ITunes Migration To New Mac - Want To Retain Library, Playlists And Ratings

Hi there,
I'm considering upgrading my 20" Imac to the 24" version and have a few queries with Itunes. Basically i manage my library and songs myself so to speak so i don't keep any of my music within the Itunes music folder. Anything i've ever added or imported has been filed in my own folders relating to genre on my hard drive. I've been in this situation previously when i last upgraded and i didn't have the option to do a migration as my old operating system was Tiger and new one Leopard. So i basically printed out all my playlists, added all my music to the library again and manually re-entered all the playlists.
Would a migration take care of this for me or would i encounter problems? Some people say it's not wise to do a migration with a new out of box Mac as you end up carrying over crap you don't need.
Can someone advise me what is the best route to take, i know the typical answer is to just copy the entire Itunes folder out of music and place it in the same destination on the new machine but i don't think this will work due to me using Itunes as a referenced library.

Hi ya Bert;
This is too easy. Steps are quick and here they are:
One item extra you need: 1 6-foot long firewire cable (FW400 6 pin type)
This is under the expectation that your different music genres folders are located in your Music folder.
1. Make sure both iMacs are shut down.
2. Connect firewire cable to both iMacs.
3. Start your 20 inch iMac normally and let it come to the desktop.
4. Start your 24 inch iMac, BUT press the 'T' key and wait until the firewire symbol is displayed on
your 24 inch iMac then release.
5. You'll see your 24 inch iMac's hard drive show up in your 20 inch iMac's desktop.
6. Open the Macintosh HD of your 20 inch iMac, then open the Music folder and stop.
7. Open the yellow Macintosh HD (which is the 24 inch iMac's HD), then navigate to the Music folder
and stop.
8. Drag the music genre folders in the Music folder from your 20 inch iMac and drop it into the
Music folder of your 24 inch iMac.
9. You'll see a copy progress bar displayed and after some time, it will disappear.
10. After the file transfer is completed, eject the Macintosh HD of your 24 inch iMac from the 20
inch iMac and power down the 24 inch iMac.
11. You can safely disconnect the firewire cable to both iMacs.
If I read your message right, your playlists are not part of the iTunes library.
If you are having any problems with these instructions, please give a more detailed picture of your library setup.
Take care.

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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1751
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As Alan stated above - transferring the iTunes library is the best first step. If you can transfer the iTunes library to the Mac, most of this will be unecessary for you to do.
Very Important ....
1. Authorize the computer.
2. Turn off auto sync in iTunes
3. Transfer purchases
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The following was copied from this thread. This is essentially what you want to accomplish.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/11527071#11527071
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