ITunes Plus File Sizes

Hi, This might be a silly question but I have about 7,000 songs in my iTunes library. Most of them are from my own CDs. I have ripped them into iTunes using the regular AAC 128kbps and was wondering about reripping them using iTunes Plus at the higher bit rate of 256kbps. Trouble is the file sizes are much bigger so I wouldn't be able to get them all on my iPod (80GB) like I do now.
In other words If I reimport them I basically need more than twice the space they take up now. Is that a safe assumption? Would be very grateful for any input.
Cheers,
Shadowrider

shadowrider wrote:
In other words If I reimport them I basically need more than twice the space they take up now. Is that a safe assumption? Would be very grateful for any input.
Cheers,
Shadowrider
Shadowrider, Yes. 128 kb/s encoding uses about 1 MB of space per minute of music. 256 kb/s encoding uses about 2 MB of space per minute.

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I wonder if someone could help me alleviate some confusion surrounding iTunes plus files and computer authorizations. I personally also have iTunes match on my account.
Reading online it appears that all iTunes Plus files do not not have DRM. I have this setup on my main iMac in my house. Now, I am copying music to my wife's laptop via home sharing. She is not using iTunes match because she has her own iTunes account. The home sharing is using her iTunes account. What is confusing me is that her laptop asking me to authorize the computer for playback of the audio files under my iTunes account. Why is this occuring if there is no DRM on the files?
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Go to Store -> View Account. Log in to your account and click Purchase History. Then click Report a Problem. Then choose your upgrade purchase and explain your situation.

ITunes Library File Size Limit?

I've been struggling to get my AppleTV to work as advertised since I bought it on the day it was originally released. I'm a big music fan and wanted to use it mostly as a music device. My iTunes library is huge. I have my entire CD collection ripped in lossless, as well as AAC for my iPod. I also have lots of other music, some DTS audio files, etc... and very detailed organization.
At any rate, I could always get the AppleTV to work if I just set it up to sync and play the files locally, but never to properly stream in a manner that's useable. And any syncing would take FOREVER. I'm on an N network, and I was getting speeds around 100KB/second. And then after it finally would get setup, I would often get pauses up to a minute where the AppleTV would freeze between menus while "thinking". It would take me 5 minutes just to navigate to a song and start playing it.
I tried all sorts of troubleshooting. Test libraries always worked fine. I've rebuilt my iTunes library from scratch, suspecting a corrupt library file, even though there was no other evidence to support this theory. No dice.
I'm finally giving up, and deciding that AppleTV has a limit to how large an iTunes library file it can handle. My iTunes library file is 160MB. Just the library file. You figure it's only got 256MB of RAM, and it's no wonder it can't handle it. I'm not sure how large the AppleTV OS is, but I suspect with a library file that large that the ATV has to do lots of going back to the HD to retrieve information it just doesn't have enough room for in RAM.
So my new strategy is to set up a secondary iTunes library just for my AppleTV that contains just music I want to sync, and any video I may want to stream. If I want to stream video, I'll launch this new library. If I want to listen to music without my computer on, the AppleTV will have a selection on it from this new library. If I want to stream my huge library, well, now I can use my iPhone as a remote to control my large iTunes library, and use the AppleTV with airtunes feature. And this works wonderfully, 100% responsive with no "waiting".
At any rate, I'm very disappointed that I couldn't get the AppleTV to work as advertised. I wish Apple would specify that there's a limit to how large a library it can handle. I've been screwing around with this for a long time and am essentially giving up, although the iPhone remote / airtunes solution works well for me.
Maybe down the road they'll come out with a new hardware revision with more RAM that can handle things better.

Well, I was hoping I could send you a private message, Greg Neil, because I don't know if you'll ever see this message. Regardless, your iTunes library is NOT the problem no matter what others have told you. 7000 files it's child's play. My iTunes library currently has 14,639 music files in it and 129 Movies ripped at 3000kbps. The library size is NOT the problem. If your network is slow then that will be what is hurting you. The second fastest behind 'n' (i always forget this bit of trivia) should be fast enough for streaming music and most movies. I know that because I've done it. Having said that, go out and buy a bit of ethernet cable and hook it directly into your machine and see if you can stream that way. If you can't then you need to take back your aTV because, in that case, it's the problem. If your network is of adequate speed per what I and the previous poster have mentioned and it still won't stream at all wirelessly then TAKE IT BACK. Mine has streamed fine in the past however, I eventually just hardwired it via ethernet to prevent any drops ever. Hope this helps. I just wanted you to know that going to that amount of trouble to make it work should not have been necessary, and btw, aTV running all your favorite music to your home stereo is worth the price of the device itself. You shouldn't have to suffer.
All the best,
A fellow music lover

