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Music Tip: Rescue Your iPod Song Collection

by Michael Pearce

iPod Photo Liberator

How to safeguard one's song collection is one of the most-requested tips on any blog or printed publication, not simply because people want to copy other people's iPods but because all too often people lose their hard drives to corruption and have no other backup of their music.

Four utilities have been created for this purpose: iPodDisk(my favorite), Senuti (iTunes spelled backwards), iPodTrans, and iPodWorks.

The key to using any of these programs is to set your iTunesPreferences to "Manually Manage Songs and Playlists." The first time you launch iTunes with your iPod plugged in, it will see it as a "foreign" iPod with an offer to erase it and sync it to this copy of iTunes. Say "NO" or you will lose everything on it. Then you can go to Preferences > iPod, and uncheck automatic updating.

iPodDisk treats the iPod as a networked volume (with the same icon) and displays songs in folders. Strangely, the two folders contain exactly the same thing, but in a different order. You can simply drag the songs from here to your hard drive to import into iTunes later. It doesn't matter which window you use; the result will be the same.

To download iPodDisk > ipoddisk.ourbiti.com/index.php/about
Download is free, but donations are encouraged.

Senuti works in a window similar to the iTunes window. Displaying all the songs on the iPod, you select all or just the songs you desire, and they are copied directly into iTunes.

To download Senuti > fadingred.org/senuti
Download is free (donations encouraged).

The other two utilities, iPod Transand iPodWorks, are recent releases, and I have not tested them. To download iPodWorks > scifihifi.com/podworks
$8 after a 30-day/250-song demo.

To download iPodTrans > fatstreetsoftware.com
Freeware

How to choose a music import format. By default, iTunes is set to import your CDs into Apple's AAC format at 128 kbps. AAC is not compatible with most MP3 players so if you want to forgo the iPod for some other product, you will want to import in the MP3 format instead.

To do this, open iTunes Preferences, go to Advanced, then Importing. Change the popup to "MP3", and then choose "Other" instead of the three choices shown. Despite what the choices indicate, It isn't true that 128 kbps is Good, nor is 160 High. Both are good for low-data recordings like speech or hop-hip, but if you prefer almost-lossless quality, choose Other and then 256 kbps. This reduces compression from 11-to-1 to about 6-to-1, which is still pretty good. If you prefer classical or other highly orchestrated music, then set it to the highest possible: 320 kbps.

None of this really matters if you listen only on your iPod or other MP3 player, or on computer speakers, but if you feed iTunes directly into a good stereo system, the difference in quality is obvious. In any event, stick to MP3 format and try to avoid buying from the iTunes Music Store. To do so is to acquiesce to Digital Rights Management (DRM), or artificial limits on the music you buy. In a future issue we will look at methods of stripping DRM from iTunes tracks.