Playlist Question / Advice

Hey guys, I recently went from a 80 gig player to 16 gig player and wanted some suggestions as to get a nice playlist together. This is what I want to do:
I want to synch 10 gigs of music, chosen at random from my entire catalog.
is this possible? is there a way to cap media type to a certain gig, etc, while also choosing random tracks?
Any help would be awesome!!

To make a random playlist to sync to your iPod go to File>New Smart Playlist.
Uncheck "Match the following rule"
Check "Limit to" put "10" in the number box, choose "GB" from the first list box, choose "Random" from the next list box. Check "Live Updating"
When you want to change the selection in the smart playlist just delete everything in it and it will add a new selection.

Similar Messages

ITunes Podcasts & Smart Playlists Question

Hi everyone,
Thanks for taking the time to read my question.
I have a 60gb Colour iPod and have nearly filled it, so do not want to sync any of the podcasts to it. I've disabled Podcast syncing in the options tab after connecting the iPod, but Podcasts are still syncing because I have a large range of Smart Playlists which are set to show me what I added by date. This means they are treating Podcast content as being "Added On" a certain date and hence appearing in the Smart Playlist and being synced.
It is my understanding that to disable this I have to add a clause to the Smart Playlist which says "Kind, Is Not, Podcast" - is this the case? To go through every playlist I have would take ages and can anyone advise if it's possible to apply the same criteria to all playlists? I tried to select more than one by holding down Control or Shift but it didn't work.
Any thoughts would be very gratefully received!
Cheers,
Edd

This question has been answered in the general iTunes for Windows Forum.

Live updating smart playlist question

I made a smart play list for my songs that have no rating.
but once I rate them the music stops because of the live updating. I turn this feature off but my question is, when will the smart play list update with the live updating off? Daily?
Thanks

Ya I see your problem. The playlist is for stuff you haven't rated yet. If you rate it, it then comes out of that playlist. The problem being, if you rate the song while it is playing, it gets booted out of the playlist and since that is where you are currently playing music from, the song abruptly stops playing. Right?
As Beavis pointed out, if the live update is turned off, it will NEVER update because the playlist is frozen at the time you either create it with live updating turned off or when you turn off the live update feature.
So the solution is, leave the live update off. Then at your own schedule, when you remember, edit the smart playlist, click Live Updating, click ok to exit. The playlist will be updated with rated songs being removed and new stuff you added to the library being put into that playlist. Now edit it again and uncheck the box to turn off live updating and you can continue to play out of the playlist and rate as you go. Then repeat next time you are ready to update your playlist.
Patrick

RAID 0 Questions - advice needed

I am stepping up to a new BTO Mac Pro (2.8Ghz with 8GB third-party RAM) and considering the Apple RAID Card vs. Software RAID. I have a few questions regarding RAID 0 on the startup volume and hardware vs. software RAID. I am a graphic designer and running Adobe CS3 and working often with pretty large files.
1. Does RAID 0 on a startup volume offer any performance boost if working data is on another volume? Does the working volume need to be in RAID 0 or RAID 5 to reap the performance beneftis. This is a point I am not entirely clear on yet.
2. I understand the risks of running RAID 0, especially on a startup volume. Any advice on whether or not this offers any real world performance boost?
- OR -
Would a single Raptor offer similar results. Or better yet, would a partial-stroked 500GB SATA II disk offer the same results as a single Raptor at a fraction of the cost, without the RAID 0 risks?
2. Is a hardware RAID card (i.e. the Apple RAID Card or better yet, the new CalDigit RAID Card for less $$$) a better option than software RAID (either Apple or SoftRAID)? With a RAID 0 startup volume and a RAID 1 pair for storage, will hardware RAID offer any performance gains? Or would a single startup volume with a 3-disk RAID 5 storage volume be a better option (I know RAID 5 is not possible with software RAID).
3. Any advice/feedback on the Apple RAID Card? I have read some horror stories about battery charging, at least initially. I have not seen much about the strange recharge cycle which apparently can cripple your machine for days every 3 months. The new CalDigit RAID card appears to be very promising. Supports the 4 internal drive bays as well as external drives, which the Apple card does not.
Thanks in advance for any help/advice.

