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iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5
usr122122121 writes "iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5 were released today, available by Apple's Site and Software Update (respectively)."
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Now people with AOL can just use their screen name to buy songs on iTMS, and it'll be billed to their AOL account.
...
Not that I would know personally now!! I read it on the website, I swear!
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Changelog of some sort? Or at least some news about improved stability/speed/performance or new features? Anyone?
--- "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." ~ Ben Kenobi, 'Return of the Jedi'
Quicktime info
iTunes info
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Here are the "new" features.
For itunes, you can now use your aol login, and aol
wallet to pay for stuff.
Quicktime now supports the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards
These standards are usefull for Third generation cell phones. They allow transfer of scalled video, sound, text, and just about anything as the yare track based formats.
(anyone know if the itunes breaks the support for mytunes <www.cowpimp.com> the program that lets you download thru mytumes)**
come comment on the madness at http://slashdot.org/~phreak03/journal/
A new Panther update - to 10.3.2 - is also available from SoftwareUpdate.
hopefully I can finish downloading it before it gets apple-slashdotted...
There's a good java clone of iTunes complete with Rendezvous support.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/
Here you go, I don't know if it is detailed enough, but it has more info.
Quicktime info
iTunes info
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
>A non-unix based software program
....
Ummm
Non-Unix Operating system?
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Right-on! I got to play that game for about a week before I had to install panther to play with xcode. I can't believe that the retail Apple store I bought it at has been selling a game for the last two months that won't work on an up-to-date system (I had to downgrade QT on jaguar) - Apple should have pulled it until macplay got it working (even if it was apple that broke quicktime). Good idea with the ipod - I hadn't thought of that, thanks.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
QuickTime 6.5 delivers a number of new features and important updates, including:
- Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the new 3GPP2 format.
- Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the popular AMC format.
- Improved text track support.
- Enhanced DV playback options.
- Enhanced support for iMovie, iDVD, and Final Cut Pro.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
What's new in iTunes 4.2
iTunes 4.2 allows you to sign in and buy music from the iTunes Music Store using either your AOL or Apple Account, view the iTunes Music Store in a separate window, and includes a number of performance improvements.
(And yes, that really was the extent of the changes listed in the help and readme after I downloaded it).
To be honest, your best bet right now is to check out the Rhythmbox project at http://www.rhythmbox.org
It has an interface similar to iTunes, supports Ripping, as many audio formats as Gstreamer can handle (including mp3, and ogg), and will soon be able to burn to CDs as well.
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
i know. i hate apple! it's not like you can't find any free alternatives with fullscreen built in that even play more media formats by default.
- tristan
In all seriousness, there seems to be some misconception that iTunes can't play ogg files. Well, I'm not sure about on the PC, but there is a plugin for the Mac that plays ogg files just fine.
Why, oh why do we have an MPEG-4 standard if no one wants to use it? Mpeg-4 works under most movie players (including the DivX player). And quicktime comes with an ecoder. What's not to like?
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
forget about AOL support ... you can group tracks now! awesome
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Or make a 7-line AppleScript
on open fileName
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
open fileName
present movie 1
end tell
end open
Drag a movie onto the script icon and it plays full screen.
Idiot.
Yup. Already had it down before this news "broke", helping my kid learn how to rip, mix and burn. The version says 4.2.0.72. Have to check the Mac version when I get home tonight...
With the recent up to 10.1.3 the application load time has gotten even _faster_ (among other things :). Now these updates. It's usually FUN to update the Mac the see what's new.
:).
Throw in the Linux 2.6 kernel and it's going to be a fun Christmas.
Isn't it ironical that at the same time I'm dreading the next Windows update that is always coming down the pike (being the sysadmin over seeing all such systems on the network
At least Apple makes this SEEM fun. New in the iTunes application menu -- a link to:
HotTips
check it out: iTunes sucks !
Quicktime 6.5 does not fix the No One Lives Forever 2 problem with QT 6.4. I just tried it.
Back to rebooting in 10.2.8/QT 6.3 for Cate Archer action.
JP
Mmm, but iTunes is mainly used to buy music online, not to play music
No, iTunes on the Mac has been the premier app for organizing and listening to music for waaaay longer than iTunes Music Store has existed. Still is.
Well, actually, he didn't do anything except insert a loopback somewhere up in Quicktime...you could already do about the same thing with any audio capture utility, or for that matter a CD-RW drive.
