iTunes Match - Anyone using it?
- Thread starter amdhunter
- Start date
the biggest benefit of it is being able to access my entire music library(all 16,000 songs of it on my imac at home) thru my work pc and laptop. if i add anything to the mac library, it will get scanned or uploaded into the cloud and i will be able to see the new content of my work pc or laptop. i can add music to the work pc and laptop and have it all go into the cloud as well. plus, the song matching feature is nice and I love the quality of apples aac 256k music.
- May 19, 2003
- 23,332
- 249
- 106
Questions:
1. Meta-data. Seems like the word is it doesn't do anything. I've heard stories of people re-naming Beatles songs something like "The Buttpickers - Pickin' Butts All Day Long.mp3" with matching meta data, and iTunes Match still recognizes it as a Beatles song. Just a mislabel one. So how's the Meta-data handled?
2. Album art. Does it get art for matched songs? What about matched songs that are deleted and re-downloaded at 256vbr? How's that handled?
3. Anything else. So, um, how do you like it? Seems like there are two sorts of people who're interested: People who just want their libraries in the cloud, and people who like the idea of upgrading their crap pirate bay downloads to high-quality files with good meta data.
1. Meta-data. Seems like the word is it doesn't do anything. I've heard stories of people re-naming Beatles songs something like "The Buttpickers - Pickin' Butts All Day Long.mp3" with matching meta data, and iTunes Match still recognizes it as a Beatles song. Just a mislabel one. So how's the Meta-data handled?
2. Album art. Does it get art for matched songs? What about matched songs that are deleted and re-downloaded at 256vbr? How's that handled?
3. Anything else. So, um, how do you like it? Seems like there are two sorts of people who're interested: People who just want their libraries in the cloud, and people who like the idea of upgrading their crap pirate bay downloads to high-quality files with good meta data.
alfa147x
Lifer
- Jul 14, 2005
- 29,307
- 106
- 106
Last edited:
alfa147x
Lifer
- Jul 14, 2005
- 29,307
- 106
- 106
- May 19, 2003
- 23,332
- 249
- 106
It's weird. If you don't upload any new tracks after deleting everything, it will show all the old tracks and you have to delete them again...
Ns1
No Lifer
- Jun 17, 2001
- 55,420
- 1,600
- 126
FYI I had $11 in my iTunes acct from a gc. It took 11 from that and 14
From my CC. So you don't REALLY need a CC...
lokiju
Lifer
- May 29, 2003
- 18,526
- 5
- 0
I've been using Match since beta and a few months ago signed up for the year plus extra 3 months since I was a beta tester.
It is MUCH improved now in the final release than it was in some of the earlier betas.
In one of the trials I did in an earlier beta it matched only 300 of 2,000 songs and even then some of then were in hindsight not ones I wanted to be uploaded to my iCloud account but at that time there was no way to delete songs from your account. It was really terrible.
Now in the official release it was able to match or upload all but 1 of my songs. I still cannot figure out why it cannot upload that one song as it says it's not eligible for Match even though it's one song from a album that was otherwise matched. I tried deleting it and reuploading it. I tried reripping it, I tried even downloading it and adding it to iTunes but no matter what I've tried it will not let me put just that one song from that album. Very odd.
Other than that it's been working great. I have access to all the songs I want on the go on my iPhone now and from iTunes on my work computer.
I did a test just for shits to see how it would work also. I moved my iTunes library to another location and then blew away my iTunes pref file and opened it back up so it saw it as not having a library. I then downloaded my entire Match collection from the cloud. After it was done download all 2,000 songs I poked around in the folders it created and it was interesting to see what songs were mp4 and what were mp3 and how it could be so randomly mixed together. Seems odd that if it matched a few tracks from one album that it wouldn't be able to figure out the rest but instead upload the actual mp3s instead.
I wish there was a way to tell it to just match by the album if it could find some of the songs only even when you have them all there.
I'd personally rather have everything I download from my iClould account in mp4 format.
It is MUCH improved now in the final release than it was in some of the earlier betas.
In one of the trials I did in an earlier beta it matched only 300 of 2,000 songs and even then some of then were in hindsight not ones I wanted to be uploaded to my iCloud account but at that time there was no way to delete songs from your account. It was really terrible.
