Why Ephpod over Musicmatch?
[334 byte] By [carlolove] at [2007-11-9 13:25:28] 
I've heard all the complaints about Music Match, so spare me your ill feelings towards the program, I feel the same way. But what are the advantages of using Ephpod over Music Match? And please don't say "well you should use (enter many alternatives to music match here)." And what VBR rate should I be using on music match?
# 1 Re: Why Ephpod over Musicmatch?
I personally don't feel you should use MMJB over ephpod. I'm going to confuse you more. I think the best iPod tools is Media Center 9 (MC9).
Why?
Well, because...
1. It's an all-in-one tool, like MMJB in that is rips, burns, tags, manages media, creates playlists and (best of all) smartlists and uploads to the iPod.
2. It's much faster than MMJB in syncing w/the iPod
3. It's a much better ripper/encoder. It uses the LAME encoder and can be configured to use Digital Secure ripping which is equivalent to EAC/Cdex.
4. Supports tag-based normalization so that you can normalize (using its Replay Gain feature) your tunes on the iPod w/o having to reupload songs or alter the source MP3s in any way.
5. Tag changes don't require a reupload of the song/file. It just requires a re-sync which takes seconds. In ephpod/MMJB, if you, for example, change the genre on a bunch of tunes, you have to reupload all the songs to the iPod to make that change effective. In MC9, it's just a resync which does not require a reupload of the song.
6. It will soon be the only program that supports the iPod's Playcounts and Rating feature. So the songs you listen to on the Ipod each day (or between syncs) will be tracked in MC9's library. So you can build a "favorites" or "not heard in 3 weeks" smartlist. This will be updated by the tunes you listen to on the iPod. Also, if you change the rating on a song on the iPod from say, 2 stars to 4 stars, that will be reflected in MC9's library and any smartlists you have w/rating rules will be updated automatically.
OK. Blah, blah, blah. It does stuff w/images and video too. And I'm not even going to tell you about Media Server which lets you stream your library over the internet.
'nuff said.
It's worth 3 time sthe $40 it costs IMO..
Adam
ashawley at 2007-11-15 17:21:28 >
# 2 Re: Why Ephpod over Musicmatch?
Thanks for the reply Adam! I know I should post this next message in another ares (and I will), but with LAME, I find myself having no idea how to use it. I downloaded EAC just fine, but even with that installation, it wanted something like, exactly where LAME will, or is located, and I had no idea what to enter. Any ideas? I'll post this question in it's appropriate place too. By the way Adam, at what bitrate do you rip cd's into mp3's? Any comments too on VBR settings?
carlolove at 2007-11-15 17:22:25 >
# 3 Re: Why Ephpod over Musicmatch?
In MC9 I use the LAME setting of --alt preset standard. Which comes out to 192VBR approximately.It's pretty much considered the best setting in LAME for quality vs. space.
I'm not going to move this as I see you've already put a post in the Software board regarding the EAC setting.
I believe that setting is just looking for where you have the LAME.exe file located on your PC. You just need to enter the path to the lame.exe file. Whereever that is.
You have to have it on your computer for EAC to work.
Adam
ashawley at 2007-11-15 17:23:29 >
# 4 Re: Why Ephpod over Musicmatch?
oh, so you need to download LAME first? When I download the LAME file, I just get a zip disk filled with nothing but text notes, etc, and that one application i described. Nothing that resembles the actual icon of what would be LAME.carlolove at 2007-11-15 17:24:28 >
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