[Macworld]

Post your comments for Apple releases iTunes 8.1 update here

[yugenro]

"working with large libraries"?!?!?! I hope this is a VAST improvement!
My Library file is upwards of 50MB, and just rating a track takes about 20 seconds on my old 1st-gen MacMini.

[bugjuice]

I'm still hoping for syncing between macs.. I've turned my old G4 iBook into my iTunes server, which is great for the AppleTV and iPod, but pain in the ass when I take my MBP out with me and want to listen to music (and I haven't got the iPod with me)

[mrbofus]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here, but if your library is only 50MB and it's taking that long, even on a PowerPC Mac Mini, you should probably do a clean install. 50MB is only like 12-20 songs, depending on bitrate, so your computer is definitely taking way too long to do a simple task.

[Fofer]

He's talking about the iTunes library FILE, which is the database that stores iTunes metadata... not his folder of media. 50 MB is huge for that!

I have 195 GB of media in iTunes at the moment, and my iTunes library FILE is only 10.7 MB. I'd love to know how much music and movies make someone's iTunes library file to balloon to 50 MB!

iTunes runs well on my MBP, but every bit of performance boost is nice. So I'm looking forward to iTunes 8.1's promised speed boost...

[barnum01]

I have to believe the OP meant 50GB and not MB.

[barnum01]

or what Fofer typed...

[Fofer]

iTunes DJ sounds cool! Looking forward to "voting" on my iPhone...

[tmpatrick]

My startup time went from 15sec to 4sec, 180GB/24Ksong library. Nice. I still don't get Party Shuffle/DJ, but whatever.

[mrbofus]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense; thanks for the clarification!

[stilist]

Library: 59,405 items; 449.53GB of data

Comparison:
* iTunes 8.0.2: average 30 seconds to start; library file 120.6MB (XML library file 106.8MB)
* iTunes 8.1: 7 seconds to start; library file 19.6MB (XML library file 106.8MB)

Notes:
* Both versions of iTunes were run through Xslimmer prior to sampling.
* System: 1st-gen MacBook; 10.5.6; 2GB RAM

--

They weren't lying about the performance improvements. Shutdown is also much faster, but I didn't time it.

[daveerato]

Supposedly a new feature is the ability to rip CDs in "iTunes Plus" format of 256-kbps AAC. You couldn't do this before? Too bad they didn't fix the poor job of managing the library restoration process.

[Jason Snell]

You could absolutely do it before, but now it's the default.

[Jon Seff]

daveerato said:

Supposedly a new feature is the ability to rip CDs in "iTunes Plus" format of 256-kbps AAC. You couldn't do this before? Too bad they didn't fix the poor job of managing the library restoration process.

Apple's release notes say "Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus," but unless I'm missing something, that's very deceptive. You could easily rip AAC files at 256 Kbps using the higher quality preset in iTunes 8.