itunes alternatives

Media Monkey

I think JRiver Media Center also syncs with an iPod classic. You can get a free trial for a month.

It does; it's not what I'd call seamless, though, at least on v18. Nowhere near as easy as iTunes.

I'm not sure I'd recommend JRiver (which I use) if iPod sync is high on the list of requirements.

What's wrong with iTunes (in this instance)?

It certainly does 1 and 3, and 2 isn't exactly laborious when you're adding new albums.

Gavin, Itunes is great to sync my ipod but i'm thinking to replace it becayse my itunes lib is on a nas, when I buy a film with itunes it's download into the nas and  I cannot  see the film on my notebook when I'm not connetted to the nas (I'm outside home). I've tried to split the itunes lib in 2 parts; music on nas and films on internal hard disk but...it's very difficult and tricky.

So I'm thinking to use itunes just for films with the lib on local HDD and to sync my ipod with a different product. If you have another idea to solve my problem, I'm here to test it. 

@Gavin, how you can see a playlist with the the recently added albums (not songs) on ipod classic?

You don't write for what OS you search for an iTunes alternative?

I never needed one, so I can't recommend one. But you may want to try those...

Free & multi-platform:

http://www.clementine-player.org/

http://getnightingale.com/

http://www.tomahawk-player.org/

OS X & 20.-

http://swinsian.com/

But if you don't need the player features, you might be better off with one of those many data-transfer / data-sync tools for idevices, and probably a separate podcast utility.

I'm not sure if it's worth the effort? Sounds like more hassle than just using iTunes to me...

I should have added that my use of the ipod is somewhat complicated as...

- iTunes on Windows doesn't work well with WAV files as the tagging seems poor. This is partly why it's not my main player, the other reason is that both Jriver and Foobar sound better

- my library is too big to fit on a 160G iPod classic, even downsampled. Jriver seems quite limited in its options for handling this.

So, you might find Jriver a better option if neither of the above apply to you.

Media Monkey

Everytime you start it a complete scan of the music library is performed adding any new albums.

Everytime you connect a mobile device it can automatically sync that device. I have it syncing a phone, a portable device and a USB stick for the car. It can transcode to different formats at sync time.

I have an auto playlist created that lists (by album order) all albums added in the last 90 days.

I've installed mediamonkey, now it's scanning my lib and on the next days I will sync my ipod.

I'll let you know the results.

Thanks to everybody

https://public.dm2302.livefile...k/Capture.JPG?psid=1

Here is a screen shot in case it helps..

It shows the setup of my auto playlist for recently added albums.

It also shows in the background that very playlist including - in real time - an album that I am ripping with dbpoweramp.

Bananahead

Does MediaMonkey have an option to equalise volume on the tracks synced to an iPod?  iTunes certainly doesn't do that (well, if at all).

Good question.

It certainly calculates replay gain. But I don't think that the ipod uses it.

It also has an option for levelling volume (which is destructive) but I don't know if it will do that at sync time. ( I might have a play later)

I found this:

Sync with most* Android, iPhone, iPod, iPad and other portable Audio/Video Devices. Sync audio and video files, and related properties such as Album Art, ratings, play history, and playlists with a broad range of portable devices*. With Volume Leveling, music tracks will even play back on your device at consistent volumes!

Sounds tempting in that case.  Thanks, Bananahead.