OSS and Quicktime have nothing to do with each other. OSS is an API for communicating with a sound card. Quicktime is a hugely complex media framework for reading, editing, playing, displaying, and otherwise working with many types of files, from text to movies to audio. Gstreamer and Quicktime would be a more accurate matchup. Unfortunately, Gstreamer is not quite ready for major use at the moment.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
for those of you who haven't had the bright idea(and don't go spreading this around) you can burn the Annoying Constraining Crap format to cds, even cd-rw's, and re-rip the songs from that. Granted, it is a bit of a pain, but ah to be free from the chains of proprietary formatting.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
> Which hack was that?
QTFairUse.
iTunes can convert to and from MP3, AAC, WAV and AIFF.
Come on, lets try doing some homework before posting.
iTunes makes extensive use of Carbon and QuickTime. It would be non-trivial to port iTunes to a platform without these APIs.
The back end of iTunes is not really BSD; iTunes is a Carbon application (having migrated from SoundJam on OS 9 to iTunes on OS 9 to the current Carbon application you see on OS X 10.2+). While the Carbon API runs atop a BSD backend (Darwin), Carbon itself isn't part of BSD, nor is it easily ported to Linux.
Apple has also just released Final Cut Pro 4.1.1, LiveType 1.1.1, and Xcode 1.1.
WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Look for Itunes-sidekick. It's a plugin for Itunes for Windows that adds, among other things, minimizing to the tray.
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
Otherwise, I'm going to install Jaguar to my iPod and boot off that when I want some "Cate Archer" sneaking action.
You might consider checking with Apple first to see if it will screw up your warranty.
iPodHacks warns that booting off your iPod might be considered "abuse" by Apple if you have problems later.
FIV1. Apple makes ~ 10-15 cents on each song (rumors are they are operating iTMS at a slight loss). I don't think you and a few of your friends buying some songs is enough incentive to port iTunes -- they'd need a few millon Linux users for that.
2. The high-price of Apple machines is a myth that neeeds to die. You can get a Desktop G4 for around $900, and a laptop for a few hundred more. I think that is well within the financial reach of most people. On the other hand, if you want the top of the line dual G5, you have to be willing to pay for it. Just like you do with Dell, HP or any other PC vendor selling the latest and greatest hardware.
Has anyone else noticed that Quicktime has yet to provide fullscreen support?
If you're on a dial up, keep in mind that these aren't exactly "must have" updates if you're not an AOL customer. 50 megs is alot, but let's face it, you can easily wait till 10.4. The only stuff you really NEED are the security updates.
And since you can set this thing to download overnight, unless you're so rural as to be paying toll-calls to a dialup ISP, 50 megs can be done in 1 or 2 nights, since Apple Update supports resuming (TTBOMR)
-- Funksaw
I thought I just read on /. that one of the new Linux based "Smart Phones" has Quicktime support? Apple doesn't need to release the GUI, just the backend processes to work with iTMS and a binary release of QT libraries. Though I doubt Apple will do something like that since their goal is to have you purchase their OS : (
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Apple's Read Me's are always notably lacking information on specific changes, possible because parts of the read me display in the software update and installers. Anyway, Apple often releases specific details as part of its knowledge base.
My quick review of changes in iTunes 4.2 on Mac OS X (sorry won't have access to a Win2k machine until next week), these are the immediate changes I notice:
Hot Tips
http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/
Apple introduced hot tips on creating Smart Playlist, keyboard shortcuts, copy song, artist, and album urls from the iTunes Music Store, etc.
Grouping
Under song details, there is now a new ID3 tag called grouping. I'm not certain if this will allow for subcategories, or can be used for things such as Celebrity Playlist so songs from multiple albums can be grouped. I'll have to play with it. Also added to Smart Playlist queries.
Artwork
Added scaler to artwork, so images can be scaled up or down to fit album space area.
Playlist from Selection
For those who complained about queue-ing songs, I imagine this feature will come in handy, as well as for other purposes as well. Allows you to Command-Select (Click) on random songs in your library then create a playlist from them, immediately.
