Ok I’ve fixed my library. Here is the series of errors that happened:
Some of my songs were 127kbps AAC files, not the files I paid for.
My iTMS library is on a server, while the library is on my laptop. The library was offline at the time I upgraded my music. Music in the library was not updated.
All of the music I paid for was on my laptop’s hard disk, in ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/
I had burned some songs to CD and re-ripped as AAC 128 to use in non-Apple applications
So what happened was that I paid for the updates, iTunes downloaded them to the local hard disk because the music library was offline.
iTunes failed to add these new songs to my library. That is a bug, probably because older AAC files existed.
Once I realized this, I tried to consolidate but that failed due to the naming conflict, where the song names conflicted with the names of the ripped songs I had done years ago, as both end in .m4a
Solution
Mount server disk
Open iTunes
Open ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/ in Finder
Look for first downloaded song in iTunes
Get info, if not 256kbps, press ok, press command-r (show song in Finder) and delete the song file
Delete the song out of iTunes
Double click the downloaded 256kbps song in Finder to add to iTunes
Repeat for all of your songs you upgraded
Empty trash
In iTunes use Consolidate Library
Check songs via Get Info in iTunes to make sure they are now on the external server disk
Delete songs from local disk.
Whew!
Update I have my iTunes music on a server. The server was offline when I did the upgrade, so all new music went into the local hard disks folder, but not into the library file. Consolidate library doesn’t seem to move them to the external disk though. Hmm.
Also, the move to desktop doesn’t work if your music is on a server
Original Post
Apparently if I had burned songs to CD and re-ripped as AAC 128, the iTMS charged me for upgrades, but I didn’t get the 256k versions, nor did it move the old protected version to the desktop.
Apple released the update to iTunes that lets you purchase DRM free music and upgrade your library. The process is a little cryptic however.
When you go to the iTunes Music Store, click on “iTunes Plus” in the top right column. Accept the licensing agreement, then on the iTunes Plus page there will be an Upgrade Library button in the top right corner.
I had 21 songs, from Nora Jones, Lily Allen, KT Tunstall etc, which cost me $6.30 to upgrade.
When Amazon, Microsoft and every other yoho follows suit, just remember who cracked this dam - Apple Inc.
I bought this awesome Simple Human trash can last year that uses grocery bags. It is an all in one unit meant to be screwed to the back of a cupboard door, but the cupboards below the sink are too narrow and the bag holder would hit.
So the unit has been sitting next to the refrigerator but loosely, which meant it would fall over when you used it, etc.
So I ordered 4 12lb rare earth bar magnets from these guys and they work perfectly. $10 and I put two on the top frame, two on the bottom frame and the trash unit is firmly attached to the refrigerator.
So I sold my G5 on ebay and during shipping, one of the drives slid out and broke the pins/cable. I called the Apple store and it was around $140 for the cable and labor.
The purchaser lives in NJ so he took it to the store there. I called them today to find out whats what, and they said well, the drive connector broke around the cable, so the cable is fine. Maximum $70 fee. Then they called me back and said that they are not set up to have a remote person pay for repairs, and since all they did was test both cables, they’d waive any repair fees.
Elizabeth took me downtown for the weekend. We rode MAX to Pioneer Square, shopped for crocs (they were hosting a well life event it turns out) and we headed to a very nice hotel. Her plan? No phones, no computers, not a single luxury, like Robinson Crusoe… Anyway, we walked from downtown to the Pearl for lunch, had a great dinner and just spent time together.
While it was “just downtown,” it was perfect. No long drive, just hop on the MAX and we were home. We slept for 11 hours. We did unmentionables. It was fantastic.
This is the woman I have longed for. Thirteen months. Amazing, eh?
I bought a Seagate ST3500641AS 500gb drive from Frys for $119 a couple weeks back for MacPro use, but since I have decided to wait on that, I decided to take a chance with the unreleased eSata support in the Series 3.
eSata is “External Serial ATA”. I bought a case/Express32 card combo from WiebeTech (TTE-0, but I got TTE-BND-0) for $114 which included an eSata only case and a MacBook Pro expressSlot32 eSata adaptor.
You want eSata only because firewire/usb bridge chips will slow the throughput down. This case has a cable that connects the drive directly to the eSata port on the back.
