Help synching up with Windows Media player

[catrje3]

I just got a new iPhone 3GS and I need help synching up to my windows media player on my computer. Does anyone have any tips?

 

[en0c]

Whats wrong with iTunes?

 

[catrje3]

Nothing at all, I love itunes. I just have alot of music on my media player that I wanted to sync instead of buying the songs all over.

 

[Microcosmos]

You can move the songs to iTunes, no problem, lickety split! I don't think that the iPhone will sync to anything Windows at this point.

 

[catrje3]

Thank you very much!

 

[flyingember]

you're probably going to be rebuying your music and using itunes. the only songs that were purchased directly through media player that I know of will not play on an ipod or iphone.

basically if you bought it with Windows/Microsoft DRM it's out and you will be replacing it. If you bought it as an mp3 from somewhere like emusic or amazon it's probably ok and you can add it into itunes to sync.

that said, if it is protected with a non-Apple DRM you can attempt to hack the song and then convert it to a supported filetype, Apple will not play any windows media format regardless of if it has DRM.

or you can burn all the songs to a music CD and import them into itunes.

 

[Microcosmos]

Ooh yeah didn't think about that DRM stuff when I posted earlier, yeah that won't transfer, but if it's a regular mp3 that you ripped from a CD than it will transfer to iTunes, just go to the File menu in iTunes and select Add File or Add Folder. This is pretty easy and seamless...

 

[lauriefoss]

Go ahead and ask me how much I'm not enjoying iTunes. All of my music was organized in Windows Media Player. All in .mp3 format. ITunes only converted about half of it and uploaded it. The rest I'm having to upload from the original CDs - PITA! Plus having to reorganize everything all over again as to genre, put the compilations back together, some of the artwork won't pull up, etc. etc. It's taking forever to get my music back to how I want it.
PLUS, every time I add music to iTunes and sync my phone, the sync won't work, I have to de-select all music, re-sync which removes all music, then sync again to get it to put the new music back on the phone which takes a long time. And I mean that I have to do this EVERY TIME I add music to iTunes.
If anyone has a resource for using iTunes easier, please pass it along. It's the one thing I am not enjoying about the iPhone.

Laurie Foss
Austin, TX

 

[flyingember]

Go ahead and ask me how much I'm not enjoying iTunes. All of my music was organized in Windows Media Player. All in .mp3 format. ITunes only converted about half of it and uploaded it. The rest I'm having to upload from the original CDs - PITA! Plus having to reorganize everything all over again as to genre, put the compilations back together, some of the artwork won't pull up, etc. etc. It's taking forever to get my music back to how I want it.
PLUS, every time I add music to iTunes and sync my phone, the sync won't work, I have to de-select all music, re-sync which removes all music, then sync again to get it to put the new music back on the phone which takes a long time. And I mean that I have to do this EVERY TIME I add music to iTunes.
If anyone has a resource for using iTunes easier, please pass it along. It's the one thing I am not enjoying about the iPhone.

Laurie Foss
Austin, TX

Using iTunes is a known requirement to use an iPhone. This wasn't a secret.

How much music do you have (actual size)? Is it all mp3s <=320kbit?

Genre is super easy to fix. There's a field where you can enter it en mass Select multiple songs and choose the genre for all of them at once. There's also a field for compilations if I remember right. You can pick all the songs and put them in the same compilation at the same time too.

artwork doesn't pull up because they store artwork in different ways.

 

[lauriefoss]

Using iTunes is a known requirement to use an iPhone. This wasn't a secret.

How much music do you have (actual size)? Is it all mp3s <=320kbit?

Genre is super easy to fix. There's a field where you can enter it en mass Select multiple songs and choose the genre for all of them at once. There's also a field for compilations if I remember right. You can pick all the songs and put them in the same compilation at the same time too.

artwork doesn't pull up because they store artwork in different ways.

Yup, got all that. And I knew I would have to use iTunes. I just thought it would not be so quirky to use since it has such broad usage.

 

[iquinn]

Yup, got all that. And I knew I would have to use iTunes. I just thought it would not be so quirky to use since it has such broad usage.

I think the reason you are having issues is that you are coming from windows media. I have been using itunes for years and I think that it is the best music service that anyone can use. IMHO win media has nothing on itunes. I think once you get used to it you will really like it.

 

[lauriefoss]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll stick with it (what choice to I have, really?) and hope things get better.

 

[flyingember]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll stick with it (what choice to I have, really?) and hope things get better.

your first battle is to get everything organized with metadata. that is a total pain. but once this is done it gets nicer.

you can make a smart playlist with all of one genre, or played a certain number of times, or this or that. and it updates automatically. genius playlists do work. my wife saved several of these. took her no time to make several playlists she liked

you can sync your playlists to the phones and the music stays correct with no extra work, making it really easy to switch between sets of music. choose your playlists of choice and it does the rest.

the music not syncing without removing thing is really weird. this doesn't sound right. are you manually managing the songs or syncing?

 

[lauriefoss]

I'm syncing and the whole sync fails. This is a known problem - I found the solution by searching this forum. The fix is to de-select music from the sync list, perform a sync (which removes all music from phone) then re-select the music to sync, and perform a sync.
Very tedious.

 

[flyingember]

I'm syncing and the whole sync fails. This is a known problem - I found the solution by searching this forum. The fix is to de-select music from the sync list, perform a sync (which removes all music from phone) then re-select the music to sync, and perform a sync.
Very tedious.

thus why playlists are useful. select one playlist with every song you want sync'd (or a set of multiple smaller playlists). if you have a problem (i.e. phone breaks and you get a new one) you don't need to pick the songs.

you can also update a playlist in advance of syncing.

not at all tedious

 

[lauriefoss]

Great - thanks a bunch for the advice. I'll give it a try.