iTunes Match and large library

[Scott549]

Question about iTunes Match -- I've got a very large library (over 17,000 songs). I had everything on an iPod Classic. Then I got a 64 gb iPod Touch. To get all the music on it I made smaller bitrate copies of most of my library -- I now have an archive of something like 15,000 files on the iPod at 80 kbps.

If I sign up for iTunes Match, my understanding is that most of these tracks will be replaced with 256 kbps AAC files in the Cloud. I will then not be able to get anywhere near all my music on the iPod. Is there any way around this?

 

[PNutts]

This doesn't answer your question, but the idea behind iTunes Match is that you don't need to have all your songs on your iPod. Of course you'll need wifi to get the ones you don't already have on it.

If you only have the one iPod and want to keep all your music on it at the current bitrate then iTunes Match isn't for you.

 

[Bob Coxner]

Question about iTunes Match -- I've got a very large library (over 17,000 songs). I had everything on an iPod Classic. Then I got a 64 gb iPod Touch. To get all the music on it I made smaller bitrate copies of most of my library -- I now have an archive of something like 15,000 files on the iPod at 80 kbps.

If I sign up for iTunes Match, my understanding is that most of these tracks will be replaced with 256 kbps AAC files in the Cloud. I will then not be able to get anywhere near all my music on the iPod. Is there any way around this?

Those 80kbps songs will be skipped and won't be replaced with higher bitrate versions. If you do want them replaced, there is a workaround.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/20/one-trick-for-getting-itunes-match-to-recognize-older-tracks/

"Checking the standards of the iTunes Match process, Apple's tech note shows that only certain music files are fit for matching. If your music was encoded below a bitrate of 96 kbps, iTunes Match will simply skip over it."

 

[Scott549]

Those 80kbps songs will be skipped and won't be replaced with higher bitrate versions. If you do want them replaced, there is a workaround.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/20/one-trick-for-getting-itunes-match-to-recognize-older-tracks/

"Checking the standards of the iTunes Match process, Apple's tech note shows that only certain music files are fit for matching. If your music was encoded below a bitrate of 96 kbps, iTunes Match will simply skip over it."

My situation is a little unusual. I made the 80 kbps files just so I could get all the music on the iPod. I transferred them to the iPod and then deleted them from my iTunes library. The original, larger files are still on my hard drive.

The problem is that, as I understand it, once I enable iTunes Match on the iPod, it is going to delete those 80 kbps files. Is that right? Even though they are 80 kbps on the iPod, they will be matched because the versions in my iTunes library are 128 kbps or larger.

 

[Razeus]

My situation is a little unusual. I made the 80 kbps files just so I could get all the music on the iPod. I transferred them to the iPod and then deleted them from my iTunes library. The original, larger files are still on my hard drive.

The problem is that, as I understand it, once I enable iTunes Match on the iPod, it is going to delete those 80 kbps files. Is that right? Even though they are 80 kbps on the iPod, they will be matched because the versions in my iTunes library are 128 kbps or larger.

Ummm no. If it's not in your iTunes library, there's noting for iTunes Match to match. You have your 80kbps files on your iPod's hard drive so it's not going to fetch it from there. You'll need to add the large original files on your hard drive to your iTunes Library and enable (and pay) for iTunes Match.

Seriously people, it's not that complicated.

 

[DelBob]

After you 'match' your current library, delete all you "matched" songs. Click on remove from hard drive, BUT DO NOT CHECK remove from iCloud. You can then make a smart list limited to match songs, select all song within playlist, then download.

Once you have downloaded all matched songs, plugin ipod, and on general tab of device, click on set songs to 128 bit.

 

[PNutts]

The problem is that, as I understand it, once I enable iTunes Match on the iPod, it is going to delete those 80 kbps files. Is that right?

No. Enabling iTunes Match will not automatically delete songs that are already on your iPod.

Seriously people, it's not that complicated.

It's not complicated, but there's no clear documentation so people ask questions. I've haven't seen this particular situation discussed in the forums.

 

[Scott549]

In Bob Boilen's article,

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2...h-thousands-of-songs-with-a-couple-of-hitches

He says "I was also surprised that enabling iTunes Match erased all the music that I had loaded onto my iPhone and iPad. You are warned about this, but if you want to use iTunes Match there's no choice: all your music on mobile devices will come from the cloud."

That implies to me that the 15,000 or so songs at 80 kbps on my iPod would be erased. I don't want to use iTunes Match if that is the case. I would be replacing the convenience of having my music on my iPod with the inconvenience of having to have a wifi connection to download it.

 

[Scott549]

Assumption I am making, but I'd like someone to verify this --

If I sign up for iTunes Match and get my library in the cloud (about 17,000 tracks), I can (1) leave iTunes Match turned off on my 64 gb iPod Touch so that the music on that device is unaffected; and (2) turn iTunes Match on on my son's 8 gb iPod Touch so that he can have access to all my music from the cloud.

Is that right?

 

[Scott549]

Update -- just did it. Had to stop and restart the process a couple of times, but it matched roughly 18,000 of my 19,000 tracks and uploaded most of the rest, with only a few errors. I haven't tried upgrading anything to the 256 kbps AAC format, but that's not really what I'm concerned about. I wanted to have another backup of my music, and a way for other devices to access it.