I usually avoid linking to other forums, but in this case, there is a similar discussion over on MacNN forum setting up a Mac Pro to use RAID.
Apple RAID software has continued to improve. The difference in performance between Apple and SoftRAID has narrowed to the point both are excellent. SoftRAID though alerts you on any I/O time out or read/write errors, and use a stripped read which is nice, when or where it is needed.
I've never stopped upgrading and trying to improve on performance. The trick is not everyone can go out and spend $800 for a drive case and controller plus another $500 on disk drives for an external setup, and buy 3-6 drives for the existing SATA ports.
Rather than buying the fastest, I bought some 160GB RE WD drives, cheap, good for RAID, and planned to use those as the base. Then got the 320GB model. Then bought WD RE2 500GB $115 ea , which seems to be a nice price and still does nicely, optimized for writes. That means I can do some mix-and-matching.
Some can take their existing SATA drives to get started. And probably has some drives that can be used for backups and such.
Here is my own shopping list:
Sonnet Tempo E4P:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Sonnet%20Technology/TSATAIIE4P/
SeriTek Case: $525
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Firmtek/SATA5PM/
Or something cheaper,
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Norco%20Technologies/DS500N/
Dual bay case to use with 2 ODD ports and NewerTech kit:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MESATATBEK/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/MPQXES2/
(takes some work to access those two ODD SATA ports, but worth it, always on)
OWC XLR8 Specials, usually have Friday specials:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Specials/XLR8YourMac.cfm
10K Raptor $210 vs WD RE2 750GB $220 if you look under hard drives.

Duplicate blank playlist question?

I subscribed to Match last week and had an issue with Match creating 1000s of duplicate playlist or blank playlist within my iTunes library. I tried everything possible to get the playlist deleted. I don't really want to go into it all, search the forums and I tried everything mentioned on all the various post.
After contacting Apple for help which they basically had me do the same thing I already tried from reading these very forums to no avail. Apple ended up refunding my money for Match. So my question is now that I haven't had Match for a few days would the playlist cache that was on Apple's server that was connected to my account be wiped now? If I repurchase Match will it function as intended and not populate my iTunes library with these playlist? I tried asking the rep this question and he gave me no answer on that question. I know everyone here is a user like me but I was hoping maybe someone had the same issue or something similar and maybe repurchased with better luck?
Thanks in advance,
Christopher

Unfortunately, since Apple refunded your money it will not be possible to resubscribe to iTunes Match at this time. Unless Apple has changed the policy, when they give a refund, the person has had to wait a year to resubscribe. If you still want to resubscribe you should contact support again and work with them.

Trying to create a new playlist but several songs are marked with exclamation mark and will not transfer into playlist - any advice?

I have never had trouble creating playlists before but quite a few songs will not transfer and ate marked at the side with an exclamation mark. I know ZERO about technology so if you can help me in very simple language, I would be very grateful! I am wondering if it may have something to do with the fact that I have had to start new accounts when I have moved countries, on order to be able to use the credit card of the new country in the Itunes store of that country... I am in Aus and have bought a lot of tunes here but last year I was living in Brunei and, in order to use my brunei credit card ( as it was the only one with money in it) , I had to set it up as different to my Aus account. Could this be the issue? prior to Aus my account was in Ireland. I have paid for all these songs but it seems I cannot now use some of them... Please help!!! Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer, Lisa

The exclamation mark next to a song means it is no longer where iTunes is looking for it. iTunes won't let you add such "missing" songs to a playlist. Possible reasons for a song going missing are that you or some third party software has moved or deleted it, or a folder that contained it, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter, or a configuration file has changed making iTunes look in a slightly different place from before.
Select one of the songs with an exclamation mark, press CTRL+I to Get Info, say no when prompted to locate it, then note down the location from the Summary tab that begins file://localhost/ - please post back this path as given. Hopefully you can find the file this entry in your library is supposed to be connected to. Assuming you can please post back this path as well. These two items of information may suggest a fix through folder manipulation or a configuration change.
If things have got a little more disorganized then, as long as the tracks still exist to be found, my FindTracks script should be able to reconnect them to iTunes. FindTracks uses some fuzzy matching routines and searches for multiple potential locations. For more details see this thread. Start by selecting the tracks of a single album and then run the script. Your media folder should normally be detected automatically, e.g. as C:\Users\<User>\iTunes\iTunes Media, but you can edit the path if it is wrong or a particular batch of lost files are stored at another path. If it works as expected you can then move on to fixing the rest of the library in bigger batches.
tt2

Shuffled Playlist Question

Instead of having to navigate back and fourth between the Settings menu and the Music menus, is it possible to create a Playlist (or SPL) that contains the majority of my collection but shuffles the music? I've tried a variety of set ups that look like they will work when viewed through iTunes, but when played through the iPod they play everything in order (ie not shuffled).

