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bbales · Apr 2, 2004, 12:44 PM

Hi -- This is a dumb question, I'm sure, but one that will need answering in the next month, when my daughter's "mini" arrives. And I want a mini for my birthday/Mother's Day, which are right around the same time. And another daughter is saving up for a mini as well.

All the music is stored on one computer. Will we all have to have everyone else's music, or can we just download our own playlists? We're discussing this as I realize I have no idea as to the answer.

Thanks in advance.

::maroma:: · Apr 2, 2004, 02:29 PM

I'm almost positive that you can serve multiple iPods from one computer. The only trouble would be not being able to put purchased music from the iTunes Music Service on multiple iPods.

Do you have separate users set up for each person, or are you all using the same user?

-Q- · Apr 2, 2004, 04:09 PM

Yes, you can sync multiple iPods to one computer. I sync my wife's iPod to my computer along with mine as I haven't been able to get her windows macine to see the music library over the network yet. And you can tell iTunes to only sync specified playlists so you don't have to worry about getting inundated with your daughter's music.

And AFAIK, you can put music purchased on the iTMS on as many iPods as you want so long as the computer you're syncing with is authorized to play them. The iPod ignores the FairPlay copy protection of the AAC file and just plays the music w/out any problems (so long as the iPod software is v1.3 or later).

torifile · Apr 2, 2004, 04:44 PM

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
I'm almost positive that you can serve multiple iPods from one computer. The only trouble would be not being able to put purchased music from the iTunes Music Service on multiple iPods.

There is absolutely NO PROBLEM with using one computer to sync multiple iPods. There is no limit on the number of iPods that can be serviced by one computer. There is no limit on the number of iPods that can contain the purchased music either. You should encounter no difficulty at all. (I do it all the time.)

bbales · Apr 2, 2004, 05:06 PM

Great! I was pretty sure that was the answer. There are actually two machines. ON one, I've just kept myself as the user, as it's my work machine, though others use it upon occasion. ON the laptop I created four accounts, but the music is in a shared folder. (Some of the purchased music disappeared, as a matter of fact, during my archive/install of Panther a few months ago. But I'd backed everything up, so I still need to go back and find what is missing. My music and photo organization leaves a whole lot to be desired.)

Fothb · Apr 2, 2004, 05:25 PM

As long as each user has their own account, everything should be fine, as each user's iTunes settings will be unique. If you tried to sync multiple pods with a single user account, it would still work, but you'd miss out on some of the cool features like song playcounts and ratings (without multiple accounts there would not be a way for two users to give the same song different stats). Also - some people plug in multiple pods at the same time, as OS X is smart enough to handle it.

::maroma:: · Apr 2, 2004, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by torifile:
There is no limit on the number of iPods that can contain the purchased music either.

Wow! That's great. I had assumed otherwise.

Zoom · Apr 2, 2004, 06:03 PM

So, since the original question has been answered, let me ask a related question: can you use one iPod on more than one computer? I had assumed that you could, but now I'm guessing that you can't.

I have a Mac at home and a PC at work. I wanted to download my tunes to my work PC (for personal use at work).

Why doesn't this work? I mean, what's the DRM stance on this? Most of the songs on my iPod come from my CDs that I've ripped (ie, they're not from iTMS). I thought that anything I ripped would be free of any DRM. If so, then why can't I put these files on multiple PCs that I own and play them with iTunes?

There are probably PC apps that will allow me to do this. If anyone knows of any, let me know. (I'm assuming that this is perfectly legal, it's just not a function that Apple provides, probably as a CYA maneuver.)

::maroma:: · Apr 2, 2004, 06:52 PM

Originally posted by Zoom:
So, since the original question has been answered, let me ask a related question: can you use one iPod on more than one computer? I had assumed that you could, but now I'm guessing that you can't.

I have a Mac at home and a PC at work. I wanted to download my tunes to my work PC (for personal use at work).

Why doesn't this work? I mean, what's the DRM stance on this? Most of the songs on my iPod come from my CDs that I've ripped (ie, they're not from iTMS). I thought that anything I ripped would be free of any DRM. If so, then why can't I put these files on multiple PCs that I own and play them with iTunes?

There are probably PC apps that will allow me to do this. If anyone knows of any, let me know. (I'm assuming that this is perfectly legal, it's just not a function that Apple provides, probably as a CYA maneuver.)

The problem isn't with being able to use the iPod on multiple computers, it's using the iPod on both Mac and PC at the same time. When formatted for Mac, the iPod's hard disk is HFS+, which Window's can't read. If formatted for Windows, the iPod's hard disk is FAT32. I think Mac's can read FAT32, but with somewhat degraded performance (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

I use my iPod both at home and at work, transferring music from both computers to my iPod. But I have Macs at both home and work.

