Ordered 20GB Windows IPOD - EphPod, Xplay or MMJB??

[LarryJoe]

I have on of these on the way. Should be here tomorrow. For reference, I searched and search for deals and coupons, but there just aren't any out there. The best deal I could find was from MacMall for $494 +12 for overnight shipping. Given they do not charge tax like buy.com and Amazon ($499) is still not shipping these, $494 and only $12 for overnight was a good deal.

I am a dedicated MediaJukebox 8.0 user and they are working hard on a pluggin, but it is still a ways off. From your experiences, should I go with EphPod, Xplay or MusicMatch (which I loathe).

Thanks,

LJ

 

[LarryJoe]

Bump

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Bump because I am curious too. I think I will start with Ephpod and branch out as needed.

 

[LarryJoe]

Just thought I would post my experience, I installed last night. First I plugged the ipod into the firewire port. It was immediately recognized by XP. The removable drive was there as well. Then I installed EphPod and launched it. I thought this was going to be smooth at this point. I then went through the wizard and when it asked for the drive the ipod was on, I dropped down the box and selected my ipod drive. Then EphPod told me the the file or directory structure on the ipod was not proper and there was a button to create this structure. I went to explorer and surfed the ipod and the folder EpPod was looking for was certainly there. I thought this was odd from all the reading I have done. I clicked the button to create the hidden music folder and it failed. I got out of the wizard and tried to load some music and it would fail referencing the hidden ipod directory that it said was not there, but was. After trying a few more times, reinstalling Ephod and rebooting, I decided that I would have to bite the bullet and load the CD with MMJB. This also installed an Ipod application as well that could be used to update and resore the ipod. From the advice of others who said "Don't even open the Apple CD, Ephdod is all you need", I was confused. I could see not installing MMJB, but the ipdod utulity is a must I think. Anyhow, I freakin still hate MMJB's interface and after a few minutes, I got some tunes loaded. At the same time, I noticed some songs on the ipod that failed to transfer with EphPod. These appeared to be data files named correctly, but they would not play and would actually freeze the ipod. I was happier because I got some tunes on the thing, but felt a format/restore was in order, so I did it. I then closed MMJB and opened ephpod and I could transfer no problem. So I blew away the piece of trash MMJB and EphPod is working. I hope this thread helps someone with similar issues.

The long and short - I can't wait for a MediaJukbox pluggin (my all-in-one player of choice).

Thanks for all the adice and help.

Joe

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

So, the upshot is that you need the Apple driver CD installed, but you recommend Ephpod with a format/restore if needed?

 

You must install MMJB to get the driver working. Disable all the stuff that links it to MMJB after that and use EphPod.

Check out my review over at iPodlouge for the problems I had with MMJB.

 

[LarryJoe]

Originally posted by: Don_Vito
So, the upshot is that you need the Apple driver CD installed, but you recommend Ephpod with a format/restore if needed?

Not sure exactly if this is still true as Ephpod released version 2.58 that addresses the exact problem I had. I was using 2.57 which choked when it tried to write the directory structure when it was already there. My guess is that if I had 2.58 at the time, I would not have had to even install MusicMatch Pukebox. My chain of events went like this:

Plug in Ipod, recognized by Windows
Install Ephpod 2.57, run into problems
Reinstall Ephpod 2.57, same problems
Install Ipod Updater and MusicMatch Pukebox
New icon and driver for Ipod in sys tray
Transfer files with MMJB, sucessful
Restore Ipod with Ipod Updater (like a format)
Run Ephpod, transfer files, physched!
Blow away MMJB
Delete MMJB Ipod driver
XP Driver returns in sys tray



So, My gut here is that you don't have to install MMJB with 2.58.

LJ