The case also has shock absorbing/dampending, which are silicon grommets that you screw through into the drive. The case came with a screwdriver, very nice plated screws, an external brick (which is corded, does not need a huge power slot) and is very very quiet.
I first plugged the card and drive into the Mac, but nothing mounted. So I installed their drivers (very geeky, poorly distributed) and that locked the entire Mac up. After a forced reboot, I removed the card, then installed the drivers and that worked fine. I slid the card in, the drive asked to be initialized and then I did a file copy from the internal 7200 100gb drive to the Seagate and got a whopping 40mb/s via PathFinder. Nice.
Next I used the “Card Menu” that shows up (it looks like a little address card) to power off the card after I had ejected the drive from the desktop.
I powered down the TiVo, plugged the drive into my UPS (Uninterruptible power supply, which is very important if the power goes out), connected the included cable to the TiVo and powered on the TiVo.
As soon as the red lights went out, I held down Pause. When the orange light showed (about 2 seconds) I entered ‘62′ The lights on the TiVo went out and in a minute or so it rebooted. After powering up, it told me that my second drive had been added. A few minutes later I was back at the TiVo menu!
Before adding the external 500gb, the internal 250gb supported 35 hours of HD programming, 330 hours of SD. Now I get 98 hours of HD or 927 hours of SD
If I ever decide to use the drive elsewhere, I just power down the TiVo, unplug the drive and power the TiVo up. The TiVo will warn me that I am about to divorce the drive, and any content on the drive is lost forever Plugging the drive back in after a divorce will erase the drive. If you see the divorce screen and don’t want to lose yoru content (say the drive got unplugged by accident), do not consent to the divorce. If you get divorced, you lose your stuff - Kinda like real life.
I’ll report later if I run into any issues or bugs, as this is an unsupported TiVo feature. Sure beats opening up the box though!
A guildmate told me about bongo and playing with the keyboard, since playing a shaman was driving me nuts clicking so many totems and spells. So I made a movie with the UI I decided on and I like it a lot!
When fighting or caught by surprise, I am often zoomed in, or turned, and have to spend time trying to see what is going on. It turns out that there are macro commands for saving and restoring up to 4 views!
Caution: On my machine, saving a view crashes part of WoW, so make sure you have quit/relaunched before trying this to save your settings.
Set the camera angle you prefer with zoom, etc, then in the chat box type:
/script SaveView(%x); (Where '%x' is 1, 2, 3, or 4)
Then make a macro and enter:
/script SetView(%x); (Where '%x' is 1, 2, 3, or 4)
and put the macro on your toolbar. Change your camera around and click your macro!
Update: You’ll want to watch that thread before trying this out - Some are reporting some content refuses to play from the external due to HDCP copy protection.
The Comcast cable guy showed up knowing he had to install two cable cards, but he didn’t know anything about a TiVo. Fortunately the nice folks at tivocommunity.com had already given me a heads up about what to do.
Familiarize yourself with the cable card menus (See the cable card sheet that came with your TiVo)
Insert the lower card first - don’t set up card 2 until card 1 is fully completed
Be patient and wait for the MMI screen with the host and data information
Have the cable guy write down the numbers, because the TiVo will time out while he is on hold
Verify the numbers he writes down because my guy transposed two numbers
Teach the technician the differences between a O and a Zero
Be patient
Once the technician has given the data to Comcast, use the Cable Card 1 test channels option
If you see “no channels” press Clear to Exit and wait a minute, try again
Once you see channel names, you may need to press channel up to get an image
Check your basic channels, plus HD channels, plug Discovery HD, and if you get HBO, both HBO SD and HD channels
Once this is ok, press TiVo to get the main menu and start over with card 2
Card 1 installation went ok. On card 2, I could not get Discovery HD, HBO, ESPN, etc. The technician wanted to try a new cable card, but I had him call into the office and have them reset the card. This procedure fixed card 2.
The technician was very happy that I had some idea of what to do. I copied the TiVo instructions for him to take back to the office.
The instructions at the bottom of the cable card help sheet that comes with the TiVo is very helpful in getting back to the cable card setup screens should the TiVo time out and change the screen you are on.
