Problems with transferring music to my Ipod

[Ikaroff]

I downloaded and installed rockbox on my 1st generation ipod nano today, it's working fine except for one thing: I can't figure out how to put music files on it. Or well I can put the files on all right, but they won't play. they say they "arent found" or something when I try to play.

What I've done is just to take a folder of music (mp4s i believe (could this be the problem?)) and copy it onto my ipod. Is this not correct?

Thanks in advance

ikaroff

[LambdaCalculus]

Did you just drag and drop music onto your nano, or did you use a program like iTunes to copy them over? And for the record, AAC files are supported, provided the extenstion is .m4a.

Perchance, these weren't songs purchased from iTunes, were they?

[Ikaroff]

Well, I dragged them "manually", but I originally imported them to my computer using itunes. about that AAC thing, could you explain it to me? i'm not at all into these terms


and thanks for the fast reply!

[LambdaCalculus]

AAC is the default music codec Apple uses in iTunes when ripping CDs. While not theirs per se, it's still their preferred codec. Here's Wikipedia's article on AAC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

As for your music: if you dragged them in manually, check the extension of the files, which would look a . followed by some characters; for example:   (filename)--->FredFoo.bar <---(extension). Make sure you see .m4a at the end of the files if they are indeed AAC. If they are MP3s, they should have the extension .mp3 at the end.

Again, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename_extension

[Ikaroff]

Having checked again, I believe they are mpeg4's if that makes sense..

but I don't get it, has my music not working got anything to do with the file format or what?

[pixelma]

they won't play. they say they "arent found" or something when I try to play.

Can you try to post the exact error message here?

[mikelx215]

Did you add the songs to database? If you didn't they won't show up. Hold select over 'Database' for 2-3 seconds and select 'Initialize Now'.   If you just added the songs from itunes normally, it should detect them.

[Chronon]

Actually the following extensions are all just mp4 containers: .m4a, .m4b, .mp4, .m4p, .m4v

• .m4a usually signifies an audio only (often an AAC stream) container.
• .m4b is identical to .m4a but allows software to treat it differently due to the different extension -- e.g. to bookmark an audiobook
• .mp4 is the generic container extension and doesn't provide information about what data it contains
• .m4p is generally used by Apple to signify an mp4 container with DRMed contents
  [li].m4v indicates an mp4 container that has a video stream and possibly audio and other streams.

So, Rockbox should handle .m4a, .m4b, or .mp4 files provided they contain an AAC stream.  

* Does Rockbox properly handle mp3 streams inside of mp4 containers?  I've never tried this.

[yegods]

maybe it might be good to mention that Rockbox won't play songs that were bought from itunes...

please correct me if i'm wrong.

[Chronon]

It won't play .m4p files (as is the extension for DRMed music bought from iTunes) that's true.  However, you can purchase higher quality non-DRMed music from iTunes as well now and these files will play fine in Rockbox -- but again they will have a .m4a extension.

[Ikaroff]

YAY I GOT IT TO WORK!!! I'm so happy, ROCKBOX ROCKS!