Topic: FLAC playback on iPod Touch?

[Chilly Brioschi]

ALAC is overlooked because it's proprietary nonsense. It's functionality is completely trumped by this fact and for good reason.

Agreed 100%, Apple is driving us to the store to buy and especially is data-gathering in our libraries and of our usage

Itunes is garbage because for so many reasons, most important being the moment you realize it lacks a feature or would prefer it to operate differently than it does, you're completely SOL. It's fine for your average user and I appreciate the ease with which it allows the average user to enjoy music, but it's most certainly not for power-users.

Less user friendly / intuitive than WindersMediorcePlayer which in itself is kludgy.
MomSoft also is collecting library information and use stats.

If possible, avoid both.
FWIW, no love for Nero's tie-ins to GraceNote her either.

There are few players which run without compromising your privacy.
I suggest that you seek those out when possible.

For file management on any iPod, I like CopyTrans.
http://www.copytrans.net/

I say, don't get sucked into the Apple Store.
You paid a premium for your iPhone, iPad, & iPod and then they will not take their hand from your pocket.
No surprise that AAPL stock is through the roof.

[Chuck]

I just got an iPod Touch 2G last week. My main reason for buying it was to replace the clunky iRiver iHP-120 I've been using to play live recordings via the AUX input on my car stereo. I started using the iRiver because I made a vow to stop burning CD's for this purpose, because I find I usually only want to play most recordings once or twice. So, there is really no need to waste burning CD-R's to hear recordings in my car.

My issue is this....

Since I have transfered almost every bit of music I have into lossless FLACs and stored them on a server, I don't want to do more time intensive converting in order to transfer FLACs to my iPod Touch to play in the car.

It sounds like most people have to convert their FLAC files into something else to be loaded onto the iDevice they use. I just don't want to do that.

I have been reading about the hassles of playing FLACS on the iDevices and saw the post about the official FLAC Player available at the iStore. I've checked, and it is compatible with the iPod Touch I have. It also seems to allow gapless playback of FLACs on my player. I have not bought it yet because I want to make sure it'll do what I need it to do.

A number of years ago, I got a pre-paid iTunes card for my birthday and I download some music. So, my iTunes account only has a very few pieces of music in it. I basically don't use iTunes, because WinAmp works better for me, especially since all my music is FLAC'ed now.

Is there a Windows program that can organize my FLACs, like iTunes does for MP3's ACC's etc... so I can just plug the USB cable in, pick a show or two I want to load onto my iTouch and then use the iPod Touch to play those files in my car? 

I have been searching around to find a quick easy way to manage and play FLACs, but I keep running into dead ends. I use WinAmp at home as my media player. But, I read that WinAmp doesn't support iDevices anymore because of an issue with Apple...  I admit I haven't looked into it thoroughly.

Anyway, I've looked around and I haven't found a quick and easy (one program way) to just load FLACs from my media server directly onto my iPod Touch and then play them in my car.

I can't believe I'm the only person that wants to do it this way. Can someone tell me the apps & workflow they use to accomplish this? If there is a WinAmp plug-in I need to have WinAmp sync with the iPod Touch let me know. That would be ideal.

[dnsacks]

Chuck:  In my experience, you're "stuck" using itunes as the conduit between your PC/MAC and an ios device (ipad, Iphone or ipod touch).  Like you, I have converted all of my music to flac and store it all on a media server.  However, I've never bothered to get a flac player for my iphone and instead have come up with a very basic workflow to convert the flacs I want to listen to on my iphone into high resolution mp3s.  Specifically, foobar2000 has a great conversion setup that enables me to pull whatever files/albums/shows I want to convert into foobar, use its live show tagger feature to populate metadata from a show's text file, and then use its convert function to make mp3 copies of all the tracks I want to play on my iphone in the directory of my choice.  Then, I plug in my iphone, open itunes on my mp3, and drag the mp3s i just made into my iphone's music folder in itunes. 

Looks like the flac program has a similar workflow, except that you drag the files into a file transfer window in itunes.  My logic here is that if I'm already going to be using foobar2000 to add metadata to the files (i.e. band name, album/show name and track names), it's not really any harder to make mp3 copies and I can put quite a few more mp3s in my iphone than flacs.  FWIW, if you have high resolution stuff in your flac library, there's no need to dither to 16 bit when converting to mp3 and the iphone/ipod touch recognizes and plays 48k mp3s just fine. 