Season Passes
The Season Pass system, normally perfect, seemed to have problems. I’m using the Browse by Time feature alonng with favorites to quickly add programs. I added Heroes, which runs 9-10 on Monday, then added 24, which also runs 9-10 on Monday and TiVo told me it will NOT record 24 due to a conflict with Heroes and that I already had two programs set to record. What? Well once I got to the To Do List screen, it became clear what happened. Family guy on Sunday preempted Sopranos to Monday, which blocked 24, but the TiVo didn’t inform me of the other conflict, only one. Confusing. Whats more odd is that Sopranos was also on Tuesday, but rather than push that recording to Tuesday, TiVo just took the next available airing. So I had to prioritize my Season Pass based on the scheduling conflicts and not which shows were important to me. I view this as a flaw.
Ok, I understand that if Sopranos is 1,and Family guy 2, then Heroes 3 and 24 4 that TiVo will make sure it gets Sopranos. But I’d like a setting where I can tell the TiVo to try and get as many passes as possible and enter a value like “Delaying some recordings for no more than 5 days” or something. Then TiVo would know its ok to push the Sopranos recording to Tuesday in order to get the other three shows. If there were no re-airings of Sopranos within 5 days, it would bump Family Guy.
I just don’t like baby sitting a $500 recorder
Speed
The TiVo is VERY SLOW loading listings in the Browse by Time mode when using a favorites list of only 5 channels. I guess its processing the entire list deleting what it does not need. From pressing the right key to seeing the list is about 25 seconds. The same goes for scrolling down.
Channel Changing
Channel Changing is decent, but you sure can’t continually next channel, at least not with my Harmony 890. It often ignores channel ups until the next channel has displayed.
Episode Datum
It seems Tribune still sucks when it comes to some data. For example, TiVo wants to record 1998 episodes of Simpsons on Sunday even though I said First Run Only and the original airing date is 1998. This is most likely due to the fact that tribune did not mark this episode as a return. I suppose TiVo is airing on the side of caution, but its still annoying that in this day and age, I again have to baby sit my TV.
Guide Data Loading
Wi-Fi rocks. I now have 2 weeks of guide data, vs 24 hours or so it would take to get on my Series 1. Very nice!
Software Updates
Yesterday I received software revision 8.1 but I have not received 8.3 yet. The folks over at tivocommunity.com say to just wait. I wonder how TiVo decides when to get updates?
TiVo Central Online
Since I had set my TiVo up as analog cable device, the online website only listed analog channels in the guide. After I had run guided setup again, it took about an hour for the TiVo to contact home base and update the online guide for me. Curiously, when searching for a show on TiVo.com, they show the SD channel first, but you can change that via a popup menu once you’ve told a program you want to record it.
Channels You Receive
Channels you receive is a list of channels you get from the cable company. A master list if you will. While the TiVo lets you make favorites, I prefer to turn off channel I never want to watch. The TiVo is better than my DirecTV and 6412 were in this area because it shows a better channel name, but its still not enough. I’d like an option to turn on a Picture in Picture of the channel live, so I can determine if I want this channel or not.
Front Display
Did I mention that the front OLED display is very nice? Its a bit tiny for my aging eyes, but thats nothing moving closer doesn’t cure
Wishlists
I never used Wishlists much but now with the improved categories, I will! I’ve added some of my favorite comedians and told TiVo to search Comedy->Standup. Thanks to Elizabeth for this tip.
Where Wishlists could shine however is if TiVo added options like Record First Runs Only, similar to Season Passes.(TivoCommunity.com comes through again! You can set first run on auto recorded wish lists!) I hear 8.3 will let me set up HD wishlists which sounds awesome. The two of these combined would let me set up wishlists for upcoming HBO shows that are not currently in the guide but I only want first run/HD versions of.
Summary
TiVo rocks! TiVo is like a Macintosh - its so good it makes you think of small ways to improve it and make it rockin’ good. Maybe I should get a job at TiVo All I can think to say, the TiVo said itself:
Awhile ago the key to decode HD-DVD and Blu-Ray content was cracked and passed around. Recently it was blogged, there was a take-down notice (which also contained the key hehe) and then more sites started pointing to the original story.
People were then digging these blog entries with the key code in them. Digg started removing these dugg stories citing DMCA laws and better yet, their own Terms of Service that said they will check out and pull stories containing intellectual property rights violations.
Well the kids of Digg.com got upset and started spamming the site with stories containing the key code, claiming “free speech is dead,” and essentially using a script kiddie technique of denial of service to piss digg off.
