[PhilipH]

I have a problem with iTunes 8.

After the upgrade my wireless link to a Airport Express was still recognised by my iMac G5 (OS 10.4), however under iTunes it came back with an error when I wanted to link to the remote speakers:



I rechecked all upgrades to each component, but still no success. I did a search on error -3256 but no reference on the official Apple site or others unofficial ones. Any suggestions or links?

To check I used my old iBook with iTunes 7 and it connected wirelessly to the Airport Express without any problems, so it looks like a minor 'bug' to on iTunes 8 to me.

Any other suggestions and work-arounds would be appreciated.

[jrh007]

I'm surprised that you failed to mention one of the best new hidden features - Mass-edit! I know that I have been less than interested in editing things in my library because I had to edit one song after another to make the same edit, whether it be album titles, album art, release year, genre, etc.

However, now, when you select multiple songs and edit the details, you can edit them all at once! This is an ENORMOUS time saver for the organizationally anal like myself!

[mdawson]

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jrh007 wrote:

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I'm surprised that you failed to mention one of the best new hidden features - Mass-edit! I know that I have been less than interested in editing things in my library because I had to edit one song after another to make the same edit, whether it be album titles, album art, release year, genre, etc.

Um, I have been able to do this since I started using iTunes back in version 4. The only thing that I could not do group editing for were the sorting fields that were introduced in iTunes 7.1. With those you had to add the sort tags to one song, select it and the rest of an album then apply the sort fields.

[beatlefan]

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I too love the new Visualizer (don't forget to hit the question mark key!),

I never knew about the question mark key before. Very cool. I just wish I could remember all of the great tricks that Mac's had.

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however, I wish it could analyze the beat of the music and slow its activity to the beat.

I agree. Pounding to the beat - or not pounding when there is only a soft beat - would add a lot.

[mdawson]

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luckylou7 wrote:

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Sort Album Artist and related fields are awesome - too bad they aren't honored by AppleTV.

Alas, another example of Apple adding organizational functionality to iTunes and not having it recognized across iTunes-compatible platforms. I do not have and Apple TV, so it is good that you added this tidbit luckylou7 .

Another area where iTunes organizations features are not fully realized outside of the iTunes library, unless it has since been added to newer iPods, is the recognition of folders as playlists. Party Shuffle will respect playlist folders as playlists, but if you have a group of playlists from which you would like to have combined playback on your iPod you either have to,
bq. 1. create redundant smart playlists in iTunes that mirror your folders, or 2. (re)create smart playlists on the iPod each time it is synced to your iTunes library in order to have a playlists on the iPod that are the equivalent of the folders.

I can understand that iTunes is not the simple application that it started out as when Apple acquired the code from Cassidy & Green, but Apple does need to do a better job of making sure that new features not only work properly with everything that the feature may impact within iTunes, but also in those things that are linked or can by synced to iTunes?e.g., an organized music folders, iDevices, AppleTV, etc.

[Adwiz]

I really wanted to love iTunes 8. For people with large libraries, like my 600GB library, it is much snappier. The Genius feature is great. I wasn't thrilled with some of the view changes, but could live with them.

Unfortunately, it also took away a couple of features that were vital for those of us going through the process of digitizing their DVD libraries. In iTunes 7, you could click the "Video" tab and change the media type from Movie to TV show or Music Video. Now, in iTunes 8, that option is gone. If the file is an mp4 video file, the only way to change it to from Movie to TV show is to use an external editor like Lostify.

But it gets worse. In iTunes 7, when you edited a file with an external editor (MetaX or Lostify), the iTunes list would immediately show the new information. Likewise, Apple TV would show the changed info. In iTunes 8 that no longer happens. Now the only way to get iTunes or Apple TV to upgrade the info is to delete the affected tracks and "Add to Library" all over again, a major nuisance which also affects their "File Added" date.

It's possible that the networks or studios, or perhaps even the RIAA were involved in pushing to have these features removed, probably in an effort to impede piracy. But it's a significant annoyance for people who have their own legally purchased media and simply want to digitize it. I ended up having to go back to iTunes 7.

[maccowpunk]

Just imagine how much more cooler Genius would be with the availability of a "sub genre"! Still waiting.... in the meantime I tag them in the "grouping" field.

[mdawson]

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maccowpunk wrote:

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Just imagine how much more cooler Genius would be with the availability of a "sub genre"!

Well in terms of genres, the list is rather short. Once you start getting into subgenres/styles, that list grows substantially. I tag my music with genres, subgenres and styles, and as a result I currently have 203 distinct genres in use according to iTunes. Therefore, a preset list would quickly grow out of hand as even those subgenres associated with specific genres can quickly go through the roof. Here you can see the industry standard subgenres/styles associated with the standard genres of Blues, Jazz, R&B, Rap and Rock.

iTunes could include a strictly user-definable Subgenre tag, but that still would not be of any use for Genius unless the user sticks to the industry standards. The user would also have to insure that they do not use a subgenre that is not associated with the set genre.

[KernelG]

I still wish iTunes would:
1. Remember my library search term when I go to look at the store and come back.
2. Remember my column widths and settings when I search the store.
3. Allow me to sort my new music to the top, but with albums still in proper song order. ("Album by Date Added" or something similar.)
And iTunes 8 won't sync contacts to my 3rd gen iPod 15GB anymore. iTunes 7 worked fine, but 8 just sits there not completing.

[ganzo]

I downloaded and installed the iTunes 8 upgrade and thought it was pretty cool until I tried the Genius. It didn't do what I hoped that a genius could do. It didn't put music together by BPM or anything advanced. But the biggest problem was that with the new version I could no longer connect to my remote speakers via airtunes! It kept coming up with a system error message. I removed v8 and reinstalled v7.7 from another computer and the airtunes works perfectly again. Has anyone else encountered a similar bug?

[ganzo]

This mass edit is NOT new to iTunes 8. I have been using it for years in version 7.

[DominikHoffmann]

I immediately noticed that iTunes now automatically adds disc and track number to file names in the music Library, if "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" is checked. I find the appearance of those numbers in my music library very distracting.
Fortunately, with the help of Rob Griffin's article I found that I can turn the numbering off. On the command line I use "defaults write com.apple.iTunes create-filenames-with-tracknumber -bool FALSE". This does keep the library organized, i.e., if I change a spelling error in the name of an artist, iTunes will automatically adjust the name of the folder containing music from that artist. This effectively unbundles these two aspects of organizing your music, as was readily possible in iTunes 7 and before.

[PhilipH]

Hi ganzo

Likewise I have the same bug - refer my post #28 for details.
Thanks - I thought I had screwed up my wireless connections, but it does seems to be iTunes.

Stay 'tuned' then for the iTunes 8.0.1 update coming to a download screen near you.

[ganzo]

does the 8.0.1 include a bug fix for the airtunes problem? BTW, I am on a G4, OSX 10.4.11