AW: Questions from a neophyte

[Roland Fischer (EP)]

1. The EphPOD introductory material suggests that the MusicMatch CD to =
MP3
translator is (very) inferior to LAME. Does anyone have any details =
of
the difference? Are there significant audible effects? I have > =

converted

about 250 CDs (so I don't want to do this all again!), but > I have =

not

noticed any significant drop in quality at the "CD equivalent"> =

setting

which uses ~900 KB per minute.

I think it's up to you: as long as you don't hear any loss in quality I =
see no need to rip it again;)

2. I have found two bugs in MusicMatch, though. In some cases > it =

clips a > few

seconds off the end of a track and glues it onto the next track =

(as> if

it doesn't flush a buffer under some circumstances). I also have> =

managed

to delete an album (~16 tracks) from the iPOD but not from the iPOD
database. This is clearly not a serious problem, but I did want to
clean it up. Has anyone else seen this? I don't know what > =

sequence of

actions I took with MusicMatch to do it. It has been > suggested to =

me

that I could fix it the problem with EphPOD, which leads > to the =

next

question.

To rebuild the database on the iPod use the "Rebuild DB from iPod" =
function inside ephPod:)

3. The EphPOD documentation seems to refer to the Mark I iPOD version
which only ran with Macintosh, or required something > called =

MacOpener

to convert the file system formats. However, if I make hidden files
visible on my W-XP machine then I can see all the iPOD > files =

without

using any such conversion. Also, in the iPOD settings, it > states =

that

the iPOD is using the "Format: Windows". Thus, my > conclusion is =

that

the EphPOD program is designed for the Mark I iPOD only. > The =

question

is will it work with a Mark II (firmware 2.01) set up with > a =

Windows

file system? If it will, does it really require a Firewire card, as
my iPOD connects quite happily to my PC via the USB cable=20
I purchased> from Apple.

You're right, the welcome page of ephPod is very confusing, I made the =
new german translation of ephPod and didn't notice that this page is =
only focused on the older models. I will change it after writing this =
email;)

ephPod works with any iPod, all it needs is access to the iPod drive. So =
you can still use your USB cable and everything is fine! (as long as the =
iPod gets a drive letter and is accessible with the explorer).

Regards, Roland Fischer

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