to automatically move your iTunes library over (sans iTunes Music Store purchases.)

In preparation for my big media player move from my iPod Photo to a new Toshiba Gigabeat S Portable Media Center, it was time for me to say goodbye to iTunes and hello to Windows Media Player 11. Moving a music library between media players can be a painful process, so I thought I’d share how I was able to migrate my library, including my song ratings, to the new player using one awesome app: MusicBridge.

First of all, it’s important to know that I suggest completely backing up your iTunes library folder before starting any of this, just in case. By default, your iTunes library should be at c:\<Your Documents Folder>\My Music\iTunes. (For example, mine is at c:\Documents and Settings\Joe\My Documents\My Music\iTunes.)

Basically, after starting up the Music Bridge application, you’re asked which way you’d like to sync your libraries: WMPàiTunes, iTunesàWMP, or a two-way sync. If you haven’t added any music to your WMP library, select the iTunes to WMP sync option. You are able to select exactly *what* you want to sync—be it just the songs, your playlists, your ratings, etc. I chose to sync everything, and everything it synced. I was totally pumped when I opened WMP 11, waited for a couple of minutes while it was updating its library, and then noticed that all my music *and* ratings were preserved. For some reason, my Smart Playlists did not transfer over, so I recreated them as auto-playlists. I unfortunately lost my play counts.

One painful limitation, especially given WMP 11’s love of using album art in the interface, is that WMP and iTunes handle album art completely differently—so you’ll album art isn’t going to show up for all of your music. If you set WMP to “Update Music Files by Retrieving Media Info from the Internet” (ToolsàOptionsàPrivacy), WMP will update your album art automatically in the background using a web service (as long as WMP is open). To trigger this update automatically, you’ll want to select “ToolsàApply Media Information Changes”, which will bring this process to the foreground (and not allow you to do anything else with WMP until it is done.)

From my experience, this will get you about 2/3 of your albums’ art. For that remaining third, you either:

1.) Have incorrect metadata about your music, such as artist and album, or

2.) You have an album that doesn’t have art in the database (not super common, but common enough)

You’ll need to manually go through your files, one by one, and fix the metadata and album art. To do this, the best way is to right-click on the song from WMP in question and select “Find Album Info” from the contextual menu. A window will pop up and it will search for your song. If it doesn’t find it, you’ll be able to broaden the scope of your search, and hopefully eventually find some album info for it, including the album art.

This stuff isn’t perfect in WMP 11—there are a few bugs in the beta version around applying the newly found album information to a song—but it’s a start. There’s another program to help fix your metadata (not including album art) that’s media player-agnostic called “Music Brainz” that actually uses a frequency analysis of your song to find appropriate metadata. Check it out, but be warned that I’ve found that it’s about 90% accurate—I’ve had it re-label some songs completely incorrectly—but it’s unique and constantly improving, and probably worth a shot if you’re trying to fix up your library.

Why My iPod Still Hasn't Been Sold...

joemorel — Wed, 10 May 2006 01:08:00 GMT

Well, time for a little bit of backtracking. :) A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about why I sold my iPod. The title of the post was a little bit preemptive...my iPod Photo was still sitting in a box that I hadn't unpacked yet since my move to Seattle. I hadn't used my iPod in over six months, and all I needed to do was put in on eBay and sell it.

Then my troubles began. The music service that I use stopped transferring the licenses for my music one day, and I couldn't update my Creative Zen Sleek with the new licenses. It was just a one-day hiccup, but not wanting to workout without music, I charged the iPod up and used it.

Wow. I had forgotten the power of metadata for awhile. Unlike when I was just randomly playing all of the music on my other player, my iPod had all of my complex smart playlists based on two years of ratings and play counts. "Top Fresh Songs", my favorite playlist, is basically all of my 4 and 5 star songs that I haven't heard in the past 30 days. It's awesome--perfect almost all the time. And I remembered why the iPod was great for me to begin with.

Josh knows about this--his recent post on his 2005 predictions is tongue-in-cheek when he mentions me giving up on iTunes...he's seen me carrying the iPod recently... :)

Now I'm cycling time between the iPod (for commutes and my iTrip) and my iRiver T10 for jogs. The iPod is synced with my old music; I fill up the iRiver with new playlists I find on Rhapsody and Yahoo Unlimited.

I'm planning on continuing this until I finally get my Toshiba Gigabeat S, which I've pre-ordered on Amazon.com. Finally, my metadata woes will be solved, because instead of using a watered-down media player with limited support for extended metadata, such as the Rhapsody player or the Yahoo Music Engine, I'll be able to use Windows Media Player. An absolute requirement for me is going to be somehow transferring all of those ratings and play counts from iTunes to Windows Media Player. Anyone know of anything I could use? What about somebody who wants to buy a used 30 GB iPod Photo? :)

Managing My Music: What's Really Important?

joemorel — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 04:25:00 GMT

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had switched to a subscription-based music service (Yahoo! Music Unlimited) from my typical setup of iPod + iTunes that I had been using for a few years. During those few years that I used iTunes, I collected a decent amount of music in my library...about 4,000 songs. These 4,000 songs were meticulously categorized, sorted, tagged, and rated, such that it was very easy for my to make Smart Playlists of, say: every Ben Folds song that I haven't listened to in the past two weeks that I rated greater than 3 stars.

