[Floyde]

This is my second post after having my mac for 3 days now! hehe Im getting there..

Ok, I have 50gig or so of MP3’s I have burnt to dvd from my PC and I have started importing them into iTunes. This is how I have been doing it.
Open iTunes
Open the mp3 dvd
select a few albums at a time and drag them over the library in itunes and drop. Itunes then says its working through and importing them.
Last night I did 2500+ songs this way and when I came to switch my machine off and back on the next day I opened itunes and there werent any tunes in the library. But if I look in the iTune Music folder all the tunes were there. I highlighted these and dragged them into iTunes again… itunes imported them again and now they have stayed put after a restart but I ended up with all the tunes in the Itunes music folder and all the tunes in another folder as well, so I had to delete one set.
What is the best way(standard way) to import tunes from a data dvd into the iTunes library and only have one copy?
Also at some point I will transfer all my tunes to an external back up drive. Can I load itunes on this and use that drive as my music drive?

Ohh and one last thing… is iTunes basically the same kinda app as Winamp/WMP for the PC?

Thanks for any help.. really appreciated

[SSharon]

I suggest reading through all of the options in the itunes preferences. Pay special attention to the advanced tab which has the option to copy files to the itunes music library and has a place for you to set where your music library folder is (external drive for example). I think you can figure out everything you need from there, if not keep posting here.

itunes has many more features than winamp etc. music store, sharing, burning, printing covers, the list goes on.

[Cipher13]

Personally, this is how I'd do it:

1. Go into iTunes preferences, and UNCHECK the two advanced options: "Keep music folder arranged" or whatever, and "copy items to iTunes music folder", or whatever they say.

2. Copy the files off the DVD's to your Music folder, or whatever. I'm assuming they're already sorted in albums, as you implied.

3. Drag the entire folder, once the whole collection is there, to the Library.

4. Enjoy.

[Chito]

I just pop whatever disc in, cd or dvd, and start iTunes, then from iTunes file menu I select add to library. Select the songs I want to add and iTunes does the rest.

[Floyde]

Cool..
I think as mentioned above I must have the option ticked in pref to copy to music folder or something. I do remember a similar check box in iphoto that copies everything so that you still have the originals if you want them..

Ohh and these forums are really nice. People have answered questions straight away and have been real cool... what a refreshing change!!

Cheers Chaps

[Developer]

Originally posted by Floyde:
Cool..
I think as mentioned above I must have the option ticked in pref to copy to music folder or something.

There is nothing wrong with the setting. In fact it's quite useful to let iTunes organize the Music folder. And you wanted to copy from DVD to your hard disk anyway.

[Floyde]

Hi

Yeah I do want to copy from DVD to harddisk but at present I seem to be getting 2 copies of what ever Im copying! As I described above. I copied stright from dvd to itunes and then restarted my pc. When starting iTunes again there was nothing in the library but all the tracks I had copied previously where in another folder called Music>iTunes Music Folder. I highlighted all these and dragged them back into iTunes and they have stayed put now but I had noticed that my HD space had reduced dramatically. After digging around I noticed I had to folders of music with the same tunes in. I deleted the iTunes Music folder and left the iTunes Library folder... all seems fine. I was just wondering if there was a setting somewhere that caused this double up... maybe it was just a freak occurance...

[tooki]

The forum descriptions EXPLICITLY list that Apple applications do NOT belong in the OS X forum.

tooki