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Plugin For Winamp Allows Downloading From iPod
slicenglide writes "A newly released plugin for Winamp allows you to copy music from your iPod to your computer. Wired has picked up the story and includes a link to the WinAmp plugin page where you can grab yourself a copy. "
iPods store the music totally openly in the directory structure. You can download the music from any file browser that can see the disk - like the command line on OS X for example. It's hardly rocket science.
Of course I didn't read the article, so there might be something to it ... but I suspect it's not that hard to get the files via a Linux installation. The only platform I have that I have had trouble pulling the files off of the iPod on is Mac.
I talk about stuff.
To copy songs from your iPod on mac os x, open up the terminal and type:
/Volumes/name_of_ipod/iPod Control/music
:)
# Change directory to the ipod music directory. (I'm not sure if iPod Control is the exact name I'm not on a mac at the moment, but it's similar.)
cd
# View the files on the iPod
ls
# Then copy whatever the files called.
cp name_of_file
No plugins, downloads, whatever required
Maybe this is news for Winamp users - I doubt it, but I don't use it myself. But there has been software to download songs from the iPod to your harddrive for ages. The inability to do so is pretty much limited to iTunes, every other application dealing with the iPod (and there are dozens) enables you to do that. One popular example for Windows is EphPod. Lots and lots more can be found for multiple platforms at iPodlounge.
Personally, I use foo_pod, a plugin for the foobar2000 audio player. It's quite powerful, including such features as automatic conversion of formats the iPod doesn't know (e.g. ogg or shorten) and automatic generation of audiobooks. For what it's worth - Wired seems to care - foobar and foo_pod are yet half as small than Winamp and that plugin is. Hah.
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Of course they allow you to copy music off of them. They're just plain old firewire/USB hard drives as far as your computer is concerned.
/. article.
The only gotchas are that the files are hidden, and the music's filenames are hashed for fast access from a metadata database. Thus when you copy the files back, you have to regenerate their names from their ID3 tags or the metadata database, as this winamp plugin does. You can do this as simply as dragging your music back into iTunes with the 'copy imported music' setting on, and there are plenty of other utilities that do it that have never gotten a
Meh, I wouldn't say I was dumb, I just never investigated iPods in enough depth to discover that you can't take music off the thing. I wonder how many people know about that when they get one, it probably surprises a few people.
This is hardly new nor interesting. There are plenty of programs that work with the iPod other than iTunes. Behold just a few:
- Anapod Explorer
- PodUtils
- GTKpod
- GNUpod
And rhythmbox, for example, offers nice integration of music management and iPod operability -- if that's what is supposed to have made this newsworthy.
A friend of mine has been using this plugin for months, and prefers to use it in favor of iTunes. It's hardly new though, the earliest release listed on their Sourceforge filelist is from April 2004.
There are a ton of programs that already let you do this. Perhaps the coolest in my eyes is a program called SharePod which runs directly from the iPod hard drive, and so requires no installation. It is for Windows only, however, which is the only limitation.
/
http://sturm.t35.com/sharepod/
There are also about a dozen alternatives here, on iPodlounge.com
http://www.ipodlounge.com/index.php/ipod-software
Kudos to the WinAmp guys for doing this though, I'll probably check it out to see how they did it.
1) any iPod, if initialized using Windows (meaning it's FAT32 formatted), is a standard USB Mass Storage Device that you can plug into any windows box that supports those and start using it as a removable HDD
2) nothing prevents you from downloading your DRM-free songs from your iPod using only Windows Explorer. However, iTunes arranges all music files in 32/64/128/256 (something like that) folders named 00 through FF (in hex). So your Metallica - St.Anger tracks would be scattered in some 10 folders or so... and it's not that easy to compile the whole album by hand. iPod uses its internal database to find files. All this winamp plugin provides is a convenient way to copy files from your iPod back to your hdd by parsing through this database file and renaming files using the template specified.
This also means that you can not simply copy mp3 folder to iPod and play them... you have to update the database. This is why you have to use iTunes (or this winamp plugin or similar util) to upload music to your iPod player.
Yes, it's stupid, compared to the way iRiver players handle files and folders.
3) I've been using this plugin for about a year now, this is hardly news. I recommend NOT to use it to upload files to your iPod, it once corrupted its database and I had to erase it and copy all the music again.
4) there is also a plugin for Total Commander (my shell of choice) that provides similar functionality:
http://www.totalcmd.net/plugring/ipod.html
iTunes by default rips your Cds to non-protected m4u (AAC) or optionally, Mp3. Only tracks bought from the iTMS will be protected by default.
I think this plugin is more intended as a utility to allow people to use their iPods to carry mp3s between PCs without the rigmarole of zipping them into an archive.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Of course you can. It's just that some people find the fact that the filenames and subdirectories are structured to be fast and efficient for the player that keeps track info in a seperate database file, rather than easily human readable. Winamp (and indeed anything else) reads the intact header info on the files to get that for you.
There's really a sliding 'geek' scale that goes something like this:
0: doesn't care what they look like on disc, as going looking for the files directory is magic voodoo stuff.
1: annoyed that the filenames are munged up, making it useless for most purposes.
2: not that bothered, since they can work around it with the id3 tags. However, possibly irritated that they should have to anyway.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
The iPod's Music folder is hidden only in the Finder. On a Mac you can still get to it easily enough via the shell or an alternative file browser; go here:
/Volumes/[iPod's name]/iPod_Control/Music/
There are a bunch of folders with names like "F00", "F01", "F02"If you want a nice GUI tool to do this, on Mac there is "iPod Access" and "iPodRip" (both shareware), and there is the free program "gtkpod", which I use on my Linux box at work to listen to my iPod songs.
Apple really doesn't lock you out of your iPod, which is one reason why I love it! Of course, mine's HFS+ formatted; is it hard to do this on Windows?
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