Well in this blog post Kevin Rose, accused of selling out to the HD-DVD consortium, sold out to the digg users and posted the key and said:
But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.
If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.
Yeah whatever, Kevin. I respected you more when you supported IP. This society we live in feels entitled to content just because it exists and to crack/copy it all we want because its easy to do and really doesn’t cost the IP owner anything.
Actually this is about respect. Respecting IP and content and the owners of the content. OK so HD-DVD and Blu-Ray is encrypted. So what? Oh noes, I can’t see the latest Will Ferrel movie unless I pay for it? What will I do with my life?
It is time for us all to grow up. If you don’t like the terms the IP holder puts forth, don’t buy their content. Communicate with them about why you are displeased, but certainly don’t copy it just because you can. Show a little more self control and self respect.
In the process, show the original owners of the content some respect for them to do whatever the hell they want with their content.
My Series 3 TiVo arrived today. I have been a TiVo user since practically day 1, starting with a series 1, then moving to DirecTiVos for years and finally to a HD DirecTiVo in Dec, 2005, a month before the tree fell through the house and I was forced to switch to Comcast and their crappy DVR.
Since TiVo dropped the price on the unit from $899 to $599, this meant that taking the prepaid service contract of $299 for three years pretty much equalled the old price and I was ready to switch. TiVo also threw in free shipping and a nice 802.11b/g USB networking adaptor.
Once the TiVo was here I connected the RF cable, the HDMI and the optical audio and powered it up. First off, this unit is built nicely. Metal exterior with a plain video bar across the front, no LED lights visible etc. Until I powered it on
Once I powered on the TiVo, I was blown away by how crisp the display on the front is. Yes, a display that shows graphics or “Setting Up,”, etc. It also shows the time when it needs to, or when recording, a red light will come on and to the right of the light, the name of the show it is recording. The display is so nice that it does not need to truncate long names. “American Idol” displayed in full.
During set up I had to tell the TiVo that I didn’t have cable cards yet, and it said this was ok. Next was networking, but the software asked for my WEP password. Hmm, I use WPA. So I turned off wifi security on the second router and connected. I later learned I had the older 8.0 software and 8.1 was needed for WPA. 8.3 is out now as well. I eventually got around to forcing it to connect a couple of times over wifi and it pulled the 8.1 update, which let me connect via WPA(2) but no 8.3 update as of yet.
This TiVo supports Over The Air (OTA) SD and HD reception via an external antenna, analog cable signals with just the RF coax, or if you install two cable cards, full HD and digital channels like HBO. Those come tomorrow morning so I’ll have to post a follow up report.
After the usual setup stuff like zip code, the TiVo connected over wifi and pulled down a day’s guide in about 30 seconds and indexed it. Very nice. The guide is really nice and I can see much more content than with the Comcrap.
The TiVo supports 1080i resolution, so I set it to that. There are two modes for 1080i, “native” which will send out a 480p signal for SD and 1080i for HD, or 1080i only. I chose the latter so the TV would not keep changing resolution as I changed channels.
This is the first time I’ve used HDMI. With the large hard disk, I set it up to record in High Quality since I am on SD analog cable tonight. The quality is pretty good for SD and I can’t wait to see HD tomorrow.
The web interface at TiVo.com lets me add shows to record and view the guide, but its one-way only. Since the TiVo has a network, why not send the current list of shows to record and my channel settings to tivo.com so I can see how the DVR is doing while away on a trip?
I tried the TiVo Desktop software on the Mac which lets you see your photos and play your music on the TiVo. The photos look great and it can pull directly from iPhoto 6. However the music was a bust, as TiVo only plays mp3 and none of the iTunes Music Store software. This is where an Apple TV will come into the home once they support 1080p.
I’d also like an application on the Mac to configure my TiVo. Why should I use the remove and pick letters from a chart 1990s style when there is a network? I should be able to view my guide in an application, my list of recorded shows, my guide, etc and edit it all on the Mac, which can sync to the TiVo.
This is where Apple TV will eventually blow something like the current TiVo software away. We’re often sitting on the couch watching TV while using our laptops. It would be nice to see a reference to a show and just add it on the computer while watching a show on the TiVo and have them sync up automatically.
The TiVo website is a little confusing - Trying to find info usually involves digging down the left hand menu, opening submenus, and then digging down buttons on the main pane. I’ve had to restart on the left several times due to getting lost, or simply not finding what i was looking for.
