Question for iPod/iTunes Buffs....

[kcnychief]

I'm only recently getting into audio, iTunes and serious with my iPod since I got a new one recently. I had a pretty serious crash of a hard drive and lost all my MP3. But, since I had them all on my iPod, I used some software to retrieve them and now they are back restored (just cleaning up the mess that iTunes does when naming them).

My question is this - I have a NAS with a "Multimedia" share, that I have all the songs in. When I open iTunes, it does see it under "Shared" which I assume is a Shared Library. Granted, I haven't actually "tried" this yet, will soon once iPod #2 gets here (holding out because I fear when I connect my ipod it will erase all the content and load with the new library which is still in beta lol), is it even possible to sync with a network library for your iPod? From what I have been able to find and read, it sounds like iTunes does not support syncing with a network-based/shared library. Can anyone shed some light on this situation, or perhaps some additional documentation I can read over? All the stuff I found online seems a bit confusing or not clear, made harder by the fact I won't try yet

-edit-

This is the drive I have and one of the documents describing how it's setup -

http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=935
http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2684

-edit 2-

If I have the Shared folder on the left, as well as if I manually set the iTunes folder within the properties to that device, and then add the folder to the library - seems a bit redundant? I wonder if that's why I have a bunch of duplicates showing?

 

[madmatt]

iPod? Eww.

 

[kcnychief]

Thanks, very helpful

 

[gonaads]

Hah! matt that was classic, very nice. I would give ya reps for that quip, buuuuut you got too many already.


KC if what you are saying is anything like my situation when my Daughters are online through the router and my iTunes sees there music folders... Their folders are "Shared" folders under my iTines. Now you can see them and play them (the songs) in iTunes but ya can't sync them to your iPod. Could be since the shared folders are not physically on your computer's HDD.

Also, you could set your iPod to "Manual Sync", this way nothing will get erased. Only drawback is going through all the songs to pick the ones you want.


Not very helpful huh? :s

 

[kcnychief]

It is actually, but that kinda sucks. So, basically, if I want to sync with an ipod I can't really use Shared libraries. I have to keep local copies of the libraries on all computers that want to sync.

Lovely.

Was helpful, and thanks for the manual sync tip.

 

[gonaads]

Also, you don't need software to get the songs off of the iPod. Just make sure you have set the iPod to "Disk Mode". Then in Windows Explorer open up the iPod and find the directory with all the music folders (they are labeled F00 to F49). Copy them to anywhere on your HDD and there ya go. Oh, but the folders are gonna look different from normal folders. That's 'cause they are marked as "Hidden" folders in the folders attributes. Highlight them all right click and open up "Properties". Un-tick the "Hidden" box and tick the "Read Only" box. Reason for this is if you try to load the folders into the iTunes library it won't since they are hidden.

This trick is great when ya loose your library but still have everything on your iPod.

After you have done all this (if you loose your music) just point iTunes to the directory where the music has been copied to under "Properties" where you set up the folder where iTunes would have your music. Or you can copy all the music from the iPod to the default iTunes music folder. The default is the "My Music" folder on your root drive.

I have pulled so much music this way from around 6 iPods.

 

[kcnychief]

Good to know - It was only 15 bucks and really saved my bacon so I'm good

I think what I'm going to do is just load the library on one PC and use a backup script to keep the mp3's backed up to the NAS. I can share the library so everyone can stream, but will use one main PC for synchronizing.

Thanks pal

 

[madmatt]

Thanks, very helpful

No problem.

 

[gonaads]

^^^ What he said. ^^^

 

[X-Istence]

If you have a NAS, and you can mount/map the drive you can just tell iTunes to store all of it's files on that server.

From then on when you add stuff to your iTunes, it will write it to the shared folder. This is how I had it set up for the longest time. Then every so often I would tell the iTunes on my other computer to re-check it's folder for any new songs that I had added to the other library.

 

[kcnychief]

Then every so often I would tell the iTunes on my other computer to re-check it's folder for any new songs that I had added to the other library.

I had all the other stuff you said setup already. So, you are saying use the Shared library to stream, and you can then copy the music locally. Then, every so often, force itunes to sync against that location? How would you do that exactly? What menu option? Would this retain play history, customized/changes in tags, as well as playlists and album art?