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I've updated most of my iTunes purchases to iTunes plus and I saw the same long processing time that others saw. Mine all finished OK though. However some of them now will not play in iTunes and are just skipped over.
Strangely they will play in Quicktime and also in Get info->preview.
I also found that if I skipped the first second of the file (using iTunes->Get info->options) then the file played. Weird! Support let me download again and the latest copies were exactly the same. In the end they gave me a credit.
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The lastest Nokia Media Transfer application for the mac allows the transfer of itunes plus (.m4a extension) files, these are purchased itunes tracks without DRM. From what I understand apple have modified the tag data on these files which prevents them from being played on a Nokia phone, the Mac transfer application will process these files to modify this data and allow the tracks to be played.
My question is, will windows users get a similar application, to avoid the use of third party / manual operations, to allow these files to be transferred directly from itunes to my Nokia in the same manner as the mac application?
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yeah, Apple have their own way of working with aac/mp4 tags. They add extra bits that other players, unless programmed to read, won't understand, and at worst they won't play the file at all. There is another standard, the Nero standard, and they are similar but the Nero version is more universally recognised. There isn't an ID3v1/ID3v2 for MP4 files, yet. Although, like I said, since 90% of the world uses the Apple method of tagging, that is close enough to being a standard.
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Like I said, this whole thing may be fixed with the new N95-8 etc. If its not, and Nokia have no intention of fixing it, then my next phone will be an iPhone. I don't WANT an iPhone, but this whole thing is a deal-breaker for me.
Currently using E71, looking at options

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I searched to see if I could find an answer, but wasn't successful.
Question relates to if we can down-convert iTunes movie purchases to be more efficient on iPods? A downloaded movie (that plays beautifully on an Apple TV) is often over 1GB in file size. The kids have 8GB iPod Touch's and complain about movies taking up too much space.
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Which in my mind is an indicator that DRM is involved. I can select purchased movies and TV Shows and the option is not available - but I choose a home made movie and the option is available.
You are stuck with what you have.
MJ

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I am a relative newcomer to Macs and completely stumped.
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This is almost certainly due to limitations in the MS FAT16 or 32 formatting on your flashdrive.
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Hiya
New to this forum but something baffled me yesterday.
I upgraded to the new version of iTunes, but my 1974 songs that were a mere 8.8Gb now show as 69.7Gb.
How has this happened when the number of songs have remained the same. There are no duplications or anything.
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Hi everyone. I have been purchasing music from the iTunes Music Store ever since it opened here in the US. Along the way I have purchased both protected AAC files (the original 128 kbps files), iTunes Plus files, and I've upgraded some of the protected to iTunes Plus files for $0.30 over the last few years. I now have approximately 900 "protected AAC files" left that I wanted to upgrade to iTunes Plus and see the only way to do that now is via iTunes Match.
My dilema is this... I have approximately 900+ files that I want to upgrade and don't feel like manually deleting every track, finding it in the iTunes Music Store, and then redownloading (in the iTunes Plus format). Is there a way to do all 900+ at one time?
Thank you,
Keith

First you need to enable the iCloud Status, Bit Rate and Kind columns so you can see which tracks are "matched" and which are "uploaded." Any tracks that are "uploaded" will not be upgraded. To enable these columns switch to Song view then pull down View > View Options and select the appropriate check boxes then close the small window. Once this is done you can see the tracks that are protected and matched. These tracks can then be deleted from the iTunes library and the HDD (but make sure you have them backed up first, just in case) then downloaded from the cloud. They will then be DRM-free 256 Kbps AAC files.
As Jim points out you will not get a 100% match rate. The process simply isn't that good.

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Yes, you're right. The 256 kbps iTunes Plus files is better audio quality. It's still not as good as what is on a retail audio CD (1.400 kbps), but better than the original DRM protected 128 kbps files.~
AND, the most important thing - iTunes Plus is free from all DRM protection.
I've heard rumors that ALL 10.000.000 songs available in iTunes store will be DRM free somewhere around April or May 2009. Maybe someone else here can confirm?.

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Can I press my great luck with this thread and ask if there is a way to create a smart playlist with the iTunes DRM (128K Bit Rate) tracks? Your Kind=Purchased worked brilliantly for the iTunes Plus tracks. I'd love to be able to replicate it for a DRM version of my iTunes tracks. Although I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to upgrade these all to the iTunes Plus files in the future. Thanks for any assistance that you can offer.

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Best Regards,
Zack

All songs in the store are plus now...a while back they made the switch; that's when they started charging .69/.99/1.29 for tunes....that was the compromise for DRM free tunes was variable pricing for the record companies.
Most DRM tracks in your library can be converted over to plus, the exceptions are anything you have gotten as a "free" download. Pretty much everything that downloads as a free song of the week (before the change) or via a redeemable code (I picked up a free itunes sampler a couple of years back) didn't get ther DRM removed and cannot be converted to plus.
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@Julian Wright:
I don't think you read my post; there's no way that reporting 1000MB vs. 1024MB as 1GB would account for the difference between the video files taking up 31.7GB of space on my Mac but only 20GB of space on the iPad. Unless my math is very wrong, in which case, I would love to learn the correct way to figure this out. And besides, I was talking about OS X and iTunes reporting file sizes, not my iPad. Unless iTunes reports file sizes differently than OS X, which would be very confusing.

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