I set my Harmony 890 up for use with the TiVo and after several tweaks, it works well. However it seems that Logitech is sending older TiVo remote IR codes as the LiveTV option would not swap tuners like it should. Help on tivocommunity.com pointed out how to correct this and I think tomorrow I’ll have the 890 learn the TiVo and LiveTV IR codes from the S3’s remote control.
The TiVo has a “podcaster” which lets you listen to podcasts, but its a mismash of a guide and playback engine. It does not seem to track what I’ve listened to and the only way to track shows is by adding them as “Favorites” and then looking in that list. A properly done podcaster would let me set a season pass for a podcast and treat it like any other TiVo content.
However, TiVo seems to have taken an paid agreement approach with their TiVoCast feature. Via TiVo.com you can browse one of sixteen “TivoCasts” which are nothing more than video podcasts like rocketboom. You can then set a season pass for them. TiVo.com says to “browse the list of our partners” so clearly there is some business arrangement here. This is another place the Apple TV is much better than the TiVo. Let me decide which content I want in my Now Playing list, not you.
So far I am very pleased. I will miss not being able to watch tv or at least listen to it while adding new shows, and I will miss the skip ahead of the comcast(Thanks to KableModem at TiVoCommunity.com and These instructions I have my 30 second skip back!), but I’ll live with those minor issues for all of the things TiVo does much much better.
For example, I set a one time recording for American Idol and because it was marked as a “live” show, the TiVo asked me if I wanted to pad the show with extra time, which I did! Very nice.
Another nice feature is soft padding. Lets say you have a show from 8-9 and another from 9-10. But now show 1 are being jerks and decide to stretch the ending to 9:01. On the Comcrap (and my DirecTiVo), the second show would not record at all because of the conflict. This is called hard padding, when time overlaps and causes a missed recording. In the Series 2 and 3 TiVos, soft padding will allow the final 59 minutes of the second show to record. If I had given the second show a higher priority than the first show, then the first show would only record for an hour and the second show would record in full!
What I would have engineered
The Series 3 can record 2 shows at once which is very nice. I wish they had designed the TiVo a little smarter and made them cheaper, however. What I would have done was built single tuner TiVos and included gigabit ethernet on the units (I am not sure how fast the ethernet is on the Series 3). Then I would have designed the system so when it boots for the first time, it checks the network and finding no other TiVos, it becomes the master TiVo and works just like any TiVo.
Now you buy a second TiVo (and a second account, but at a much reduced rate) and plug it into your network (a nice switch behind the TiVos would work well). This second TiVo sees the first TiVo and asks you if it should be a slave TiVo. You select YES and what this would do is have this new TiVo get all of its data from the first one. You would only connect your video and audio to the first TiVo. But now if you recorded two shows at 8pm on Sunday, the master would tell the slave, over ethernet, to record the second show.
Viewing your Now Playing would aggregate the content on the two TiVos into one list. As far as you were concerned, you had one dual tuner TiVo. If you watch a show on the second TiVo, the video is sent over the ethernet to the first in a streaming fashion, unbeknownst to you.
Now the fun starts. Got a lot of money? Buy a third TiVo, put it in your rack, connect it to your ethernet switch and whammo, you have a three tuner tivo. About all you’d need is a cable splitter, but TIVo could sell those too.
Summary
This is a great box, well made, quick, superb quality and very nice software. I’ll write more once I’ve been through the cable card process and had a chance to watch some HD material.
I’d like to see TiVo integrate the box with my computer and their website more. Why should I punch names into a wish list when I can do it on a computer? Why should I buy a Slingbox just to delete a show when I’m on a business trip?
If the rumored cheaper TiVos coming are cheaper made or lack features such as the nice front display, I’m super glad I picked up this S3 when I did. Heck, regardless of that, I am super glad I did. Goodbye Comcast 6412. I’ve already reformatted you.
Jott is a new free service that lets you register a US or Canadian phone number with them, then you call a 877 #, speak who you want to Jott (”Me” or “Matt”) and record a 30 second jott.
The recipient then gets a text translation of what you spoke as well as a link to the original audio.
I don’t know how they plan to earn money - Maybe reselling email addresses, I’ll have to check their ToS, but its a pretty cool service.
