ITUNES MATCH

donglen

Any current users out there? What are your experiences?

I've approx 20,000 songs on my PC that I'm in constant fear of losing. Did a recent purge/qc control and deleted everything I no longer want so this is it going forward. Very little of these purchased through itunes, mostly originated from CD's.
I know I can buy an external hard drive but is "the cloud" not the way to go in the future. I do like the idea of being able to access on iphone/ipad/laptop etc.

Any words of wisdom?

Dudda

donglen wrote: »

Any current users out there? What are your experiences?

I've approx 20,000 songs on my PC that I'm in constant fear of losing. Did a recent purge/qc control and deleted everything I no longer want so this is it going forward. Very little of these purchased through itunes, mostly originated from CD's.
I know I can buy an external hard drive but is "the cloud" not the way to go in the future. I do like the idea of being able to access on iphone/ipad/laptop etc.

Any words of wisdom?

For a free alternative you can upload them to Google Play Music. That's where I have about 10,000 of mine and I can stream them on my iPhone, laptop and computer at work. No official ios app from Google although it was due in October so should be released soon but plenty of great third party ones. You'll still have a copy on your computer but if that ever gets wipped by accident you can redownload them from Google if you want. I've tried a few of the streaming sites like spotify and Rdio and used them for a few months but I prefer my own music as a lot isn't on streaming sites which is why Google works for me. The computer at work is windows so the iTunes Match wasn't idea for me.

Zcott

I use iTunes Match and it works great. Music in the cloud is the way forward. Plus Apple very nicely allow you to turn your old poor quality 96kbps mp3s into nice high quality m4as (or is it AAC...)

biko

http://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?subforums=1&forum=1176&query=match

flexcon

I use this daily, and works a treat.

Its inbuilt into the operating system so its seamless, its not an App.

For 25 odd euro a year, its great, and allows great control yet not being messy at the same time.

I would suggest though that this is really designed for Streaming music and having access to your music on the go, and not replacing a hard drive backup, as something could happen to Apple and you loose all your music!

iTunes match is not designed with Back up in mind, its to enhance your music library on the go.

miralize

Yep I use it, works great for me.

maximoose

I like it. I'd like it a LOT more if 3 could sort out their feckin coverage issues.

flexcon

maximoose wrote: »

I like it. I'd like it a LOT more if 3 could sort out their feckin coverage issues.

Yes its quite infuriating when the one track you want is on the iCloud yet even with 3g Coverage it just wont play, and needs to buffer for about a bloody minute!

donglen

Will it upload magazine compilations? I'd have a lot from UNCUT / Q / MOJO etc.

While it wouldn't bother me to lose them as an album compilation I would still want them as individual songs. Would this be ok?

flexcon

donglen wrote: »

Will it upload magazine compilations? I'd have a lot from UNCUT / Q / MOJO etc.

While it wouldn't bother me to lose them as an album compilation I would still want them as individual songs. Would this be ok?

It uploads everything including Album Art

kaerobe

If you could, I would suggest using an American account.
This would save you money, and also give you ad-free access to iTunes Radio.


I have used iTunes match for about 2 years. Irish upload speeds (unless on fiber) can be painful to upload 20k songs, but its worth it in the end. Can access all my tracks on my iPhone, hide what I don't want to listen to, and also access my library on my Apple TV

The Big Gig

it's great. 25000 song lint though at the moment. It matches any songs that are in the iTunes store and uploads the rest that it can't find. the initial set up can take quite a while , maybe 12 - 24 hrs depending on library size, upload speed and amount of track that need to be uploaded. in order to turn your poorer quality tracks in to better quality 256kbps you need to delete the individual tracks from your library and download it again.

murpho999

kaerobe wrote: »

If you could, I would suggest using an American account.
This would save you money, and also give you ad-free access to iTunes Radio.


I have used iTunes match for about 2 years. Irish upload speeds (unless on fiber) can be painful to upload 20k songs, but its worth it in the end. Can access all my tracks on my iPhone, hide what I don't want to listen to, and also access my library on my Apple TV

Unless I understand it wrong it only uploads songs that it doesn't have on iTunes not your whole collection. It really should match most of your library and therefore enable you to download high quality files from them.
Great deal for €25 a year.

donglen

Thanks all for the help, I'm sold, will try to progress at the weekend.

