Plugin For Winamp Allows Downloading From iPod 398
slicenglide writes "A newly released plugin for Winamp allows you to copy music from your iPod to your computer. Wired has picked up the story and includes a link to the WinAmp plugin page where you can grab yourself a copy. "
Big Deal (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, on a Windows box ... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course I didn't read the article, so there might be something to it ... but I suspect it's not that hard to get the files via a Linux installation. The only platform I have that I have had trouble pulling the files off of the iPod on is Mac.
Copying songs from iPod on Mac OS X (Score:3, Informative)
# Change directory to the ipod music directory. (I'm not sure if iPod Control is the exact name I'm not on a mac at the moment, but it's similar.)
cd
# View the files on the iPod
ls
# Then copy whatever the files called.
cp name_of_file
No plugins, downloads, whatever required
Meh (Score:2, Informative)
I pity you fools and your shiny white shackles!
This is news? (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I use foo_pod [hydrogenaudio.org], a plugin for the foobar2000 [foobar2000.org] audio player. It's quite powerful, including such features as automatic conversion of formats the iPod doesn't know (e.g. ogg or shorten) and automatic generation of audiobooks. For what it's worth - Wired seems to care - foobar and foo_pod are yet half as small than Winamp and that plugin is. Hah.
iPod just shows up as a USB drive (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Wow, news to me (Score:5, Informative)
The only gotchas are that the files are hidden, and the music's filenames are hashed for fast access from a metadata database. Thus when you copy the files back, you have to regenerate their names from their ID3 tags or the metadata database, as this winamp plugin does. You can do this as simply as dragging your music back into iTunes with the 'copy imported music' setting on, and there are plenty of other utilities that do it that have never gotten a
Re:Wow, news to me (Score:4, Informative)
Bah (Score:5, Informative)
- Anapod Explorer [redchairsoftware.com]
- PodUtils [kennettnet.co.uk]
- GTKpod [sourceforge.net]
- GNUpod [gnu.org]
And rhythmbox, for example, offers nice integration of music management and iPod operability -- if that's what is supposed to have made this newsworthy.
Newly released? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wow, news to me (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair to the Ipod its just DRM'ed music you can't transfer off it, files and such can go both ways AFAIK although you do need the apple software installed. Not like my flash based muvo nx, any relatively recent operating system will see it as a removable hard drive, yes its a lot smaller than a HD based mp3 player but even so it amazes me how useful it can be.
Nothing wrong Ipod/Itunes, very user friendly which isn't a bad thing, but I don't want to lock myself into such a service, I have a feeling that eventually downloadable music (the legal stuff) will converge into one simple DRM format that all the stores use.
FYI about shuffles (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Direct link to homepage (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of great programs... (Score:4, Informative)
http://sturm.t35.com/sharepod/ [t35.com]
There are also about a dozen alternatives here, on iPodlounge.com
http://www.ipodlounge.com/index.php/ipod-software
Kudos to the WinAmp guys for doing this though, I'll probably check it out to see how they did it.
Re:Plug-In Useless (Score:3, Informative)
Now I will keep my eye on Hymn and see if I can strip the drm from them straight.
Reality Check (Score:5, Informative)
1) any iPod, if initialized using Windows (meaning it's FAT32 formatted), is a standard USB Mass Storage Device that you can plug into any windows box that supports those and start using it as a removable HDD
2) nothing prevents you from downloading your DRM-free songs from your iPod using only Windows Explorer. However, iTunes arranges all music files in 32/64/128/256 (something like that) folders named 00 through FF (in hex). So your Metallica - St.Anger tracks would be scattered in some 10 folders or so... and it's not that easy to compile the whole album by hand. iPod uses its internal database to find files. All this winamp plugin provides is a convenient way to copy files from your iPod back to your hdd by parsing through this database file and renaming files using the template specified.
This also means that you can not simply copy mp3 folder to iPod and play them... you have to update the database. This is why you have to use iTunes (or this winamp plugin or similar util) to upload music to your iPod player.
Yes, it's stupid, compared to the way iRiver players handle files and folders.
3) I've been using this plugin for about a year now, this is hardly news. I recommend NOT to use it to upload files to your iPod, it once corrupted its database and I had to erase it and copy all the music again.
4) there is also a plugin for Total Commander (my shell of choice) that provides similar functionality:
http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/ipod.html [totalcmd.net]
Wrong - well, partly anyway (Score:5, Informative)
I think this plugin is more intended as a utility to allow people to use their iPods to carry mp3s between PCs without the rigmarole of zipping them into an archive.
ARCHOS (Score:0, Informative)
Umm.. (Score:1, Informative)
I pity you fools and your shiny blue screens!
Re:Wrong - well, partly anyway (Score:4, Informative)
There's really a sliding 'geek' scale that goes something like this:
0: doesn't care what they look like on disc, as going looking for the files directory is magic voodoo stuff.
1: annoyed that the filenames are munged up, making it useless for most purposes.
2: not that bothered, since they can work around it with the id3 tags. However, possibly irritated that they should have to anyway.
Re:Wow, news to me (Score:2, Informative)
2) look on the disk (on Windows they're in a hidden directory) and copy all those shiny mp3 files off to a temp directory.
3) introduce them to iTunes and ask it to consolidate your library if you want the filenames to be sorted out.
This certainly works on Windows, so I'd be surprised if it doesn't work on OSX as well.
Re:Winamp? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Winamp? (Score:1, Informative)
"copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library"
that will slow things down considerably. just a thought.
-r
Re:Direct link to homepage (Score:3, Informative)
Have you actually looked at the iTunes preferences?
Under "Advanced", uncheck "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library". Just like magic, iTunes no longer rearranges your music files!
No Need for an Extra Program (Score:2, Informative)
1. Set your iPod for use as a hard drive.
2. Make the music directories on the hard drive visible (they are default hidden). You can do this by making visible the folder iPod_Control and clicking on "Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files".
3. Set iTunes to keep your music organized (a.k.a. copy them to your hard drive).
4. Go to Files>Add Folder to Library and add the music folder on the iPod.
This may take a little time if you have lots of music, but it will only copy the music that you do not already have.
It's easy to get the songs off anyway... (Score:4, Informative)
The iPod's Music folder is hidden only in the Finder. On a Mac you can still get to it easily enough via the shell or an alternative file browser; go here:
If you want a nice GUI tool to do this, on Mac there is "iPod Access" and "iPodRip" (both shareware), and there is the free program "gtkpod", which I use on my Linux box at work to listen to my iPod songs.
Apple really doesn't lock you out of your iPod, which is one reason why I love it! Of course, mine's HFS+ formatted; is it hard to do this on Windows?