This ability to sort your music easily was the killer feature of iTunes for me. The star ratings added real personality to my music collection, and allowed me to enjoy music listening more--my collection didn't just have to be on "Random Play All" all of the time.

When I switched to Yahoo, I found most of the music that I had really liked that already existed in my iTunes collection very quickly. I downloaded them, and they were nicely tagged. Unfortunately, this was a largely manual process. I spent a couple of nights doing searches and adding albums to my music collection through Yahoo's slow (and often buggy) interface. This process was so painful that the thought of migrating away from Yahoo--to Napster, Rhapsody, or even back to iTunes--gives me a headache.

The truth is that my playlists were better in iTunes. Why? Because of all of the metadata iTunes had collected about my listening habits. Here's my contention: I'd rather lose all of my MP3 files than that one iTunes file that contains my ratings and listening habits. Why? The files can be replaced...it's just a matter of time until migration tools are written that programmatically allow you to re-download your entire iTunes library in a subscription service. In fact, it blows my mind this doesn't already exist. But recreating my listening habits and ratings for each music file is an impossible task. I'd have to start from scratch, and it would never be the same.

So, this brings up one final question as I continue to try and figure out the "optimal" music solution for me: does anyone know of an application that programmatically reads an iTunes library file and helps you migrate to a new service?

Why I Sold My iPod

joemorel — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:20:00 GMT

Outside of the online communities space, one of my biggest passions is music and home entertainment. Not just electronics and stuff…I actually minored in music in college, have played piano since I was four, and have even been in a couple of performances of the Microsoft Theater Troupe. That’s right—Microsoft has a theater group.

The most recent developments in how people experience music in the past ten years have come from the computer. With the explosion of the Internet, the MP3 format, and the original Napster, we all began to get used to a world where we were able to quickly listen to any song we wanted, whenever we wanted to. Gone were the trips to the record store and the searches through piles and piles of CDs just to listen to a song that had been in your head all day.

The missing piece of the equation was how to take those songs with you when you were away from your computer. Let’s face it—if you weren’t a college student in the late 90s or early part of this decade, you weren’t sitting in front of your computer enough to have Winamp replace your stereo. There was no real way to let MP3s replace your Discman, and no way to have them replace your bookshelf stereo. Oh sure…there were attempts at solutions. The Creative Nomad was my first MP3 player. I believe it had 64 MB of memory and used a parallel cable to sync with some very buggy proprietary Creative software. I owned a Creative Nomad Jukebox as well—the first hard-drive based mass market MP3 player.

Then came Apple with the iPod. Looking back, it’s hard to believe it was Apple that really made the first great digital music player. Apple’s forays into consumer electronics in the past were nothing to write home about (can you say “Newton”?) From the first time I saw the commercial for the iPod, I knew I had to get the thing working on my Windows XP box. I bought a piece of software called “XPlay”, a Firewire card, and I was taking my (mostly…err…unauthorized) digital music collection on the go with me.

Then came the iTunes Music Store. I thought it was neat—but not great. Hey—I collected those Pepsi caps and downloaded Green Day’s “I Fought the Law” along with everyone else, but 99 cents a song had me buying a *few* songs a month on iTunes. I was in college. Money’s tight.

I bought three iPods overall, finally getting a 30 GB iPod Photo earlier this spring (I knew I was going to work for Microsoft, but truth is, I just had to have that color screen…) I was happy. My digital music player was beautiful, and it worked.

Then everything changed. When I started at Microsoft, I was living in a corporate housing apartment by myself for a month. I didn’t know anyone here yet, and I had a brand-new laptop to play with. I heard about the Yahoo! Music Engine earlier in the year, but never gave it much thought. I was surfing the Internet, ran across their site, and saw that they were offering one entire year of their service for $60. That’s $5 a month—or four measly compact discs. Unlimited downloads. Take your songs with you. My iPod’s days were numbered.

As I used the service, along with Yahoo’s highly excellent Launchcast radio, I found a new joy in music. Without the 99 cent penalty every time I downloaded a song, there was no reason not to explore my tastes. Listening to Launchcast, I could download a song that came on the radio to my computer—it was two mouse clicks. I was in music heaven.

The catch was that I couldn’t download those songs to the iPod. Yahoo uses Microsoft’s “Janus” DRM, which allows subscription tracks to be downloaded to a device. Basically, every song has a little tag on it that says it’s authorized to play until a certain date. When that date’s up, the player can’t play the song anymore. Whenever you sync your music player, it refreshes the dates. So, technically, as long as you pay your subscription, your player functions just like an iPod filled with music—except this music was downloaded legally. The iPod does not include Microsoft Windows Media Audio support, and doesn’t support the “Janus” DRM.

Now, I don’t blame Apple for this. They are winning big time in digital music—why support Microsoft’s format, right? But for me, they lost me as a customer by not offering the same rich music-discovering experience that Yahoo offers. So the iPod was sold, and replaced with a Creative Zen Sleek. For the record, the Zen Sleek is an alright player…the interface doesn’t capture the elegance or beauty of the iPod, but the player does its job. And I’m happily listening to whatever I want, whenever I want, both on the go, at my computer, and on my Xbox 360. The Discman and Stereo have been replaced forever.