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iTunes -- excellent news!

post #1 of 4
5/12/12 at 9:03am
Thread Starter 
At some point Apple snuck in the feature I've spent years waiting for: ability to generate 256 Kbps AAC on the fly from Apple Lossless when synching portable devices. (That feature has existed at 128 Kbps for a while, but I wanted the higher bit rate).

This means I no longer need to keep two copies of much of my music -- making the iOS iTunes Apple Remote vastly more usable, saving disk space and all kinds of iTunes admin headaches.

This will cost me a bunch of time to delete the AAC stuff (I have very few AAC only things in my library, but still I don't wish to lose them by deleting all AACs wholesale -- and the "Find Duplicates" feature doesn't always work, as sometimes the AAC predates my Apple Lossless version and CDDB info for the same CDs changed over the years.)

Thank you Apple -- and I'm curious if anyone knows how long ago this feature came into being.
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post #2 of 4
5/12/12 at 10:22am
Quote:


At some point Apple snuck in the feature I've spent years waiting for: ability to generate 256 Kbps AAC on the fly from Apple Lossless when synching portable devices.

Yes it did, with the iTunes 10.6 update I think, so 2 months ago??? I used it once, when we got our iPad 3, and it does take a looong time to sync because it does those conversions on the fly. If you're the type with a very large music library, who hasn't signed up for iTunes Match because you have too many songs, who always buys 16GB iOS devices in order to save money and who frequently moves different music on and off depending on mood or whim--as I am--you may still want to keep that 256 AAC library just for syncing. I did, I just moved it to a different Mac since it doesn't take up that much space on its own, after I actively grew to dislike keeping ALAC and 256AAC copies on the same Mac (for the same reasons you noted.)

But I agree, this was very nice of Apple, though hidden and rather undersold.
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post #3 of 4
5/13/12 at 7:16am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by chefklc View Post

If you're the type with a very large music library, who hasn't signed up for iTunes Match because you have too many songs, who always buys 16GB iOS devices in order to save money and who frequently moves different music on and off depending on mood or whim--as I am--you may still want to keep that 256 AAC library just for syncing. I did, I just moved it to a different Mac since it doesn't take up that much space on its own, after I actively grew to dislike keeping ALAC and 256AAC copies on the same Mac (for the same reasons you noted.) .

Actually deleting the AACs will push me under the iTunes Match limit.

I considered the 2 computer solution, but it was just too complicated especially considering that my podcasts are on my main machine, and they are the thing I need synched on a daily basis.
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post #4 of 4
5/13/12 at 8:26am
Quote:


...especially considering that my podcasts are on my main machine, and they are the thing I need synched on a daily basis.

Ted, in my case, I was never really happy with how manual podcast management and syncing with iTunes was on my Macs, it wasn't until iOS podcast apps started appearing that I finally stumbled upon a system that completely worked for me--and that's using Downcast with iCloud syncing. I've turned all podcast related activity over to my iOS devices themselves, one of which I always have with me, and iCloud syncing w/ Downcast keeps each device in sync and thanks to some pretty extensive options in settings I don't need to "manage" much at all. (I don't do this, but you can also set it to include podcast media when iOS backs up Downcast to iCloud.)

Anyway, this may or may not work for you, but I've found this approach much more liberating than previously having iTunes involved.
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