Well I hear what you are saying, but as you pointed out, these things seem to be beyond the current capability of the iPod. On that same note, this 5th Gen video iPod I have is my very first iPod and while I do love it, I am actually rather shocked at the limited features it has or what I feel are obvious things it should be able to do but doesn't.
Ya, as each new generation of iPod has come along Apple made big steps forward in the big things it could do, like black and white to a color screen then to showing photos then doing video. But the little features (that are just programming) that should have been added to the user interface, seem to have been forgotten.
Here is an example of one that to me would have been an obvious user interface features: Being able to delete a song from the iPod and then (maybe optionally) have that same song removed from the iTunes library when you sync. How many times have you been out and about with your iPod, a song comes one, maybe one of the last tracks of a new album you recently imported and you think to yourself, "well this song is a dud"? I want to delete it from my iPod and my library. So I either have to remember what song it is or make a note somewhere (by the way, I often end up with a post it note on the back of my iPod at work just for that purpose). It would be easier to have a built in delete function on the iPod or at the very least, a "delete me" flag you can turn on so when you get back to your computer, iTunes can show you the ones you tagged to be removed.
Another feature I would like to see for the color iPods is the ability to change screen and font color. Since there is no way to actually dim the LCD screen (another missing feature) at night, in a dark car, etc. that screen can be really overly bright. So how about being able to change the screen color from white to a less bright color like dark blue. Or how about a night mode where the screen is black and the font is white? Or how about a night vision mode with a red screen so you don't ruin your night vision? Obviously if the iPod can show video, having screen and font colors changeable should be super easy.
Then there are the weird things. For example, I play a few songs on the iPod. I then go and look in the Recently Played list. The songs are there but it seems to be a sort of random order. The songs I just played are not at the top like in iTunes, but are towards the bottom, and not in the order I played them. I haven't bothered to figure out the order they are in but it is probably something that makes little sense like sort by date, then by artist name, but the list only shows song titles, so it looks jumbled. Weird.
So that is my long winded way to say, your idea of a changing play list with a dynamic shuffle sounds great, but considering I can not even remove a song from the iPod without a computer, must be blinded by the light if I touch the controls of my iPod while in a dark car, and my choices of screen and font colors are about the same as Henry Ford offered on his cars, don't hold your breath!
Patrick

Video Playlists Question

When I make a video playlist of favorite videos, the videos only play one at a time, and at the end of each, kicks me back to that playlist's window.
Is there no way for the videos to play one right after the other non-stop, just like my music playlists?

I think by default, videos (and podcasts) are set to "Skip when shuffling". If your iPod is in shuffle mode you can start one item but your iPod will stop if all the other items in the playlist are programmed to skip. Either turn shuffle off, or go into the tags of the videos and un-check the skip feature.

IPod Touch Playlist Question

I know that the Touch (2g) can create Genius playlists, but I was curious if I could make my own playlists (I'm really new to the whole mp3/mp4/etc. player world) on it. Since I am a runner, I'd like to be able choose a handful of songs, put them on a playlist, and then let them repeat while I run. Can I do this on a Touch?
Also, for running, I was considering getting an iPod sensor. Which should I get if I buy the 2g Touch?
Thank you very much.

Hi Farhan,
While playing a track in the playlist touch the artwork to summon the "scrub bar", to the left of this is a small oval symbol with tiny arrows, touch this to turn it on (goes blue) to repeat current album or playlist, touch twice to repeat track, third time it goes white and is off.
The symbol on the right "X" is shuffle, but you knew that already.
Have fun,
Dud.
Message was edited by: Duddo
Message was edited by: Duddo

Basic Questions/Advice

I would like to create a series of instructional videos that will be placed on a DVD and become linked from a main menu. Some of the primary links on the main menu will open new menu pages with additional links for other videos.
1.) I am not sure if I need DVD Studio Pro or if iDVD will be sufficient?
2.) I am also trying to decide if it should be designed to work only on computers, home players, or both. Is there anything special I should be aware of in order to make sure the disc can be played on both a home computer and a home player? These videos will be for a school so I would like the discs to be playable in both if possible.
Thanks for any advice!!

