I'm sure its been answered before but i can't see it.

Question

i've only had my ipod 2 weeks and i've never used itunes before. i was lovin the ease of it all the transfering of files, syncing of itunes-ipod.
But everytime i play my ipod it either skips halfway through a song or it turns itself off.i've reset twice and forced sync's all to no avail.
Reading these disussions i think it's because the files are not in ACC format. How do i change my 5300 songs in 1 go? or do i need to them 1 at a time? or do i delete and start again? and will this affect any albums i've bought from itunes?
your help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

In iTunes go to edit/select all, then when the items in the library are highlighted in blue choose edit/delete. This will remove all the items from your library and give you the option of moving them to the trash or recycle bin where you can empty it.
You say the files are MPEG files but that doesn't tell us much because they can be aac or mp3 (mp3 is MPEG layer 3 and aac is MPEG layer 4).
Before you start afresh, use the edit/preferences/general menu in iTunes and there go to 'import settings'. From there you will able to choose what encoder you prefer (aac or mp3
 or even Apple Lossless which will give excellent sound quality, but at a file size that is much larger than mp3 or aac, so the trade off here is not as many songs will fit on your iPod) and the bitrate settings. The higher the bitrate, the better the sound quality but of course a higher bitrate will take up more space on your computer hard drive or iPod.
You should probably start by encoding a piece of music you are familiar with, in either mp3 or aac at something like 192kbps, listen to it, then try again at different bit rates, both lower and higher, to see if you can hear a difference in sound quality.

If you can’t hear the difference in sound quality between various bitrates, then the lower one will suffice, and you can store more songs on your iPod. Try this in both encoding formats. You could encode the same song several times in iTunes under a slightly different name (just edit the song in iTunes and add the bitrate after the song title), transfer these songs to your iPod and do some comparative listening. Then you can make an informed decision about which format/bitrate is best for you.
Yes it’s time consuming, but much better to rip your cds at decent sound quality now, rather than decide much later that you are not satisfied, and have to rip them again.
A song of the same length, encoded at the same bitrate, gives an almost identical file size whether it be encoded in aac or mp3.


Where the space saving issue comes in is because many people say that if you encode a song at 128kbps in aac format, then the sound quality is as good as the same song encoded at 160 or 192kbps in mp3 format, therefor using the aac version at a lower bitrate gives a smaller file size and allows you to store more songs on your iPod.
AAC better than MP3? Well that's a matter for your ears. Everyone has an opinion, but you should listen for yourself and don't let anyone tell you what to use.