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How do you organise your media? Ideas required - ITunes/Ipod and Zune/WP7


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Hi All,

A bit of a question for you. I've got a PC running Windows 7, with a user account for both myself and my wife. However, we have a shared MP3 collection which we'd both like to have access to for managing on our respective devices. So far, so good. However, I have a WP7 and Hard-disk based player, with my wife having an Ipod. We're both limited by space (200gb+ collection, 32gb Windows Phone, 30gb Ipod), so would like to be able to pick and choose.

At present, what I've got is the MP3 library sitting in a set of folders by Artist\Album on our external hard drive. I rip CD's with WMP9, and use Zune to load this onto my phone. All fine and dandy, but my wife now wants to use her Ipod more often to load things on and off. She's not as technical as me, so I'd like to make it as straightforward as possible - I would set up Itunes for her, but I don't want it ruining my organisation like it did last time.

So I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas? Maybe I should just move into the mainstream with everyone else, and learn to love Itunes - for some reason I don't like it (Maybe the high memory footprint etc, I'm more of of a Winamp user) Would the best thing be to set up Itunes with a media library, point Zune at it too, and then Winamp? That would mean my Wife could use ITunes for her Ipod etc whilst I used zune/Winamp. What do people think? Any better alternatives? I'm all ears!

Thanks,

Kit

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Not sure about iTunes, but Zune is pretty good. You just set it to a folder and it picks it up and works on that. No extra stuff needed.

iTunes used to store a separate folder for MP3s. Meaning it would "import" your existing stuff. But this was when I saw it in 2005. It may have well changed by now. If it just uses folders like Zune you can just point both apps to a shared common folder and you'll both be able to live as if nothing is separated.

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iTunes does have a tendency to re-name, re-arrange your media if you're not careful how you set it up. I would suggest setting it up completely before draggin any media to it. The other option might be to create seperate user accounts on your computer for you and your wife. This way you can continue to use the Zune software, while she can use iTunes to manage her media. With one user account only one of the media player software programs can be the default program. I wish Apple would allow iPods to sync with the Zune software as that is clearly the superior Windows media player software. iTunes has gotten a little better over the years, but overall it's still slow and sluggish and is in bad need of a complete re-write from the ground up.

There are some things that iTunes does very well, namely playlists and smart playlists. Once you have it setup how you want and the options set so it doesn't screw with your organization it can be quite powerful.

I'd suggest setting it up by going into the Preferences and make sure that it's pointed to your current folder where you media is stored. Also ensure that you have it set NOT to let it organize your media library. I am not in front of my PC currently so I can't tell you the exact settings to use, but what you're looking to do is possible.

Personally, I use Media Monkey for most of my tagging and iTunes to sync my iPhone and iPad. iTunes doesn't allow me to name my files exactly how I want which is why I do it this way.

I hope this helps you somewhat. If you need any other help, send me a PM and I can give you some additional pointers. I personally would prefer only one media player on my machine, but until iTunes allows more flexibility with naming conventions, I have to stick with what I have.

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i use zune for music, podcast, pictures video and sync with samsung focus i don't use any apple products so im afraid i don't have any ideas

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