1.) I am not sure if I need DVD Studio Pro or if iDVD will be sufficient?
Based on what you described it sounds like you can do this in iDVD if you have it (you probably do) DVD SP opens up more control and other features, but also has a higher learning curve. But based on your description none of those things are necessary for you right now.
2.) I am also trying to decide if it should be designed to work only on computers, home players, or both. Is there anything special I should be aware of in order to make sure the disc can be played on both a home computer and a home player? These videos will be for a school so I would like the discs to be playable in both if possible.
A standard DVD should work on both standalone players and also computers (that have DVD Drives of course) - there are issues in general where some computers or players can behave strangely, but for the most part iDVD will work fine. Strangely enough, I have friends who cannot get DVDs authored in DVD SP to work properly on some of their players, yet iDVD discs work fine.

Smart Playlists Question

Who knows a lot about Smart Playlists? I want to create a playlist that has all of my songs sorted first by "Play Count", then by song title. Does anyone know how to do this? I could write a MySQL query to do this in 2 minutes, but I don't know enough about iTunes to do it. Is it possible?
Thanks!!!

Smart playlist are for selecting specific songs, not sorting.
If you are sorting everything you don't need a playlist.
Select Library /Music and sort on *Play Count*.
Can't select a secondary sort column though (with either a playlist or the library).

Smart Playlist Question

I started to notice something the other day. I'm not sure if the problem is new or if I am just using Smart Playlists more.
This is what's going on. I create a Smartplay list in iTunes. All is good it syncs to my iPod.
What I am having problems is the play lists becomes static. After the initial creation, I have a few playlists that are Random songs; like a random 1 hour, 2 hour, and 10 hour. I'd like these to be updated at every sync if not every time iTunes is opened.
Am I miss understanding Smartplay lists? Is there a way to do what I am looking for?

Do you have live updating checked on your SPL criteria?

Importing playlist question

How can I move a playlist from my Ipod to Itunes? Long story on how the playlist is no longer on Itunes.
Thanks

There are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve the music files and playlists from your iPod. I believe these three will all clone data such as playlists, playcounts etc.
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)

IWeb and iTunes Playlist Question:

Hi,
I would like to add an iTunes-Playlist to my Website. When I select the Playlist in the Media-Browser, iWeb creates a List with arrows pointing to the right. They are the same as they are in the iTMS. Where do they point??
Dirk

I got it... I published the site to a folder, that works also for that. The arrows point to the iTMS...
Dirk

Video Storage / Mirroring Question & Advice

Good Day
I am assembling about 5 years worth of video from tape, card and disk and putting it all onto a Drobo Pro w/ 8x2TB drives. The drive should be big enough. And my plan is to just get another Drobo if need be and daisy chain them together. I am not editing off of them (Drobo ***** for that!), just need a very reliable backup / storage solution.
However, due to my paranoia, I want a mirror of the drive(s) just in case there is a fire at the office, flood, theft etc. Just can't have all this footage existing in 1 location.
We are a small operation so things like Xserve seem a little much to me. Any ideas on options? Is it as simple as we have to get a second Drobo and make a copy of the main one and keep it off site? Is tape backup a good option? Online would be great, but 20TB+?
Need advice! Thanks in advance

You will need Screen Spanning Doctor(SSD) with your iMac to get 2 different screens. Of course, if you are a UNIX geek and know how, you can turn off mirroring in the terminal. SSD is a lot simpler for us non-geeks. You should be able to find it on VersionTracker.com or MacUpdate.com
With an expanded screen, you might still be unable to use your 1920x1080 or whatever because of VRAM limitations.. I was able to run the 14" and 19" in thousands of colors, but not millions from an iBookG4. I can run the 19" at 1280x1024 and the 15" MacBookPro at 1440x900 in millions, but the MPB can handle a 30" at millions. With the iBookG4, I had to have SSD to get an extended screen. I am pretty sure the iMacG5 required that, too.
Hope this helps.

Playlist Question / Advice

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