Music Store in New Window
Double-clicking will launch the music store in a new window (yeah).
iTMS: Music Essentials
Like Celebrity playlist, but collections of "iTunes Essential" music in categories I wouldn't have imagined, including Disco Ball Essentials and Coctail Party Kitsch--yet more ways to spend even more money.
iTMS: AOL Sessions
Added more music "exclusives" basically various performances by artist for AOL can now be purchased.
iTMS: AOL Users
Tons of direct access stuff for AOL users. Which, if they can do this for AOL, maybe they could do it for other venues, like artist who do live concert releases.
iTMS: Artist Self-Released Albums (Return of the EP)
This was there before, but some artist like Pearl Jam who are self published are and can now release stuff directly to the iTMS. I also noticed John Mayer's "As Is" is not attributed to Sony or any music label (which may indicate that it was also self-published). Ben Folds have also been doing a number of quick EPs, but they are all still published attributed to EPIC. It will be interesting to see if more artist start releasing EPs with 4-5 songs exclusively for iTMS or other music stores, and then have regular albums published every 1-2yrs.
These were the things I noticed immediately. Now I need to go and play and see what else comes up.
In all seriousness, there seems to be some misconception that windows-iTunes can't play ogg files. Well, I'm not sure about the parrent, but I know that there is an open source plugin for windows-Quicktime that plays ogg files just fine.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
-braxton
My crappy P3-500 256MB system at work runs it about the same as before, still pretty slow, but it works. They changed the Maximize button behavior, now it actually maximizes the window instead of toggling the mini-player. I actually liked the previous behavior, I rarely maximize windows, don't see the point usually.
Q.
Really - before you start ranting you should at least bother to learn something about the subject. You can write plugins for QT. There is technical documentation at Apple's Quicktime developer's site, and you can download both Windows & Mac SDKs. Also, check sourceforge for other QT Components.
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
I belive Jon's program did a little more: It got into Quicktime after decryption but before decoding, resulting in an AAC file digitally identical to the original one, but freely copyable.
/james
All the methods involving audio capture or burn-then-rip involve some 'transcoding' loss in audio quality as the file is decompressed, captured, then usually recompressed to AAC or mp3.
If you tried rhythmbox a while ago but haven't lately, do yourself a favor and give it another try. It has gone from a buggy piece of crap to a top notch program in the last three months.
Well, you're partially wrong. They are encoded by the labels and/or their distributors, but not from CD (in most cases). Apple has said that they encourage submitters to encode from the original masters, and that most are. The lowest quality you can find on the iTMS is ripped from CD, but most songs available are encoded from the DAT masters directly to 48 kHz 128 kbit AAC.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Quicktime is a media wrapper with gobs of supported codecs and track types (it even supports a special text track for that MIDI karaoke fomat that never really took off). DVD Studio Pro, Final Cut Pro, and the OS X version of Shake are all very heavily QT-based. (As are iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, and even iPhoto).
.mov files I ran across on the net use the worst possible codecs (maybe for better compatibility?) usually cinepak, which hasn't changed since Quicktime 1.0 in 1991. But then, that's not any worse than the people that output to AVI using something like the crusty old Indeo 1 codec... equal ass quality.
The "Quicktime Player" is just a free front-end demo sort of thing that doesn't want to die. Seeing how Apple has published all the specs for the QT framework, I'm amazed someone hasn't written a nicer player frontend.
Most people only use QT for DV25/DVCPro25 and DV50/DVCPro50 video editing (and futher down the data path, MPEG2 for output). Be it at home from their MiniDV camera in iMovie and output to DVD via iDVD or a pro using Final Cut and DVD Studio.
Soooo many of
I don't hate QT, it's part of what makes Macs and their applications a more sane world, but I do with QT had a few more codecs and wish there were some better frontends/players. (There were gobs of third-party/shareware/freeware QT player frontends back in the oldschool classic Mac OS days... but very few for OS X).
Third, as I mentioned in my QTFairUse guide above, you might find that unprotected AAC audio which you can easily get from QTFairUse is a nice way to listen to your iTunes Music Store songs using WinAmp or non-Apple AAC-capable hardware players, without any quality loss whatsoever. The myths that QTFairUse doesn't work or do anything just aren't true - it is a pain to use in its current form, but it works, and it is useful for some of us. And it's the only way I know of besides stream recording or burn-and-rip to go from M4P to MP3 on a Windows box.
I did make a few modifications, however.
