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iPod 5G Video: Rockbox AND Apple Firmware without iTunes Plan

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jamoiholland:
I've been browsing this forum today, and from the many useful threads I've read I think I can see how to get what I want to achieve on my 5G iPod Video. If this has been covered elsewhere in this forum apologies, I did try searching as many search terms as I could! I first installed Rockbox in 2006, mainly to get gapless playback. I lost Rockbox when iTunes updated the iPod firwmare, which amusingly brought in Apple's gapless playback, so I stuck with that for a while. My dislike of iTunes has now grown enough to make me look for an alternative, so I'm revisiting Rockbox.

As well as getting rid of the iTunes dependancy, I want to be able to make one set of playlists that can be used on my iPod as well as on my PC and XBOX360 (through a uPNP media server on the PC). This isn't possible using iTunes playlists, but m3u playlists, as long as they list the music files using relative paths, should do the trick, as the music will have the same directory structure on the PC and the iPod. It would be nice to still have access to the orignal Apple firmware though.

So, to achieve all this I reckon I have to:

1) Have rockbox installed on my ipod

2) Delete the old iTunes-copied music form the iPod

3) Use Windows drag-and-drop (or long-term, some folder sync software) to copy my music in it's directory structure over to the ipod, including the playlists that point to the music files with relative paths

4) Use some software that will create an imitation iTunes database on the iPod, and the entries in this database will point to the files in the nice directory structure, meaning I can still use the original Apple firmware if needed (Anapod Explorer? Is there a free alternative to this?)

Does this sound like a plan? Have I missed anything? Such want to check before I go through the long process of deleting the Itunes copied music and copying it all back in the nice directory structure!!

GodEater:
The only issue I see is with part 4.

All the recent updates to the ipod firmware have stopped it reading music files outside of the ipod_control directory - no matter if there is a proper ipod music database on there pointing to the music files.

There were a couple of foobar2000 plugins which did this, first of all foopod, then foodop - but both of these fail to produce a working ipod music database if the music was outside the ipod_control folder and it's underlying structure when I tried them on my ipod 5.5G.

Of course, you're free to try it yourself and see if you can make it work...

jamoiholland:
Thanks for that mate, much appreciated. Sorry for the wrong forum too (oops).

Hmm. If that's the only potential blocker, maybe I'll just have the "root" folder of my own music directory structure as the the /iPod_Control/Music/ directory...

/iPod_Control/Music/Artist/Album/etc d:/Music/Artist/Album/etc

... so that Anapod will find the files (it only looks in /iPod_Control/Music/ when creating the iPod's database, I just found out by trying the trail version), and so that the iPod firmware will play the files!?

From Rockbox playback I was planning on using the Database feature anyway, so browsing the extra two directories wouldn't make any difference to me (assuming iPod wouldn't freak out at making those folders non-hidden, so that Rockbox directory browser can see them?). I plan to use some directory sync software to copy the music across eventually, so that can just be pointed at whatever directory is. I'll have a go at this asap...

soap:

--- Quote from: jamoiholland on January 16, 2008, 06:37:16 PM ---Hmm. If that's the only potential blocker, maybe I'll just have the "root" folder of my own music directory structure as the the /iPod_Control/Music/ directory...

/iPod_Control/Music/Artist/Album/etc d:/Music/Artist/Album/etc
... so that Anapod will find the files (it only looks in /iPod_Control/Music/ when creating the iPod's database, I just found out by trying the trail version), and so that the iPod firmware will play the files!?

--- End quote ---
Not sure Apple firmware will work even with that directory structure.  Pretty sure it won't.

--- Quote from: jamoiholland on January 16, 2008, 06:37:16 PM ---From Rockbox playback I was planning on using the Database feature anyway, so browsing the extra two directories wouldn't make any difference to me
--- End quote ---
Directory structure doesn't matter if you are using the Database - it is all abstracted away.

--- Quote from: jamoiholland on January 16, 2008, 06:37:16 PM --- (assuming iPod wouldn't freak out at making those folders non-hidden, so that Rockbox directory browser can see them?).
--- End quote ---
 Rockbox will build the database just fine even with the folders hidden.  If you make them non-hidden I believe the next time you boot the Apple firmware they will be hidden again.

--- Quote from: jamoiholland on January 16, 2008, 06:37:16 PM ---I plan to use some directory sync software to copy the music across eventually, so that can just be pointed at whatever directory is..
--- End quote ---
Again - I do not believe you will be able to get any directory sync software to work with the Apple firmware.

jamoiholland:

--- Quote from: soap on January 16, 2008, 06:58:10 PM ---
--- Quote from: jamoiholland on January 16, 2008, 06:37:16 PM ---From Rockbox playback I was planning on using the Database feature anyway, so browsing the extra two directories wouldn't make any difference to me
--- End quote ---
Directory structure doesn't matter if you are using the Database - it is all abstracted away.

--- End quote ---
Yeah, that's what I meant!


Anyway, from my original list:
1) Install Rockbox - done no problems
2) Delete the old Itunes-copied music - done no problems
3) Copy music to iPod in my own directory structre - done, within the /iPod_Control/Music directory
4) Regenerate iPod DB by reading the music files in my own directory structre - not quite

Anapod Explorer did find the music files, and claimed to have written entries into the DB for them. However, in the Apple Firmware several of them are missing, don't play, some music files are listed as videos, and there are also strange entries for some of the album art jpegs. That said, the Apple firmware did play the ones that were correct with no problems, so if the iPod DB creation worked proprely this could be a working solution.

I tried foo_dop within foobar2000, but when that tried the iPod DB creation it complained the full path/filenames were too long.

I also tried EphPod 2, but the iPod Tools -> Rebuild DB from iPod option didn't appear to actually do anything at all (or big user error on my part, it finds the "lost songs", just won't add them into the iPod DB for me!)

Then I tried YamiPod, this crahsed on startup with mhyp error, which I haven't got around to looking at yet in the documentation.

I've whizzed through these pieces of software pretty quickly, and should probably spend more time with the ones that aren't working as I may be operating them incorrectly. But the limited success with Anapod Explorer proves the concept works, if I can just find a reliable method of rebuilding the iPod DB once music has been added through directory syncing!

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