We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Avoid iTunes 7 like the plague! I quite like iTunes, finding the ‘look and feel’ better than any other music players for both my Mac and PC… however I made the mistake of upgrading to iTunes 7 the other day and found its ugly, laggy and above all the sound quality was dire with crackling and buzzing sounds clearly audible.
Looking on the internet I see I am far from the only person this has happened to. How Apple could release such a pox ridden piece of software is a marvel. Avoid at all costs until it is well and truly patched. I have gone back to the previous version with which I am entirely happy and will probably stick with it for some time now unless I can find an alternative player that I like.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
I maneuver through my classical library on iTunes/iPod by composer. Unfortunately, sometimes non-classical music lists a “composer” (e.g., Billy Joel). I meticulously removed the “Composer” field from all my non-classical songs.
And iTunes 7.0 meticulously added it back.
Grrr….
About a year ago I updated the software for my iPod and my computer wouldn’t recognize the iPod anymore. I think the smart move is to hold off on any update and watch the message boards till the complaints stop.
Kip, in the genre field, it puts my I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue shows as “Blues”. Sometimes it’s mind boggling what pops up in those other fields.
No problems with version 7 since I downloaded it a few days ago. I’ll be vigilant though.
There isn’t anything in v.7 that I want that v.6 didn’t have. So v.7 gets a non-emphatic “meh” from me.
My experience of V7 so far is good. I have been waiting for gapless playback since they moved from the hardware-based CD player to iTunes wayback when and this now delivers.
The look and feel is a taster for Leopard, and a means to get “clear aqua” between themselves and Vista IMHO. It is a retrograde step. I have already had to swap the icon for an older version that has less of the “Sim Lim”/”WanChai”/”Pantip Plaza” about it.
Perry: Mac or PC?
KipEsquire:
Just make a Classical smart playlist, and don’t show “Composer” in the View options for the rest of the library or playlists.
Smart Playlists are your friends.
Two PCs (one high spec, one ultra high spec) and one Mac (G4 desktop)… sound quality down the crapper on all of them, which is quite astonishing.
You might find that ctfmon.exe is causing some/most of your playback problems if you are running iTunes under Windows.
I’ve had all sorts of trouble with this file and iTunes for quite a few versions of iTunes (crackling and sound fade in and out) . Creative based sound cards seem to be particularly troublesome with this file. Check out KB282599 for tips on removing it.
Unfortunately, this fix WON’T help the fugly UI…
Eric… I have been using iTunes without a problem on PCs for quite some time now and this is the first time it has proved a major disappointment.
Also, the very high spec PC does not have any MS Office programs on it as it is mostly just used for games and music (hence there should not be any Ctfmon.exe related problems on that PC because it has no cause to even be running), yet the sound quality was dire (in fact worse than the other PC and the Mac). Turning off sound enhancer and sound check made it a bit better but still quite unacceptable. I am less concerned with the Mac as it is due for retirement in the near future.
Perry:
That’s really odd. The chances of a single software flaw to be present on both PC and Mac versions of iTunes is pretty startlingly low. I certainly haven’t had any sort of similar problem on my Mac since upgrading.
You’re not, by chance, sharing a set of speakers between the three machines?
To say the least but…
It is not quite the same problems on both. On the PCs the main problem is very poor sound quality. On the Mac it seems to occasionally skip entire tracks or just play the first few seconds and although it does not crackle and pop like the PCs, the sound is noticably worse than before, grainy and flat at the same time.
and no, although I do have airtunes set up, I am talking about local machine problems using local speakers.
I’ve not noticed any problems as yet (Dual G4 867MHz).
DK
It’s just fine on all my machines … from dual 2.0 GHz G5 to 1.25 GHz G4 iMac to 1.0 GHz 17″ PowerBook to 400 MHz G3 iMac…
The gapless playback is a long overdue must-have for much of the music I listen to.
Actually, I have never installed MS Office products on my system (too damn expensive), but ctfmon.exe still shows up. It’s been integrated into OS Updates for a while now in XP. Plus UT2004 installs it as well, for those gaming rigs out there. It’s part of the voice recognition software MS uses.
I just thought I’d throw out the info about the file, because killing it cleared up the problem for my system.
Hope you’re able to solve whatever is causing the glitch on your systems (I don’t have a Mac, so I can’t really offer any suggestions there).
Why are you using iTunes anyway, when such things as GNUpod exist? I would have thought that the free software philosophy would be right up your alley.
I think that I can guess the answer, though.
because, as I explained, I like iTunes ‘look and feel’… and I do not have an iPod so what use would GNUpod be to me?
