<admitting my fan status> I use itms. I find it convenient to not have to go shopping at multiple online stores. I also like they have a flat pricing scheme. The drm issue does bother me but I don’t see that as an apple issue, that’s a RIAA thing.
I’m sure the day will come when apple will shut down the DRM servers (walmart actually just did this) and at that point, I feel confident that I can burn my purchases to CD and rip them in if needed. This is still better then all the music I bought on cassette, then the tape broke then bought on CD, which ended up getting used as a coaster.
I’ve been keen to try amazons online store but honestly, haven’t found it worth the effort to create an account. Waiting for months for the day to come where something I want isn’t on itms and is on amazon.com
This is how I use it, too. I have a Creative Zen mp3 player, which I love, and its software is completely easy and fool-proof. I had difficulties with using Windows Media Player before on my computer, and ultimately, I find iTunes to be reliable and perfect for my simple needs.
But WMP doesn’t prompt you to upgrade every time you run it.
That’s what I have, too! Creative Zen is awesome. I just got the newer one and I still am loving it. My needs are also relatively simple…I just like seeing everything I have all laid out and so forth, which iTunes does for me quite well.
Is there any player out there that doesn’t totally suck for maintaining a library of classical music? iTunes loves to play movements in alphabetical order, so you have to set up a playlist for every single damned album.
If you select the album within your library (in the browser thing) then sort by track (click the column heading) it will play it by track.
If you’re just in the library view, you can click the album heading to sort by album then click the track heading and it will sort your whole library, first by album, then by track. Playback (unless shuffle is on) will move down one track at a time.
I agree, no library software handles my classical selections too gracefully mostly because the whole genre doesn’t fit into the same schema of group-album-song. I have a similar issue cataloging my cylinder recordings, it’s just not the same as modern popular music.
Cooking With Gas Did you try updating it? I think that will get rid of the prompt 
I tried to use it about 3 years ago, so this may have improved since then:
I could not for the life of me get it to add my MP3 collection. I had approximately 80,000 tracks in folders sorted by genre, then artist, then album. Every time, EVERY TIME I tried to get it to load them so I could use “all the cool organization features” I had heard so much about, my computer would freeze for about 10 minutes and then reboot.
I installed an old version of winamp, tried the same thing, and it added all 80,000 songs just fine in about 15 seconds. Still use that version of winamp to this day.
I love it. It does what I want when I want it.
I helped a friend with a new iPod classic import about 11,000 songs into iTunes. From what I recall it took about 20 minutes. Not terrible but not great either.
Frame of reference: PhD in Computer Science. Used a lot of software of the years.
The iTunes software is total and complete crap. I couldn’t do the most elementary things I wanted to do in terms of copying files, making playlists, etc. It kept trying to search my HD for mp3s to move to the iPod. No thanks. I have my mp3s in certain specific locations, I’ll tell you what those were. (Note the plural!) These locations are organized. I absolutely have to keep that organization when copying to the iPod, etc.
Also, there is absolutely no need at all to load up a boot-time program. Please. I kill everything out of the startup list that absolutely isn’t needed for basic computer use. When I start the program, then it can run. When I quit it, it closes down and takes its dll’s with it.
It also munges (that is the technical computer term) the file names on the iPod so you can’t browse the file system and figure what’s what. Why? Why? A million times why? It’s completely unwarranted. I’m very organized when it comes to computers. The filename I gave it is exactly what I want to see.
So I deleted it and went with a plugin for Winamp. Not perfect but a 1000 times better.
Since comparable players cost half as much, I have no idea why people buy them in the first place. (Mine were broken ones given to me that I fixed.)
I wasn’t into Mac stuff to begin with, but was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and used it to download a couple series of TV shows and spend an itunes store gift I’d gotten (argh), primarily to have something to watch on my ipod, when I had one (very briefly - I don’t like those either). The synch wouldn’t work, neither would uploading for most of the files I’d bought, and it kept taking off the episodes that had managed to upload, and their geniuses couldn’t figure it out. I never found out whether it was iTunes or the ipod, I just traded the ipod to someone with a mac.
I then got a Zen, and was really pissed to find I couldn’t put those tv shows on it, and more pissed when I found out I couldn’t redownload indefinitely, and the video files wouldn’t play on anything except iTunes, which I already hated because whenever I paused and hit play again the screen disappeared back into the interface, and it wouldn’t do basic things like search for moved files, or consolidate duplicate entries. I already have a gigantic problem with any program that a) tries to force me to use it and b) limits my use of something I paid for (especially since I reformat my comp or buy a new one probably more often than the usual person), and all the glitches, crashes, difficulty reorganizing files after I move them, lack of support, ugly interface, trying to take over my file associations despite my protests and useless constant updates easy put things over the edge. I despise iTunes and I only wish I’d known about all the problems before I’d spent any money.
Anyone know of a good third party video file converter?
I don’t see why it matters to you. Did you start the company or something?
It’s a completely unreliable piece of turd on the PC. I, however, and running a mac, where it only eats a whole bunch of processing power and RAM. That’s about my only complaint, really, is that it won’t run perfectly on my 3+ year old Powerbook.
I like iTunes, a lot. It’s exactly what I’m looking for in a music player. Only wish there were some way to drop the video player, though–it’s pretty useless and clogs up my processor.
It’s a discussion board. We’re discussing.
I’ve never had much trouble with iTunes, save for the occational unavalible song from their store. I’d like it if I could put items into specific catagories - if I download a podfic, I want it listed as an iBook or Podcast - but otherwise, I’m happy.
Since you guys seem to be okay with buying off iTunes store…does anyone here know a way that I can take my old iTunes songs and have them play on a non iPod mp3 player?
I think you can only burn them as an audio cd and re-rip them as mp3.
I love iTunes… people give me gift cards for Christmas and I never have to spend any of my own money on music. What more could I ask? 
Legally? No, you’re pretty much stuck to burning it to a CD and re-ripping it. Although with the drop in quality, I don’t think you’d want to bother. But there are some people who have found better ways of doing it. You could try googling around and seeing what you want.
You can burn the tunes to a CD or DVD, then import them as mp3s.
ETA I must preview to see if anyone else has posted the same advice!
Is the drop really that noticeable? I’ll check it out for myself.