What software

Ok, if you're going to pay for Xplay, IMHO, you might as well pay ten dollars more and get Media Center (it does so much more--the only advantage Xplay has is drag and drop, and MC9 may have that soon as well).

MC9 is an all in one program like mmjb, but much better--and is the fastest synching program for the ipod I've come across. You can trial it for free as well; I'd try it before I bought Xplay. Personally, I'd take ephpod over Xplay; I just can't justify the price of Xplay--but my overall choice would be MC9.

You can find out more about MC9 in the Media Center 9 section here at the lounge...

And welcome to the lounge!

Ditto Chris' remarks. The major problem I have with ephpod is that you get what you pay for. It's a good program and works fairly well, but the developer (Joe Masters) hasn't had much time to work on it in a while and I hear he's going to law school, so I don't think there will be a ton of development on it going forward. Which is important as new features are introduced (such as playcounts etc.).

I'd rather pay a one-time fee and get all my media tools from one place (as long as it does it will, which MC9 does IMO).

For simple drag-n-drop and integation w/WMP, Xplay is a good product, but I'm with dmt1 on it vs. MC9.

Adam

I will agree about MC9. I using that after using the free trail of MC9 you will come to the conclusion of a lot of us that MC9 Rocks! It is a pretty awesome program that IMHO is the iTunes of Windows!

iTunes is to MAC as MC9 is to Win

Well I have been using MC9 since last night. You guys were right it is awesome. I found it a bit difficult at first but I got the hang of it now. I Wish I would have discovered it sooner. Never even heard of it til I got my Ipod. Bye Bye mmjb. Nick

There are a ton of differences between MC9 and the iPod. Check out the software compendium sticky in the Software thread for more info.

Basically, ephpod is a tool that lets you upload tunes to the iPod. When you manage tunes w/it, you are only managing tunes on the iPod, not on your PC. You're not actually editing tags, you're making changes to the values in the iPod's database.

MC9 is a full-featured media player, ripper, taggers, burners, playlist maker and smartlist maker. It keeps all the data about your tunes in its database which allows for better organization, searching, custom views etc. You can even create custom fields to organize things the way you want them.

The iPod functionality is just icing on the cake. It's the fastest syncing tool in my testing, mainly as a result of this database.

And it's smartlists are the best. You can check out the help guide in the MC9 board for more info on these. But it really helps in managing the content on the iPod, especially when you have more tunes on your PC than will fit on your iPod.

There are a ton of features I'm missing, but someone else will chime in with more, or just download a trial and judge for yourself.

Adam

I use xplay.

MC9 is not for everyone. I don't like media players, in general, so this would not be my first choice. Plus this little program messed up all of my Chinese, Japanese and Korean tags.

Bill McNair

I'll second that. If your going to spend money on one this is the way to go.

Originally posted by SouthsideIrish
I use xplay.

MC9 is not for everyone. I don't like media players, in general, so this would not be my first choice. Plus this little program messed up all of my Chinese, Japanese and Korean tags.

Bill McNair

I'm with you, Bill. XPlay all the way. I don't need yet another media player...I just want a fast and powerful way to move content to and from my iPod.