[Ryan]

I've just gotten a new iPod Touch, the 16 gig model, and now I'm wondering how to manage my music library. I have around 30 gigabytes of music, not because I have a lot, but rather it's all ripped to Apple Lossless. What I'm looking for is a solution that lets me keep my lossless files in iTunes but, upon transfer to my iPod Touch, compresses them down to AAC (or MP3, doesn't matter). The initial sync would take a long time (days?), but after that new songs would only require an extra few minutes.

Is something like this possible?

[PB PM]

iTunes only does that for the iPod shuffle (at least it did for the first gen model) because it doesn't (didn't) support Apple Lossless.

[feidhlim1986]

Not likely, why dont you convert all your library to mp3/AAC?
Why do you want to convert them? Does the iPod Touch not support Apple Lossless?

[Xaqtly]

I'm assuming it's because he wants to put all 30GB of music on his 16 GB Touch.

[feidhlim1986]

Originally Posted by Xaqtly I'm assuming it's because he wants to put all 30GB of music on his 16 GB Touch.

How big a file size does Apple Lossless give you over mp3? Lets say a 3 minute song @ 128kbps which is 2.9 MB for me as mp3. What would it be with Lossless?

Edit:
I went and converted the same 2.9MB mp3 to Lossless and it came out as 17.9MB, about 6 times the size.....God i'm glad none of my music is Lossless!!

[apple007]

Originally Posted by feidhlim1986 I went and converted the same 2.9MB mp3 to Lossless and it came out as 17.9MB ...

I might be venturing into "tech geek sense of humor" land, of which I'm normally not an occupant, but the above never stops being funny.

[kieran]

I was going to mention something about that, but I just let it go. Figured I'd let someone else explain to him.

[feidhlim1986]

Ok, The Humor is lost on me

[colivigan]

Hint: MP3 is already lossy. So converting to lossless is a little bit of an oxymoron.

Although, in this case, I do think you may have just been trying to get a handle on the relative file sizes.

[feidhlim1986]

Yes that was my real goal. I wasnt even thinking about the loss/lossless quality, I was simple trying to compare filesizes

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by Ryan What I'm looking for is a solution that lets me keep my lossless files in iTunes but, upon transfer to my iPod Touch, compresses them down to AAC (or MP3, doesn't matter).

I want that feature too!
The closest analogy is SlimServer, which reencodes audio files on the fly for (streamed) playback on various network-connected devices.

The best alternative is to reencode everything regularly, only fix the info in the lossless files, and not use ratings in iTunes (or laboriously copy them back and forth). For reencoding I recommend Max.

[popantique]

This would also require "laborious copying back and forth" but you could make an alternate version of your library (either an alternate 'iTunes Library" file or on a separate user account) that has the MP3 versions.

I don't know of a more elegant solution, though. Sorry.

[Ryan]

That's what I was thinking about doing. Now I'm trying to figure out some kind of Automator action or AppleScript that would automatically import my music into both libraries and update my Touch with the right one.

edit: I just had a thought. How hard would it be to write a little app/service that handled this? I just bought HIllegass' Cocoa book and maybe this is a good "intro" app for me to start with.