Synchronizing both ways?
Hey people,
I was just curious about this. Lately I have been taking my ipod from work to home often, and when I'm at work, I tend to synchronize with my work pc, and when I go home, I synchronize with my home pc, the thing is, I've got a lot of songs at work that I don't have at home, and a lot of songs at work that I don't have at home. I'd like to be able to hit synchronize and retrieve songs that from the ipod that my home pc doesn't have, and the same with my work pc, anyone know if this is possible in any sort of way?
Thanks
[584 byte] By [
nav] at [2007-11-9 14:19:27]
# 1 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
So what you want to do is transfer the songs to your PC?
If you know which songs those are, this would be very easy: in the ipod view, highlight them, right click on them, and you'll get the option "send to PC".
You'll have to import them into MC9 after that, but then you'll have them on your HD and in your other computer's MC9 library...
If you don't know which songs offhand you need to send over,
the other option would be--but don't do this until Adam chirps in--would be to rebuild MC9's database from your ipod (if you don't know offhand which songs are on the ipod but not on that particular computer's MC9 library). I'm not sure if that would work though. And Adam may have a better idea anyway...
dmt1 at 2007-11-15 17:20:29 >
# 2 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
Hm...this is an interesting problem. See, MC9 uses a song id to reference each song in the MC9 library. It also uses this song id in syncing w/the iPod.
Since you've been syncing w/two different libraries, I'm surprised you haven't been running into problems. See, the song ids on one PC are going to be different from the song ids on the other PC.
You essentially syncing the iPod to 2 different databases. Not a good thing.
What I would suggests it that you don't sync w/one of the PCs. I mean, what's the purpose for syncing at work?
Can you give us a little more info and we'll try and come up w/a solution for you?
In terms of getting the songs off of your iPod that you loaded from work, Chris is right, just access the iPod from your home PC, select the songs, right-click select download to PC. Then, delete those songs off of the iPod, then import the songs into your home PC's version of MC9, then readd them to the iPod (through sync or whatever) so that the song ids are all in good shape.
Adam
# 3 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
Hey again,
Your pretty much exactly right in what I've been doing. The reason I synch at work (occasionally) is because I moved quite a large amount of music from my work machine to my ipod. I have a lot of music here which I don't have at home.
I suppose the idea of sending to pc for songs only on my ipod would work, but the problem behind that is that i've got close to 600 songs from work which are mixed with my other songs from home (some same artists, etc).
Rebuilding database from ipod doesn't work either. It gives me an error. I've tried that on both machines. I had just assumed when I clicked synchronize at home after bringing my ipod to work that the songs on my ipod that weren't on my pc would transfer over to my pc. Otherwise (if i did know they wouldn't) I would have added all my new songs to a new play list and just done the send to option when I got home.
I suppose I could always go song by song through my libraries at both work and home and send to pc whichever songs are on my ipod but not on my pc, but it would take hours to do (that's why I was hoping for an option in mc9).
Hope that provides some extra information for you Adam, any help would really be appreciated.
Nav
nav at 2007-11-15 17:22:29 >
# 4 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
This is something I've been thinking about for a while. I have an idea that may work although I haven't tried it myself.
First, make sure you have exactly the same music on both PC's. You will also need to have the music stored in the same drive and folder structure. Next synch your iPod with one of them. After the synch, save the MC database file to the iPod. When you connect the iPod the the other PC copy over the saved MC database. This should keep the two databases in synch. You should then be able to synch the iPod with the other PC.
Like I said before, I haven't tried this myself although I have a feeling it will work.
# 5 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
nav:
Well, here's another way to do it.
This process will lose any ratings you've done and such as it involves clearing out the MC9 Library.
Make sure all the music (from both PCs) is on the iPod. Then, connect the iPod to your PC at home, in iPod View, select all the Tunes, right-click and select download to PC. Once that's done, in MC9, click on Media Library. Select all the songs, click on Delete, and delete them from the PC (because you now have 2 versions of some songs: one version that was there before and the new versions that you donwloaded from the iPod.
Now you'll have an empty MC9 library, import all the tunes you just downloaded from the iPod. Then, select them all, right-click and select Rename Files From Properties. It will then move them to your normal music folder.
Now that I think about it, you might be able to do it another way, create a new library in MC9 (File>Library>Library Manager) then, try importing all the tunes from your iPod directly. You'll have to search the iPod_control folder. Then, you could select all the songs and do "Rename Files From Properties".
That might work as well....hm...interesting..
Adam
# 6 Re: Synchronizing both ways?
Thanks for the suggestion Phil & Adam,
I kinda just gave up and decided I would copy songs onto my ipod (in hard drive mode) and just dump them in a directory at work when I wanted songs, and copy them to my home computer and synchronize like that from now on. I went through all my songs and manually copied the songs I was missing at home onto my home computer, seems to have done the job. I still think synchronizing both ways would be a neat feature if it was a built in function :p
nav at 2007-11-15 17:25:33 >
