One option might be placing the library on a network drive and pointing all the copies of iTunes to that. The downside is you won't be able to have more than one copy of iTunes open at once. This could lead to problems. posted by OwlBoy at 2:05 AM on June 15
*smacks his forehead* I knew I was missing something vitally important when I posted that question. This will teach me to post to AskMe in a hurry.
Um, the important thing that I missed asking was - a solution to sync ratings etc. that works across the Internet as well?
What about using the Shared Library feature in iTunes? Does that exist in the Windows version? Or does that store the playcount / ratings locally even though the library is on another machine?
(Sharing your music Library is, I think, different from accessing everything from a network drive with all iTunes clients pointed to that as the Library.) posted by hippybear at 8:56 AM on June 15
oh, wait... duh... that's not going to work across the internet...
You might look at TuneRanger (not free) or Orb (free)... I don't know if any of those have the transport of metainfo that you require. posted by hippybear at 9:10 AM on June 15
hippybear - TuneRanger looked very promising, so I mailed them to ask about syncing across the Internet. Turns out syncing across the Internet works only if both PCs are on at the same time and I don't leave my home PC running 24x7.
(I should add here that ratings I create on my iPod get transferred to my Mac when I sync the device. Maybe that's a workaround, barring any more elegant solution?) posted by hippybear at 1:09 PM on June 20
hippybear - That would work for songs on my iPod. But I have a fairly low capacity iPod and so most of my listening is on the PC itself, either at work or home.
Trying to use one iPod across 2 itunes installs can be very tricky - not to mention that USB ports are blocked at work. posted by your mildly obsessive average geek at 3:50 AM on June 22
Well, I'm feeling stupidly obsessed with this problem, so I've been digging a bit more.
You might look at syncOtunes or SuperSync. Those might have what you are looking for.
As a last resort... what about a portable hard drive which has your music files on it, and pointing each of your computers to that Music folder on the portable drive as your Library? I'm not sure exactly how iTunes stores its metadata such as ratings and playcounts, so that might not work, if that information is stored on the machine hard drive and then you just point the library at the hard drive... posted by hippybear at 9:08 PM on June 23
hippybear - I have to thank you for being stupidly obsessed with this. SuperSync looks like it might be the answer to my prayers. Am testing out the demo version over the next few days, will report back :-)
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posted by OwlBoy at 2:05 AM on June 15