How to

Married with iPods, Part 2: One library to rule them all

Last week, I showed you a technique for keeping your music collections separate from one another in a communal iTunes library. This week, I'll try and help out those of you with the opposite problem--people with fractured iTunes libraries across multiple user profiles who want to pool their family's media together.

The root of the problem is that unlike Windows Media Player, Winamp, or nearly any other multimedia jukebox application, there's no way to get iTunes to actively monitor multiple folders on your computer and add new content automatically. In a perfect world, you could tell iTunes … Read more

Married with iPods, Part 1: I hate your music

Back in the CD era, it was easy to keep my wife's music collection separated from my own. We kept my CDs on one side of the shelf and her CDs on the other side, and the few CDs we both enjoyed would sit somewhere in the middle. The territorial lines were easy to maintain, and for the most part, music was never an issue in our house.

In the MP3 era, however, everything's become more complicated. We have a central home computer that hosts our collective iTunes music library. Unfortunately, the CD shelf system we've relied … Read more

Ask the editor--Live!

Greetings, MP3 Insider fans. Ever wish our podcast was live so you could harass us on air? Well, today you can get the next best thing: me, live, online for an hour. At 11 a.m. PT, I'll be at your mercy, answering any questions you have about headphones, MP3 player accessories, and just about anything else related to digital music. So hit me with your best shot.

How to convert video for the Zune

Microsoft struggled through two rounds of Zune before hitting the nail on the head with the third generation of the MP3 player, but the company got at least one thing right from the start. Even the first pass offered a larger-than-average screen, clocking in at 3 inches diagonally, and the latest version packs a video-worthy 3.2-inch screen. Of course, getting video content was a bit of a challenge at first, but the Zune Marketplace continues to expand its catalog, which now offers TV shows from several major networks such as NBC and Comedy Central.

However, that video content is going to cost you--about $2 per episode, to be exact--and the Marketplace currently does not offer movies to rent or buy (unlike iTunes). That's where this tutorial comes in: if you already have a collection of digital video content, this step-by-step guide will show you how to convert it for playback on the Zune. The software used in this how-to can convert from any of the following formats: MP4, 3GP, MPG, AVI, WMV, FLV, and SWF.

Note: Unfortunately, ripping most commercial DVDs is currently illegal in the United States, as it requires circumventing the copyright protection found on the DVDs. For unprotected DVDs, try Handbrake.… Read more

How to use Spoken Menus on your 4G iPod Nano

If you're visually impaired or legally blind, living in the age of the MP3 player can be frustrating. Small screens, tiny fonts, complicated menus, and imprecise controls make the majority of MP3 players very difficult to use. Until now, visually impaired users often resorted to counting scroll wheel clicks and memorizing menus, or installing and configuring third-party firmware, such as the open source Rockbox (a project not recommended for the technologically timid).

By adding a Spoken Menus feature to their fourth-generation iPod Nano, Apple is one of the first manufacturers to dramatically improve the usability of their MP3 players … Read more

How to convert video for the iPod

A key draw of the iPod as a portable video player (PVP) is the fact that its complementing software, iTunes, offers a cheap, easy, and legal way to get content that will play on the device. But what if you already own the video files you'd like to watch, but they're in any variety of formats that aren't natively supported by the iPod? iTunes has a built-in converter, but then you'd be limited to the file types that QuickTime supports. If you want the capability to convert from the full gamut of video file types, check out the tip below.

A note before starting: There's quite a selection of free software programs available that convert from nearly every file type to an iPod-friendly format, but many of the ones I tried in the service of this tutorial had drawbacks, such as processor hang ups and unclear conversion progress monitoring. In testing, I found that Videora didn't choke up my system, and it's so clear on its own that you'll scarcely need to follow this tutorial. If nothing else, the walkthrough below will at least give you a feel for the interface--including the extensive ad placement that lets you enjoy the software for free.… Read more

How to split audio tracks

Like to listen to audio books on your MP3 player, but your player lacks a bookmark function? If you have long audio files that haven't already been split into chapters, it can be a pain to fast-forward to the desired point in the track. This tutorial can help you split audio books into shorter tracks on your own. It can also be used with music, although track length and nomenclature will be different than what is described here. (A tip: if you are splitting an audio file with several songs in it, use points of silence as a guide rather than the counter.)

Cost: Free

Time commitment: Varies

System requirements: Mac or Windows

Download and install Audacity For either Windows or Mac. Download and install the latest LAME MP3 encoder Extract the LAME file From the LAME.zip file, extract only the file lame_enc.dll. Save it someplace that's easy to find on your hard drive, such as the desktop. (When you export your files as MP3, Audacity will ask you to locate it.) Open Audacity Go to File > Open, then select the audio file you wish to split from wherever it is stored on your hard drive. In the upper-right corner of the window, ensure that the selection tool (it looks like an uppercase "I") button is highlighted. Highlight selection Starting at the very beginning of the audio file, click and drag the selector so that it highlights a selection of the file. (You can use the keyboard arrows to zero in on "0" if necessary.)… Read more