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iTunes Match Question before I take the plunge.

MotionMan

MotionMan

Lifer
I have over 40,000 song files. They are all part of my iTunes library on my home desktop.

I took all of the song files and put them on an external drive and divided them into two folders of about 20,000 files each.

I connected the external drive to my laptop which had no song files on it. I imported one of the folders into iTunes and now have about 20,000 song in that library (which also resides on the external drive) (I am going to match all of these, download the 256 versions, clear the deck and then do the same with the next 20,000 songs. Once they are all matched, I will find all the duplicates and useless stuff and hopefully will end up with less than or closer to 25,000.)

When I sign up for iTunes Match, am I going to run into a problem on my home computer as that library 1) does not match the one on my laptop and 2) exceeds the 25,000 song limit.

MotionMan
 
A second question: Once you sign up with iTunes Match will iTunes refuse to allow you to add more than 25,000 songs to your library?

MotionMan
 
no idea, but FYI you lose the ability to create genius playlists on your phone if you have match enabled (learned this yesterday)
 
MotionMan said:
A second question: Once you sign up with iTunes Match will iTunes refuse to allow you to add more than 25,000 songs to your library?

MotionMan
Click to expand...

25,000 songs is only if it couldn't match them in iTunes. If it can match them vs iTunes, then you don't get that total applied to you. As for using multiple machines, I don't think it'll be an issue. I turned match on at home on my Macbook and let it upload, and then later at work I enabled match in iTunes to listen to my music. Later in the week, while at work (didnt download any songs here, just stream) I ripped a CD to the work computer, and told it to update match. It then scanned and saw the new cd I just put in, and put it in the cloud vs my match stuff, and I could see it immediately on my phone and then later on my Macbook to download when I got home.
 
Reliant said:
25,000 songs is only if it couldn't match them in iTunes. If it can match them vs iTunes, then you don't get that total applied to you. As for using multiple machines, I don't think it'll be an issue. I turned match on at home on my Macbook and let it upload, and then later at work I enabled match in iTunes to listen to my music. Later in the week, while at work (didnt download any songs here, just stream) I ripped a CD to the work computer, and told it to update match. It then scanned and saw the new cd I just put in, and put it in the cloud vs my match stuff, and I could see it immediately on my phone and then later on my Macbook to download when I got home.
Click to expand...

I am more concerned about Match messing with my iTunes at home before I am ready to go all in. In other words, I do not want to "activate" Match at home yet. Do I have to do something on my other machines for Match to start once I sign up for Match on one machine?

Also, I am not sure I understand the first line of your response. If you assume that none of these were bought from iTunes, does that change your analysis?

MotionMan
 
MotionMan said:
I am more concerned about Match messing with my iTunes at home before I am ready to go all in. In other words, I do not want to "activate" Match at home yet. Do I have to do something on my other machines for Match to start once I sign up for Match on one machine?

Also, I am not sure I understand the first line of your response. If you assume that none of these were bought from iTunes, does that change your analysis?

MotionMan
Click to expand...

You sign up for match and it scans your current library on the machine you turned it on on. I think it's 5 or 10 machines you can have activated for match. You just turn on additional machines in iTunes for match. When you turn on additional machines it then scans them. It doesn't do anything to the local library. (I deleted my local library after verification though, so I could sell my MBP and I still can regain my library after, at the lossless qual.)

As for your last question, it doesn't matter where the music came from. All of mine was ripped from CDs and imported to iTunes, and it was able to match most of it. My library was 9000 songs or so. It couldn't "match" a few hundred of those, so those few hundred count against the 25000. The rest, since it could get a direct match in iTunes, don't count against the 25000 quota. Again, song source doesnt matter, all that matters is if it can find it in the iTunes database.
 
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Reliant said:
You sign up for match and it scans your current library on the machine you turned it on on. I think it's 5 or 10 machines you can have activated for match. You just turn on additional machines in iTunes for match. When you turn on additional machines it then scans them. It doesn't do anything to the local library. (I deleted my local library after verification though, so I could sell my MBP and I still can regain my library after, at the lossless qual.)

