rockbox on ipod without tags

[tripex]

First, I have no ipod, but I consider to bye one, because rockbox seems to allow me to use an ipod like I want. But because I can't test it I hope, I can ask here.

Basically I want to use the ipod as an USB portable hard disk mostly under WindowsXP to copy anything on it not only my music collection. I have a directory based music collection of mpc and mp3 files, ALL without any tags and I want to keep them without tags. I hope I can still browse through my directories and if there are playable music files in it rockbox should be able to play them without changing the files or tags. Does rockbox work alike?

CU
Andy

[007quick]

I don't know what mpc files are but good chance that they are not supported (could be wrong) as for the rest of your thoughts... CORRECT!

[tripex]

mpc means musepack aka mp+ or mpp files and they are luckily supported

What does rockbox show, when there are no (ID3) tags available? Does it show the filename (without extension) instead? Is it theme-dependent? Is there an option/theme to show the parent directory, because it's always the album name (in my case).

CU
Andy

[linuxstb]

Yes, what is displayed when no tags are available is theme-dependent, but the recommended way for themes to behave is to display the track filename instead of track name, the directory name for the album, and the directory name two levels up for the artist.  This assumes a directory structure as follows:

Artist Name/Album Name/Track Name.mp3

(which I think is what most people do).

Rockbox has traditionally been a file-browser based music player, so you should find it does everything you want without needing tags in your file - many people use it that way.  Rockbox's tag-based database feature is relatively new.

[Nate!]

Looking through the file info WPS tags portion of the manual (Secton B.4,) I don't immediately see a way to parse out the track number.  Given path \Artist\Album\TrackNum-TrackName.xxx.

Other than that, Rockbox definitely seems like the firmware for you.  No Nonsense solid firmware for manipulating music.

[tripex]

The DRM software monster iTunes was always the main point never to bye an ipod. I asked every ipod user I met about alternative ways to manage an ipod but everybody seems to be happy with iTunes, more or less. Then I took a research myself and found YamiPod, Floola, iPodLinux and eventually Rockbox. It rocks!

[soap]

I was unaware iTunes added DRM to any file which didn't already have DRM.

[Llorean]

I was unaware that Rockbox was a piece of music management software  like Yamipod or Floola. Man, the things they've sneaked by me while I wasn't looking...

[tripex]

@soap: OK, I take back the "DRM" in my posting before. It's just a software monster I don't want to use for putting music files onto an ipod.

@Llorean: I stated (my so far reasonable) options to manage an ipod without iTunes. I  did not compare them with Rockbox.

[Llorean]

I was just joking around. But I really don't see Rockbox as a way to "Manage" an iPod. Yamipod, Floola, iTunes, Anapod, etc, are all tools for managing the original firmware.

Once you've installed Rockbox, you're not managing an iPod with Rockbox. You're simply using Rockbox. You can manage the iPod with most, or any, of those tools, plus a whole host of new tools at this point, but device management is a separate topic.

It's just a case of keeping the separation clear, because the distinction blurs outside these forums, and I've seen cases of people not having a clue what Rockbox really is because people frequently suggest it when someone's looking for a way to deal with their iPod without using iTunes, and then don't clarify that it's not a management program at all. We've even had people come here and ask questions to the effect of how to use it for managing an iTunes'ed iPod.

[tripex]

You are right. I guess you'd be happy when I change "manage" to "use" or "deal with" (an ipod). :-)

CU
Andy