Senecio

Those of who use it, what do you when on a flight with no music on your device?

Sad Professor

Senecio wrote: »

Those of who use it, what do you when on a flight with no music on your device?

Listen to to all the music I downloaded prior to the flight.

flexcon

Senecio wrote: »

Those of who use it, what do you when on a flight with no music on your device?

Just click the iCloud icon on the right of the song and download it to listen later on.

FourFourRED

flexcon wrote: »

Just click the iCloud icon on the right of the song and download it to listen later on.

My biggest issue with iTunes Match on iOS is that when you're "streaming" it actually downloads the song and makes it available for listening to offline later with no way to delete the songs manually after unless you delete all music.

When using iTunes Match on iTunes the streaming works perfectly.

maximoose

Aodhagan wrote: »

My biggest issue with iTunes Match on iOS is that when you're "streaming" it actually downloads the song and makes it available for listening to offline later with no way to delete the songs manually after unless you delete all music.

Tap the song title, it streams. Tap the cloud icon, it downloads.

mrbubbles

Going against the grain here but I used iTunes match for a little while but had nothing but trouble with it. Firstly, there is a limit of 25,000 songs. You've obviously got a way to go still but I don't really like being told how many songs I'm allowed to have in my music collection. It also kept corrupting my iTunes library for some reason (though this has probably been fixed in later versions).

I use Backblaze purely as a backup solution. I have about the same number of tracks as you and it took about a week to backup (though it depends on the speed of your internet) and you won't get the "playback on Apple devices" benefits (though this never really worked for me unless I had wifi anyway) but £4 a month is a small price to pay to know that it's all safely tucked up in the cloud.

Just my 2p

Sad Professor

Aodhagan wrote: »

My biggest issue with iTunes Match on iOS is that when you're "streaming" it actually downloads the song and makes it available for listening to offline later with no way to delete the songs manually after unless you delete all music.

When using iTunes Match on iTunes the streaming works perfectly.

It will automatically delete the "streaming" download if you start running low on space.

FourFourRED

maximoose wrote: »

Tap the song title, it streams. Tap the cloud icon, it downloads.

Did you read what I said? I said there is no way to delete the song you've just streamed. Both methods keeps the file available for offline listening.

FourFourRED

Sad Professor wrote: »

It will automatically delete the "streaming" download if you start running low on space.

There should be an option to stream and not keep the file just like it does on iTunes. A simple toggle switch it settings.

The Black Oil

I'm giving this a go on the basis of its reputation. I've about 2,500 songs, so not that many. It's matching stuff as a I type.

A couple of things, though. How does it work? If I've a few tunes that iTunes didn't recognise, so may be listed as 'unknown album'. I've entered the artist manually, so will it go out and look for those, or..? I also have some live tracks that are not from a CD and are from the pre-Youtube era. Again, it doesn't recognise it does these or simply skip them? How is it finding stuff anyway, is it relying on data built into the tracks?

FourFourRED

The Black Oil wrote: »

I'm giving this a go on the basis of its reputation. I've about 2,500 songs, so not that many. It's matching stuff as a I type.

A couple of things, though. How does it work? If I've a few tunes that iTunes didn't recognise, so may be listed as 'unknown album'. I've entered the artist manually, so will it go out and look for those, or..? I also have some live tracks that are not from a CD and are from the pre-Youtube era. Again, it doesn't recognise it does these or simply skip them? How is it finding stuff anyway, is it relying on data built into the tracks?

If the songs aren't matched with Apples list of songs in the cloud, iTunes will upload the tracks for you. So you will be fine with the "unknown album" and live tracks.

For more info: http://www.apple.com/ie/itunes/itunes-match/

Stephen P

If after the first year you decide to cancel the subscription, what happens to your music library? Does anything get deleted?

Zcott

Stephen P wrote: »

If after the first year you decide to cancel the subscription, what happens to your music library? Does anything get deleted?

Nope. Just make sure you have a local copy anyway.

Horrocksjm

itunes match allows you to download individual tracks, Albums or playlists onto your iphone/ipad to listen offline. e.g on a flight :-)

Stephen P

Zcott wrote: »

Nope. Just make sure you have a local copy anyway.

Cheers!

All my music is on my hard drive anyway, just wanted to make sure they don't get deleted if I was to cancel. Seems great, think I'll give it a go