Crikey, 60 GB is a lot of CDs.
 

I got my 250 GB external drive a few days ago and my 60 GB IPOD. Ive been moving the CDs we have to the hard drive and have barely made a dent in its capacity. I have a stack of CDs (in the case) nearly 3 feet high so far and I have like 3 GB used. Im guessing Im going to be buying some Itunes and I tunes videos. But I guess that was there idea..... ;)

Does anyone actually fill these buggers up with tunes?

There are other ways of getting music ;)

I ripped every CD I own - about 400 - over Christmas and just barely filled my wife's 30GB iPod.

I fill 'em up with audio books. With the latest Harry Potter books taking more than twenty CDs, they take up a TON of space. Five or six books and you've chewed up quite a lot. Also, since you have 60gb, you should take advantage of it. Go into Itunes preferences and change the compression method to a higher bitrate. Songs will be larger, but they'll sound better.

You don't just have to store tunes on it either - my 60GB iPod has about 5GB of photos. Admittedly about 4.5GB of those photos probably don't need to be on there but I haven't had time to cull out the rubbish ones and archive the ones I don't want on the road.

After maxing out a 20GB iPod, I'd say be thankful that you went for the largest capacity. When I first bought my 20GB one, I mulled over getting the 40GB one but thought that 20GB would be more than enough for me. It lasted 6 months before it was full...

And to those who say "How can you listen to all that music", I find that I am enjoying more of my old CDs thanks to the fact that they are on there and come up in the various random playlists I have set up so yes, I do listen to all the music!

I also find that not only have I been listening to more of the music from my CD collection I'm also listening to more new and new-to-me music.

Between all the free iTunes deals out there and allofmp3.com (and 3mp3.ru, if you're game), AND if iTunes keep giving away free episodes of TV shows ... *and* if the rumors that Apple is close to striking a deal to distribute movie downloads pans out, I'm going to need a whole stable of iPods. :eek:

Poddy mouth!

;)

If you've got plenty of space, you might want to consider keeping a backup of your data on it, too. Just make sure you encrypt it. This program makes the process quick and painless.

It's a lot, but you can also fill it faster than you might think if you use a high quality mp3 encoder (lame with one of the presets). I'm up to 38GB -- sure am glad I got that 40GB player, not the 20GB one!

I also got the 40GB iPod. 240 albums 30.35GB used. One talking book.

As noted by others, when the sound quality is important, I use a better compression ratio to get a much bigger file, but a much better sound. Typically I use 192 bps and sometimes Apple's own "lossless".


I also find that it is great to have most everything I own on the iPod. I do browse my collection more often and for the longer trips of 4 weeks+, it's just great to have choices.

Absolutely the best gizmo I have ever had.


Enjoy your music!

Thanks for all the info and suggestions so far. How much bigger is the lossless file and can you really tell a difference? Im going to try some on my own that way but am curious as to other's opinions. Thanks.

I don't have info on how much bigger a lossless file is that one in 128 to 192 bps. I did several files in a couple of formats, but that was a while ago.

Can you hear the difference? On an airplane? I can't - too much ambient noise even with good Bose or Shure noise handling earphones. When played through a good stereo or free standing set of powered speakers - I think so. It depends on what you listen to. Quiet oboe, violin, pure tone voice or piano passages will reveal more about the quality of the recording than some rock and roll or more raucous music, it seems to me.

I just removed an old recording of David Oistrach because even at 192 bps the technology used on the recording I bought was very bad.

In the end, they are your ears and your listening habits, so probably best to go by your own experiments.

Whatever encoder you're using should have a variable bit rate (VBR) option, which you might want to try. VBR encodes those parts of the music requiring a higher level of recorded detail or bandwidth (think high notes, cymbals) at 256 or 320, and those parts requiring less bandwidth (low, bass tones) at 128/160. The bitrate within the resulting mp3 usually switches several times a second, giving you better sound when you need it, without increasing the overall file size needlessly.

Very cool. Thanks for this explanation.

Can all mp3 players then "recognize" the changes in bit rate with each file?