1.8-inch HDD
40.0 GB:
MK4004GAH
Lightweight, only 62 grams
Low Power Consumption
15ms Average Seek Time
100MB/s Ultra DMA Transfer Rate
300,000 MTTF Hours
Sounds like a laptop drive to me...and a good one too! One that doesn't know the difference between audio, OS files, games or video...knock yourself out.
Run it all you want, that's what the warranty/extended warranty is for. One year from Toshiba to Apple to you...more if you have Apple Care, CompUSA, etc.
I realise that itunes is designed for people using a mac file system - and I also realise iTunes can sort your data for you.
Being able to move around some files doesn't mean "Mac file system".
"It's also made primarily for people who use id3 tags (and thanks to itunes I'm working towards tagging all my stuff - it's a great player)"
Good. Non-tagged files are useless when they move from their neat directory structure... such as onto an iPod!
BUT in the meantime how does one sort by path and file name?
You don't. iTunes is designed to either rip your CDs, or for you to buy them. Either way, they'll be tagged.
"it's a simple feature winamp has but it makes things so much easier - especially when dealing with files named 01 - song name.mp3 (then in ANOTHER directory) 01 - song name.mp3 - it just puts ALL of them up the top.
"Great program but needs some serious work."
It's been this way since iTunes was first released. Don't expect it to change. Just keep tagging...
"(hell I'll keep whining while I'm here)"
Yes, yes you will.
"Where's the bloody maximise? - some of us Windows freaks LIKE full screen applications - I can't help it, it's habit and I find it always looks best - I use alt tab to swap anyhow - I want a FULLY maximised package."
Err, this was just added with this iTune 4.2 release. Please pay attention.
"Here's some other questions.
What if I format my machine - is there a way of backing up my "opinion" on each song? the database of how many times played, my rating for each song etc? (yes I realise it MAY be possible I'm just pointing this out)"
Yes, just save your iTunes database, which'll be in the iTunes directory where your music is.
"Also if I move my data on my machine to another location I'd love to be able to re-point itunes to the new data without having to lose it all and re-work all the stats / ratings"
Open up preferences. Check the last tab. Choose the right location.
"Itunes HAS to write to the "my documents" directory - this is annoying - i can't specify another location."
Have you even used iTunes for more than a minute? Open the damn Preferences menu and look at it sometime, genius.
Yup. Your trying to fight iTunes instead of letting it work for and with you.
Why would you have two instances of the same song on your machine unless they were from different albums, different encodings, or sample rates or such? iTunes just did you a favor, it found you some wasted hard drive space. Delete the duplicate(s) and move on.
If they aren't exact duplicates then use the "View Options" to add the appropriate colums to the display so you can discerne the differences between the tracks.
iTunes stores enough tag and other meta information that you should never have to sort files manually. Manual and smart playlists are tremendously powerful, especially when you can create smart playlists based on the contents of the "comments" box for each track. For example, I use terms like "male female group solo singing instrumental acoustic live remix" in the comments field. I have several smart playlists that sort on these, such as "live group rock"; this is powerful voodoo.
To backup your comments and such, simply copy the "iTunes 4 Music Library" file. You can later restore it to the appropriate place and all will be well.
Chances are that if you are going to "move my data on my machine to another location" that you would be moving the entire location of your "my documents" folder. iTunes would then look for its file(s) relative to that new location. If you DO just want to move the iTunes database, simply use a shortcut (alias to MAc users, symlink to BSD heads).
Unless you are a geek who wants to tweak, there's little to no reason for iTunes to complicate matters by offering alternate locations for the database. The standard options allow for a centralized store of music, and each user to maintain their own ratings, comments, etc.
The window maximize thing is annoying. It doesn't even work on the Mac like it's supposed to (hold Option, click the window zoom button). To make a maximized iTunes window you have to manually drag the window to size. Apple does occasionally break its own HIG documents, and this is one of those occasions.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Itunes HAS to write to the "my documents" directory - this is annoying - i can't specify another location.
You can specify any browsable location you like.
Edit:Preferences:Advanced lets you choose your iTunes Music Folder Location.
(On the Mac) I set permissions wide open on my main user's (me) music folder. Then I set all the other users' (my daughters) iTunes folder to my folder. Voila! We all have access to all our music. IF they rip it, download it or buy it, I've got it -- without having to duplicate drive space consumption for everyone to have Led Zeppelin. (Course then I get to wade through all their Ani and Shania, but likewise they have to put up with my ELP and Tchaikovsky.)
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.