Amazon Cloud Player and ditching iTunes

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[H]ard|Gawd
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The Amazon Cloud Player just gave me a reason to finally ditch my iPod and iTunes, hopefully forever. There are a few minor hurdles that I need to get past, most importantly, un-fucking my music library.

Back in college I had a perfectly organized and labeled collection. I received an iPod for Xmas (2005?) and I've been using it ever since. I admit, it's been a champ and easy to use, but I really really really really loathe iTunes.

After building my current rig in 2008, I discovered that I couldn't dump my files off the iPod like with any other portable storage device without horribly garbling all the file names. I assume this is part of their DRM. When I add the folder in iTunes, the files appear properly, but only within iTunes. I have been putting off the day where I reorganize my music for years.

Amazon is changing all of that with Cloud Player. I didn't put music on my phone to save storage space, but if it's all streaming, it's a non-issue. Long story short, is there an automated way to move files from my iPod to my PC while keeping the file names? Googling this finds plenty of for-pay programs and some shady looking freeware. I don't trust anyone but the [H] with my gadgets, so let me know what methods you've used to move music from your iPod to PC while maintaining some semblance of organization.
 
you dont, it all just gets fucked, when you got the ipod it forced you to conform, and let me tell you, unconforming is a bitch

zunes pull this shit too :(
 
lilfiend said:
zunes pull this shit too :(
Click to expand...

To some extent but the beauty of Zune is Zune Pass. The Amazon Cloud Player is neat but you still have to being the content, something Zune Pass does at a good price if you want to be legal.
 
I haven't used TuneAid, though I used to use another piece of software from the same company called DiskAid (before it turned into a paid product). It advertises to do what you want, but I can't absolutely guarantee that it's 100% legit or that it's going to work for you.

Alternatively, use a tagger like Mp3tag after copying the renamed and re-structured files from your iPod to fix the file names and folder structures by reading from the tags. If your tracks are properly tagged, this process should go off without a hitch.

Also, [insert irrelevant Microsoft product promotion here].
 
phide said:
IAlso, [insert irrelevant Microsoft product promotion here].
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Of course, having actual songs to uh well play, is totally irrelevant for a music player. And as usual, I wasn't the first one to mention a Microsoft product.

[insert irrelevant Microsoft product bashing here]. ;)
 
Thinking about going all in with Amazon Cloud player and storage. How is the sound quality when streaming though? I'm also not a huge fan of being forced to use their player in order to play my tunes. Thoughts / opinions on that?
 
According to Slashgear, streaming is done at the original bit rate, so no quality loss. There's no indication of an API available for developers to implement streaming in their own apps, though, so there may be no third-party app support for it.
 
Interesting fact about the bit rate, thanks. I bought higher quality earbuds and didnt want to "waste" their potential on compressed streaming audio.
 
KenG10 said:
Thinking about going all in with Amazon Cloud player and storage. How is the sound quality when streaming though? I'm also not a huge fan of being forced to use their player in order to play my tunes. Thoughts / opinions on that?
Click to expand...

That's the glory of it. There's no all in to speak of. I can stream from the cloud on my phone without filling up my sd card with music and still I'll still have my ipod for the gym or car or whenever I don't want to kill my phone battery.

It's pretty much a free service unless you want to jump from 5gb to 20gb of storage and that can be done for less than a dollar. Another interesting feature not mentioned yet in this thread is that any music purchased through Amazon does not count towards your cloud limit, so you get 20gb of music purchased *cough* from anywhere, then as much music as you want from Amazon on top of that.
 
Confuzeling part ... someone can chime in before I start uploading stuff to the cloud ..

1. Under amazon.mp3 preferences, it gives me an option of Save to Device or Save to Amazon Cloud
does this mean I can only have that file in one of two locations only? If I buy it on amazon.mp3 app on my android phone, I cannot then have that stored in the cloud? that brings me to question 2.

2. Previously purchased amazon.mp3 songs, can these be transfered to the cloud? I currently have all these on my android SD card, never downloaded them to PC. Purchased and stored on phone entirely.

TY
 
1. I believe that after you download the mp3 to your device, you can then go and upload it to the cloud if you would like. However, it will then count against your GB limit.

2. Yes, however they will count against your limit.
 
Interesting, thanks for the heads up about Amazon. Gonna check that out now.
 
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