Ogg compatible Mac itunes replacement?

January 3, 2007 1:40 AM

What alternatives are there to itunes on the Mac that fully support ogg files (inc metadata, syncing to a DAP and playlist creation).

I'm soon to be switching to a shiny new macbook, and I also want to get a new DAP. The obvious choice is get an IPOD and I know that the integration between that and itunes is really great. However I have my music stored as ogg files (and flac for the home hi-fi), and I don't really want to convert those files.

I've picked a DAP that will play ogg files (an iubi Blu) but I really want some software on the mac to accomplish the whole library management / playlist creation / syncing thing. What's out there?

posted by sdevans to computers & internet (10 comments total)

For what it's worth, one can play OGG files (among others!) using Rockbox on the iPod. It was clunky when I last used it (ages ago; I have no real need for OGG capabilities nor Doom on my iPod :-p), but it's worth considering.
posted by PuGZ at 1:43 AM on January 3, 2007

As an update to my question, I notice that the most recent ipods are supposed to do gapless playback very well (one of the reasons I use ogg files). I don't know for sure that the iubi blu does gapless playback.

Should I bite the bullet and convert my oggs and flac files to mp3 and join the herd with an ipod and itunes combination?
posted by sdevans at 2:02 AM on January 3, 2007

don't get an ipod if your music is in ogg!!! rockbox is crap (!!^10) for ipods....pick up an iriver...i just upgraded my ihp120 to a 30gig drive with 27 hours of battery life. rockbox is PERFECT for them. plays anything under the sun. email if you have any questions...i have lots of experience with oggs, iriver, ipods, music archive
posted by killyb at 6:45 AM on January 3, 2007

Was there some reason you were using Ogg in the first place?
posted by smackfu at 6:46 AM on January 3, 2007

If your current player mounts as a UMDrive, and can use .m3u playlists, SyncTunes would be worth a look.
posted by Orb2069 at 7:08 AM on January 3, 2007

Well, technically speaking the best mp3 player was the Rio Karma, but Rio is outta business. However the Sigmatel chip that is the heart of the Karma may soon be used by some other DAP players--the Trekstor Vibez is the first example (still waiting on 20/30 GB versions of the Vibez, tho).

Not sure whether the Ipod can *really* do Gapless, or whether this only works with files downloaded from Itunes that incorporate a kludgy workaround.

I still use Oggs too (or Vorbis, one should really say). MP3 isn't an open source format, and its owners have been charging software and download companies more and more lately. I also wonder if one day the format could be bought by Sony of Microsoft or whomever, who could phase it out, or require users to upgrade to the "improved" DRMed version of mp3. Ogg is also a technically superior format with respect to compression and sound quality, although the extra processing needed to decompress oggs seems to drain batteries just a little bit faster than do mp3's.

Oh wait, your original question. I dunno about that. I don't think it will sync to your player, but you might have a look at Songbird, which is a neat up-and-coming music library player/organizer that is looking very nice and scheduled for its first serious release soon.

But shouldn't the iubi Blue you're buying come with software that does what you're asking about? If not, you might consider some other brands. Personally, I'm waiting for the arrival of the 20GB Vibez.
posted by washburn at 7:55 AM on January 3, 2007

Not sure whether the Ipod can *really* do Gapless, or whether this only works with files downloaded from Itunes that incorporate a kludgy workaround.

Yes, it really does. iTunes goes through your library to analyze your MP3s for partial frames at the end of a song that would interfere with gapless playback, and this metadata gets synced to the iPod, which does gapless just fine.
posted by kindall at 9:49 AM on January 3, 2007

If you are going to jump to the iPod and iTunes, you could go whole-hog and convert your FLAC to Apple Lossless, and then use iTunes to convert to a different codec to populate your iPod. If your iPod is a Shuffle, there is an auto-conversion setting which will automatically resample your audio.

I've used both XLD and XaCT to convert FLAC, APE and SHN audio into Apple Lossless. XLD seems to do better with metadata.

Once in Apple Lossless, in iTunes, you can re-encode to AAC for use on the iPod, or if your collection is small enough, just use the Apple Lossless right on the iPod.

Creative use of Smart Playlists (filtering on "Type: Lossless|[your chosen lossy codec]") can make two views of your library - Lossless vs. converted. An additional Smart Playlist could look in both of those playlists to tell you what hasn't been converted yet.

You could also maintain multiple iTunes Libraries in various states or types of codecs. There are tools out there to manage this for you.

Lastly, this article claims iTunes playback compatibility with FLAC and Vorbis, though I haven't tried it. Using this component and the smart playlists as described above, you could at least live in your current codecs and convert for use on the iPod.
posted by tomierna at 10:14 AM on January 3, 2007

this article claims iTunes playback compatibility with FLAC and Vorbis
Sounds very promising but it's a:
FLAC decoder and importer for Ogg FLAC (no support for native FLAC file format yet)
posted by Lanark at 11:14 AM on January 3, 2007

Thanks for the answers above.

I looked at my music collection (6400+ Tracks) which is largely flac (about 20% in ogg), and it seems whatever I do I'll have to convert. In that case concerns about transcoding to a non-open format such as mp3 or even aac is not really a problem as I'd have the original files anyway.

If I've got to convert then using itunes and ipod with mp3 files seems the best way, after extensively looking at the hydrogen audio forum's discussion on ipod's gapless.
posted by sdevans at 4:26 AM on January 4, 2007