Ipod to B2

[Todd Lefkowitz]

I am trying to copy my Ipod contents to the new B2.  Once I attach my Ipod to my PC, files appear.  What is the next step to do the transfer?

Thanks

Todd

[Daniel Taylor]

There are three ways to transfer music to the B2:

1) copy to a USB disk and use the Import command;

2) upload via the WebUI;

3) transfer directly to the B2 when it is accessed as NAS (Network Attached Storage)

There is a wealth of information to be found at the Brennan website.  There is a page for Music Transfer and Backup and another for NAS and Sonos. And be sure and read about Organising Your Music.

[Mark Fishman]

"I attach my Ipod to my PC, files appear"

A couiple of questions, based on my experience with my iPod Classic and also with an iPod Touch.

(a) What kind of iPod is it?

(b) what are the names of the files that you see, and what kind of directory structure are they in?

On my iPod Classic, the files have cryptic names with normal extensions (m4a, mp3), and are scattered in directories named F00, F01, etc..

That will be a problem for the B2.

The iPod uses a database to keep track of where the files are, and uses the metadata tags (ID3 tags, for example) to identify actual track names, artist names, album names, and the like. The B2 doesn't use any of that. It uses the actual file names and directory names, and they must be arranged in a specific structure:

Artist \ album \ track

That is why I ask about exactly what you see when you attach the iPod to the PC.

On Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 2:09:04 PM UTC-5 talefk...@gmail.com wrote:

[Mark Fishman]

If you drill down under the iPod_Control directory, I think that's where you will find the music files -- with the utterly unfriendly file and folder names. Your bets move at that point is to copy them off the iPod and then use a tagging program to rename them and put them in directories according to the information that is probably stored inside them in their metadata tags. Only then will you be able to have them make sense on the B2.

And, by the way, other people with experience will be able to chime in if you reply on the forum instead of directly to each writer.

Cheers -- m.

On Sat, Dec 11, 2021 at 6:06 PM Todd Lefkowitz  wrote:

Mark

Here is a screenshot of how the iPod looks to the pc

Thanks
Todd

[rehp...@yahoo.com]

I have recently been through this process myself, transferring about 150 albums from a full iPod classic to my B2. The process was a bit time consuming, but this is how I did it:

First, set up a separate folder for the albums you want to transfer. Using Led Zeppelin IV as an example

Create a folder called Led Zeppelin IV in your "albums to transfer folder"

Go back to the iPod folder with the folders and search for Led Zeppelin IV. The search results should have the relevant number of mp3s with 4 letter titles - you won't (at this point) know which track is which. 

Copy the mp3s into the Led Zeppelin IV folder in your "albums to transfer". They will be sorted alphabetically by 4 letter title, but you should be able to see the track titles and and numbers as well.

Open iTunes and add the Led Zeppelin IV folder to the library. 

Find the iTunes folder on your computer (on my laptop it's in Music) and open it. There will be 3 or 4 sub folders, and you want Music. This is organised by artist, so find Led Zeppelin and in there you should find Led Zeppelin IV. Transfer this folder to a flash drive.

Insert the flash drive into the B2 and in USB functions Import From C.

On the UI, search for unknown. Led Zeppelin IV should show up under that title in Unknown Artist. The track names will be the 4 letter codes from the iPod. If you go back to your "Albums to Transfer " folder you can see which track is which and rename them manually. ZQXT might be Black Dog, for instance. 

I have a very full 160 gig iPod classic and there were about 150 albums that I wanted to transfer. I did them in batches of 10 or so, and each batch took about an hour to transfer and rename on the B2.

There is probably a quicker way to do this, but it worked for me as and I found it oddly satisfying. 

[Mark Fishman]

Now that you've menioned iTunes, I seem to remember that at one time it had a preference setting that would have it rename the files as it copied them into the iTunes Music library, and also keep the files/folders organized if you renamed anything. Does that setting exist these days? If so, you wouldn't have to rename the files yourself.

You could also use a tagging program to rename the files on the computer before putting them opn the Brennan. I use mp3tag, which is available for both Windows and Mac. It can rename files and also put them into directories based on the artist and track tags in the files.

[PMB]

Hi Todd,

I did this some time ago so don't remember the exact details but I did find all of the info I needed with Google searches.

I downloaded (free) software that allowed me to transfer the music from the iPod to my PC. As Mark says the music has encrypted titles, such as ABXYZ and the tracks from different albums are jumbled up in numerous folders (F01, F02, etc).

I loaded these folders into iTunes which gave then their proper names and moved them into the correct Albums.

Then I made a copy of the iTunes library (this was only the music from the iPod - I don't use iTunes for anything else) to an external USB HDD (the Apple site explains how to do this).

I plugged the external USB HDD into the B2 and 'imported' the music.

The external HDD must be FAT32 formatted (before copying the iTunes library) otherwise the B2 will not recognise it.

Paul

Brennan Support.