As for your last question, it doesn't matter where the music came from. All of mine was ripped from CDs and imported to iTunes, and it was able to match most of it. My library was 9000 songs or so. It couldn't "match" a few hundred of those, so those few hundred count against the 25000. The rest, since it could get a direct match in iTunes, don't count against the 25000 quota. Again, song source doesnt matter, all that matters is if it can find it in the iTunes database.
Click to expand...

The quality is 256Kb/s AAC, which is pretty good, but not lossless.
The library limit is 25000 songs. Your 9000 or so songs all counted 'against' that 25000. So, you could add about 16000 more songs and you are out. No idea what you do if you have more than 25000 songs.

I think that any songs that it cannot match that get uploaded DO count against your 5GB iCloud limit, but I am not sure.
 
TheStu said:
The quality is 256Kb/s AAC, which is pretty good, but not lossless.
The library limit is 25000 songs. Your 9000 or so songs all counted 'against' that 25000. So, you could add about 16000 more songs and you are out. No idea what you do if you have more than 25000 songs.

I think that any songs that it cannot match that get uploaded DO count against your 5GB iCloud limit, but I am not sure.
Click to expand...

Guess I misunderstood the 25k thing. There's the online storage quota vs the song limit quota, which is where I misunderstood. As for loss less, I just say that because that's what they call it.
 
I think it should work (match 1, clear (local and iCloud), match 2).

Though you might as well do any cleanup (duplicates, tags, etc) beforehand.

Of course, backup everything first.
 
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Gooberlx2 said:
I think it should work (match 1, clear (local and iCloud), match 2).

Though you might as well do any cleanup (duplicates, tags, etc) beforehand.
Click to expand...

Weird, on the first set, Match is not matching well-tagged Beatles songs ripped from CDs.

MotionMan
 
MotionMan said:
Weird, on the first set, Match is not matching well-tagged Beatles songs ripped from CDs.

MotionMan
Click to expand...

Do the albums exist in the iTunes store? I would certainly think The Beatles would be there. Do your tags differ significantly from the store's?
 
MotionMan said:
I have not checked, but good point - Those albums may not be in the store.

MotionMan
Click to expand...

I dont think it goes off file name, I think it samples the music. That way you can't simple rename mp3s of change ID3 tags and get whatever you want.
 
Reliant said:
I dont think it goes off file name, I think it samples the music. That way you can't simple rename mp3s of change ID3 tags and get whatever you want.
Click to expand...

I think it does a mixture. If the fingerprint matches but the tags are wonky, it still won't match.
 
RE: Confusion about what counts and what doesn't count, I believe songs purchased from the iTunes store don't count against the 25,000 limit, right?
 
I imported the first group of 21,286 songs and signed up for Match. The results were:

13,922 Matched
3,598 Duplicates
3,439 Unmatched
84 Purchased
149 Not Eligible
94 Error

I am downloading the Matched songs to upgrade my old rips.

After that I will deal with the duplicates.

So far, so good.

MotionMan
 
I had a few errors too. Turned out they were actually corrupt or something, or at least itunes couldn't convert them, though they'd play. I had to use something more tolerable to errors (file header, structure, I dunno) to reconvert them to non-corrupted files.
 
TheStu said:
Does it flag the ones that are duplicates, errors, etc? Because to say that 94 out of 21K are somehow throwing errors isn't real helpful.
Click to expand...

Yes, it marks each song with its status.

I came up with the numbers by sorting by iCloud status, then selecting all the items in each category and looking at the number at the bottom of the window.

MotionMan
 
Gooberlx2 said:
I had a few errors too. Turned out they were actually corrupt or something, or at least itunes couldn't convert them, though they'd play. I had to use something more tolerable to errors (file header, structure, I dunno) to reconvert them to non-corrupted files.
Click to expand...

How did you convert them? (Did you show them the "errors" of their way? 😉)

MotionMan
 
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