Download Installer (Windows only)
Preview version 1
September, 2004
Author: Nate Weiss
The basic idea :
I like to play music from CD's on my iPod. I don't care about having the digitized versions of the songs on my computer's hard drive, or having them listed in the iTunes library. I just want to get the music onto my iPod, without cluttering up my computer with a bunch of excess files.
But I find that the process of getting this result in iTunes is tedious and completely unintuitive (to me). First I have to select the CD, then hit Import, wait for the encoding to finish, select the Library, find and select the songs I just added (ugh), drag them to my iPod, wait for the transfer to finish, delete the songs from my library, and finally answer the question about deleting the underlying music files from my computer's drive. If I really want the files to be gone, I then have to empty my Recycle Bin.
To that end, this program transfers all the songs on an Audio CD directly to your iPod, without leaving the songs in your iTunes library or on your computer's drive. Internally, it has to go through most of the same steps we humans would (import the songs into the library, transfer them to the iPod, then delete them from the library and computer), but it does so with just one click and it does it unattended.
Requirements:
- An iPod or iPod Mini.
- A computer with a CD drive.
- Version 4.6 or later of iTunes for Windows,
which presently requires Windows XP or 2000.
How to use:
Assuming that you:- are connected to the Internet;
- have an Audio CD in your computer's CD drive; and
- have your iPod connected to your computer,
Then all you have to do is:
- Start this application; then
- Hit the Import button.
If you don't want the whole CD, you can check/uncheck specific songs before hitting Import. Uncheck the "Clean up Library and files after import" option if you want the songs to be in your iTunes library as well as your iPod.
Import format, sample rate, performance, etc
Behind the scenes, this utility is communicating with the iTunes application, telling it to import a song from your CD, transfer it to your iPod, and so on. It's behaving like a "remote control" for iTunes. You'll be able to watch iTunes working away if you switch to it while this utility is importing a CD.
This means that songs will be imported using whatever encoder, sample rate, bit rate, and other settings that you have specified in the Importing tab of the iTunes Preferences dialog. So go there if you want your CD tracks imported at 192 kbps instead of the standard 128, etc etc. The performance/speed of the actual import will not be any different than when you use iTunes yourself, just more convenient.
If you choose to leave the files in your Library by unchecking the "Clean up Library" option in this utility, then the files will be be placed as they would be normally (as dictated by the folder location and "keep organized" options in the Advanced tab of the iTunes Preferences dialog).
Price, warranty, support, etc.
Feel free to let me know if you have any problems, but this is free software and comes with no support policy or warranty of any kind.
Source code
I wrote this utility myself, using Delphi 6 and the iTunes scripting methods documented in Apple's Windows SDK.This is not an open-source project. I may or may not release the source code at some later date. I wrote it in one day so if you really need to change something it shouldn't be too hard for you to re-create it.