But you want to get your music off of your iPod onto your work Windows machine, correct? If so, even if it was formatted FAT32, you'd have to get a utility to get music OFF of your iPod. That is something Apple doesn't allow.

bradoesch · Apr 2, 2004, 10:28 PM

Originally posted by ::maroma:::
The problem isn't with being able to use the iPod on multiple computers, it's using the iPod on both Mac and PC at the same time. When formatted for Mac, the iPod's hard disk is HFS+, which Window's can't read. If formatted for Windows, the iPod's hard disk is FAT32. I think Mac's can read FAT32, but with somewhat degraded performance (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).

You're right, OS X can read and write to the FAT filesystem (FAT32, FAT16, FAT 12). I don't have much experience with the performance either, but I've heard it's not as fast as a Windows computer. Also, starting with Panther, we can now read NTFS formatted disks, but not write. NTFS is used with Windows NT/2000/XP, where FAT was used with DOS, Windows 95/98 and sometimes XP.
There's also MacDrive, which can read Mac formatted disks in Windows. Anyway, enough of this.

torifile · Apr 3, 2004, 08:59 PM

You're technically NOT able to use an iPod on more than one computer. If you plug an iPod into a computer and it's been "paired" with another computer, you'll get a dialog box saying that if you choose to use the iPod with that computer (transfer music from it), you'll have to initialize it.

The Windows/Mac formatting thing isn't really an issue beyond that. If you are going to use the iPod with windows, it needs to be FAT32. You can use Windows formatted iPod with Macs but you don't get to use smart playlists and iPod names don't stick.

Bottom line is that you WON'T be able to sync one iPod to two different computers, irrespective of the format of the HD.

discotronic · Apr 3, 2004, 10:07 PM

Originally posted by bbales:
Great! I was pretty sure that was the answer. There are actually two machines. ON one, I've just kept myself as the user, as it's my work machine, though others use it upon occasion. ON the laptop I created four accounts, but the music is in a shared folder. (Some of the purchased music disappeared, as a matter of fact, during my archive/install of Panther a few months ago. But I'd backed everything up, so I still need to go back and find what is missing. My music and photo organization leaves a whole lot to be desired.)

There is a great little script that I use. It's called iTunes Library Manager. It will allow you to have multiple Libraries that you can switch between. I bought my better half a mini and we didn't want to have our music get mixed up. Here is a link:

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/i...arymanager.php

saranwarp · Apr 4, 2004, 04:09 PM

I was unpleasantly surprised when I tried to move the songs on my dad's iPod (which originally came from my PowerBook) onto his PC.

Would it work for me to copy all his music back onto my computer, initialize the iPod on the PC, then re-transfer it onto the PC-initialized iPod?

torifile · Apr 4, 2004, 10:25 PM

Originally posted by saranwarp:
I was unpleasantly surprised when I tried to move the songs on my dad's iPod (which originally came from my PowerBook) onto his PC.

Would it work for me to copy all his music back onto my computer, initialize the iPod on the PC, then re-transfer it onto the PC-initialized iPod?

Don't steal music.

Out of the box, the iPod is a one way sort of thing. You can get the music ON it, but it doesn't go off it. There are several programs out on the Mac side (and I'm sure on the PC side too) that will allow you to move them off.

The bottom line is that there isn't an easy way to sync an iPod to 2 computer at once. There are workaround, I think, but not too easy to do.

saranwarp · Apr 4, 2004, 11:42 PM

Originally posted by torifile:
Don't steal music.

Out of the box, the iPod is a one way sort of thing. You can get the music ON it, but it doesn't go off it. There are several programs out on the Mac side (and I'm sure on the PC side too) that will allow you to move them off.

The bottom line is that there isn't an easy way to sync an iPod to 2 computer at once. There are workaround, I think, but not too easy to do.

I'm not stealing...almost all of the music he likes he owns on CD, which I imported onto my computer and then onto his iPod.

Anyway, I'm going to try putting his mp3s on the external hard disk part and see if that works.

bbales · Apr 5, 2004, 09:54 AM

Originally posted by discotronic:
There is a great little script that I use. It's called iTunes Library Manager. It will allow you to have multiple Libraries that you can switch between. I bought my better half a mini and we didn't want to have our music get mixed up. Here is a link:

http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/i...arymanager.php

Thanks very much. Within 6 or 7 weeks, there should be a couple new mini's in this house. So this will come in handy.