Now in the official release it was able to match or upload all but 1 of my songs. I still cannot figure out why it cannot upload that one song as it says it's not eligible for Match even though it's one song from a album that was otherwise matched. I tried deleting it and reuploading it. I tried reripping it, I tried even downloading it and adding it to iTunes but no matter what I've tried it will not let me put just that one song from that album. Very odd.
Other than that it's been working great. I have access to all the songs I want on the go on my iPhone now and from iTunes on my work computer.
I did a test just for shits to see how it would work also. I moved my iTunes library to another location and then blew away my iTunes pref file and opened it back up so it saw it as not having a library. I then downloaded my entire Match collection from the cloud. After it was done download all 2,000 songs I poked around in the folders it created and it was interesting to see what songs were mp4 and what were mp3 and how it could be so randomly mixed together. Seems odd that if it matched a few tracks from one album that it wouldn't be able to figure out the rest but instead upload the actual mp3s instead.
I wish there was a way to tell it to just match by the album if it could find some of the songs only even when you have them all there.
I'd personally rather have everything I download from my iClould account in mp4 format.
Gooberlx2
Lifer
- May 4, 2001
- 15,381
- 6
- 91
Would it allow me to easily replace all my shitty CD rips from like 1997 when 128kbps or worse, using crappy codecs, was standard? Or would I have to go through, find all my old old rips and manually delete/download the files?
I'm hoping it could be smart/convenient enough to automatically replace the old files in-place.
I'm hoping it could be smart/convenient enough to automatically replace the old files in-place.
From what I have read, you can make a smart playlist of of songs by bitrate and match those songs, and it will upgrade their quality.
see here: http://www.cultofmac.com/116427/how...sless-quality-with-itunes-match-video-how-to/
hope this helps.
see here: http://www.cultofmac.com/116427/how...sless-quality-with-itunes-match-video-how-to/
hope this helps.
Gooberlx2
Lifer
- May 4, 2001
- 15,381
- 6
- 91
Thanks! :thumbsup:
Makes sense. Make a playlist of matched music less than 256kbps, delete them all, re-download them all. Not entirely automatic, but should be easy enough.
So you meant "any questions except for ones by Scootermaster".
I see how it is. Fine, if that's the way you feel, sucks to your ass-mar!
alfa147x
Lifer
- Jul 14, 2005
- 29,307
- 106
- 106
Sorry! I've been meaning to get back to answer you but I'm never on my MacBook Pro! iTunes Match crashes on my hackintosh
MotionMan
Lifer
- Jan 11, 2006
- 17,124
- 12
- 81
I would also like to know the answers to questions 1 and 2 above.
I also have another question:
3. If I have ~45k songs, can I run iTunes Match on say, the first ~23k songs, get the higher quality copies, back them up, delete all those songs, then have it run on the next set of ~22k songs so that I end up with ~45k of the higher quality files?
(BTW, I believe that, due to a lot of screwed up copying and restoring, I have a ton of duplicates, so the "cleaning" should result in the total number of songs finally being reduced probably in half, if not more.)
MotionMan
MotionMan
Lifer
- Jan 11, 2006
- 17,124
- 12
- 81
I do not know of one, and I doubt it exists. I think Apple wants you to use the Cloud features more so than the matching/downloading feature.
MotionMan
It MIGHT be reasonable to assume that anything iTunes can find artwork for, it has, and anything it can't, it doesn't. But you'd probably have to be nice to someone who actually has it for them to test that theory.
(Then, of course, you could strip all the artwork out of your library, have iTunes find it, and there ya go)
alfa147x
Lifer
- Jul 14, 2005
- 29,307
- 106
- 106
I can't tell. What should I do specifically?
It doesn't correct names
It pulls album art on matched songs.
I first matched all of my library then I highlighted everything in my library. It asks if I want to just delete locally. I said yes. Then I once again highlighted everything and click download. Everything was downloaded at least @ 256 some stuff is @ 320
You can right click and hit download / find album art
I like it. I like not having my entire library on my iPhone BUT when I want a song I can get it. Now that I have both Spotify and Match I'm considering dropping Spotify.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 23K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 23K
-
-
Facebook
Twitter