Sure and I am all for free software but that is secondary to getting software that I like. If I have to pay for something I prefer, I will. But iTunes is also free.
Really? Pray tell.
Installed iTunes via automatic update and then read your post.
No problems here – I’ve been jazzing away to some stuff stored in my Library for over 40 minutes now. Playback from a podacast is as expected, but that was only one.
PowerBook G4
10.4.7
Perry,
Many thanks for your answer.
Since you asked, the usual answers one hears are:
Free software/OSS? What’s that?
Free software/OSS? Isn’t that communist?
Yes that’s all very well, but it’s not very easy/pleasant to use, is it?
Sounds good, but I don’t want to learn other things.
Your answer was therefore close to one of those. Fair enough for you may, of course, use whatever you please, and Apple are doing a good job if they are providing you with something they like. However, I have often wondered why people here have not made more of some of the things RMS comes out with, e.g. this.
P.S.
But iTunes is also free.
Actually, it isn’t (unlike, for example, mplayer), according to the definition that free software advocates use.
Also, apologies for the fact that as I don’t use iTunes or an iPod, I mistakenly assumed that they go together, which it seems is not necessarily the case.
Oh but it is… because I use it just as an mp3 player, and so the DRM aspects make little difference to me. 99% of the time I acquire my music from ABA (Anyone But Apple). On the rare occasions I purchase something from iTunes in their detestable m4p format because I just cannot find it elsewhere, I immediatly use tunebite to convert it into a DRM-free mp3 🙂
As I will not buy an iPod (I like my Zen player just fine), their m4p format is worthless to me. Easily solved however.
Can you really access the iTunes source code? Can you modify it as you wish, and re-release it yourself? If so, then Apple are a lot more enlightened than I thought. However, if it is really that free, then I wonder why the bugs you describe haven’t been fixed.
I hate to break this to you but if Mercedes Benz start giving away cars for no money, they will still be free even though I am not an automotive engineer and so do not know how to alter the car to make it ‘better’. If I get in the car, the dealer hands me the keys, I drive away in it and I do not pay any money, then it is free.
I download iTunes (for free), I use it to listen to my mp3 collection (acquired elsewhere) without paying for the privilage… it is free. If iTunes 7 is buggy, that does not make it non-free, it just makes it buggy… so I use the perfectly good previous version… for free.
The Free Software Movement definition of ‘free’ is as internally obsessive as the Objectivist definition of ‘altruism’… i.e. no one but them defines the term the way they do. It may not be free to alter (and as a non-programmer, I could not care less) but it is free to acquire and use, so (to me) it is free.
If someone gives away their product without charging, it is free, end of story. The fact they reserve some rights to it does not make it not-free, it just means they reserve some rights to it.
The Free Software Movement definition of ‘free’ is as internally obsessive…
Indeed so, hence the whole disagreement between them and advocates of “open source”. You seemed to imply that iTunes was “free” in the way the FS people mean, which it isn’t, although it is certainly “free” in the sense you mean it.
The “free software” vs. “open source” debating, although probably something you don’t care about, is something I have found interesting because it has some similarities to what happens when one tries to explain libertarianism to people. The “open source” people claim that their argument (“it works better”) has been much more persuasive than the “free software” argument (“it’s morally pure”), and the facts seem to support this conclusion, at least when applied to software.
Yes, I’d have agree with all of that.
Great – many thanks for your replies to my comments.
I have been having trouble getting podcasts to upload to my new ipod 80gb from itunes 7. Its like they arent even there. And even when i try to watch the podcasts on the itunes it is distorted and messed up although the audio part is still ok. Any ideas??
Can you really access the iTunes source code? Can you modify it as you wish, and re-release it yourself? If so, then Apple are a lot more enlightened than I thought. However, if it is really that free, then I wonder why the bugs you describe haven’t been fixed.
It was only released about a day before Perry’s article and, as it only seems to affect some systems (which would imply a clask with some specific piece of software) it will take some research to find the problem and release a stable patch.
But, no, iTunes is not “free” in the way that you mean. However, the Darwin BSD Mac OS kernel and many of the APIs and KPIs are Open Source.
Apple are pretty enlightened: I suspect that it is their small market share — which has enforced the maximum amount of compatibility with other systems — has been at least paritally responsible for this.
The DRM was forced upon them by the major record labels; to be sure, Apple have used it to their advantage but what business wouldn’t?
DK
I hate it.
It hates me.
Terrible grainy sound at times, won’t put iTunes bought songs on iPod….
I don’t like it so I got dvd ipod converter(Link) instead of it.