[Redrock]

Flac Player app works well. Better than Capriccio on my Iphone4s. Gapless and not too bad to organize. As other have stated though, you do need I-Tunes to interface but it's better than making CDR drink coasters.

[Chuck]

I bought FLAC Player from the iStore last night and tried it.
I have to say, it worked very well. It was very easy to point iTunes to my media server and transfer some FLAC files to my IPod Touch. I'm quite happy with it.
I listened to FLACs on my way into work this morning.

I do need to figure out how to add album cover art to the FLACs as they import into iTunes though. In WinAmp, I just put a jpg file named "folder.jpg" in the folder that contains all the FLACs for a show. WinAmp pulls up that file to display while it plays songs from that folder. I made the decision to do it that way (instead of adding the album art to the FLAC file itself)  to keep the file size down on the FLAC files.

Also, I wish the FLAC Player was more customizable. I like it, but the song names etc... are displayed in very small type.

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

Anyway, thanks for the help in figuring this out guys.....

[keytohwy]

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

How does your iPod connect to your car?  Mine shuts off when I turn the stereo off, or turn off the car.

[Chuck]

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

How does your iPod connect to your car?  Mine shuts off when I turn the stereo off, or turn off the car.

I plug the iPod headphone output into the 1/8" stereo AUX input on my car stereo and I use a DC (cigarette lighter) adapter to power it. I'd like mine to do what you have described.

[keytohwy]

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

How does your iPod connect to your car?  Mine shuts off when I turn the stereo off, or turn off the car.

I plug the iPod headphone output into the 1/8" stereo AUX input on my car stereo and I use a DC (cigarette lighter) adapter to power it. I'd like mine to do what you have described.

I'd say the issue could be solved with the right power adapter.  Do a little googling and you'll find the answer.  But to be clear, there is no app that solves your problem.  Its all about how it gets power.

[Chuck]

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

How does your iPod connect to your car?  Mine shuts off when I turn the stereo off, or turn off the car.

I plug the iPod headphone output into the 1/8" stereo AUX input on my car stereo and I use a DC (cigarette lighter) adapter to power it. I'd like mine to do what you have described.

I'd say the issue could be solved with the right power adapter.  Do a little googling and you'll find the answer.  But to be clear, there is no app that solves your problem.  Its all about how it gets power.

Yeah, the power adapter I'm using isn't from Apple. Can you tell me which one you are using?

[keytohwy]

I'm also wondering if there is an app to use the iPod Touch in car-mode. That's something I had with the Rockboxed iRiver. When the ignition is turned off and the power is cut to the iRiver, it shuts the iRiver down.

How does your iPod connect to your car?  Mine shuts off when I turn the stereo off, or turn off the car.

I plug the iPod headphone output into the 1/8" stereo AUX input on my car stereo and I use a DC (cigarette lighter) adapter to power it. I'd like mine to do what you have described.

I'd say the issue could be solved with the right power adapter.  Do a little googling and you'll find the answer.  But to be clear, there is no app that solves your problem.  Its all about how it gets power.

Yeah, the power adapter I'm using isn't from Apple. Can you tell me which one you are using?

My car has a built in USB port, so it is a bit different than what you have.

I did your work:

http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-Technology-9559-AUTOPLTB-AutoPilot-iPod/dp/B000WKW6HS?tag=5336118863-20

$15 and you are done!

[Chuck]

Thanks, I'll try it!

[Chuck]

With suggestions from this thread and some other forums, I have gotten my iPod Touch set-up the way I like.

I'm using FLAC player to play FLACs that I load on the device using iTunes. I jailbroke my device and installed a program called Activator. Activator allows me to have the iPod pause the FLAC Player and turn it off when power is cut from the cigarette lighter charger. I'm very happy with the way it is working.

One thing I haven't figured out though is why my iPod Touch has to "sync" with iTunes everytime I connect the device to my computer with the USB cable. It takes several minutes to sync and I can't see any reason why it does that. I have iTunes set to not sync anything.  Anyway, other than that small issue I'm quite happy with the whole iPod and iTunes system.

[keytohwy]

With suggestions from this thread and some other forums, I have gotten my iPod Touch set-up the way I like.

I'm using FLAC player to play FLACs that I load on the device using iTunes. I jailbroke my device and installed a program called Activator. Activator allows me to have the iPod pause the FLAC Player and turn it off when power is cut from the cigarette lighter charger. I'm very happy with the way it is working.

One thing I haven't figured out though is why my iPod Touch has to "sync" with iTunes everytime I connect the device to my computer with the USB cable. It takes several minutes to sync and I can't see any reason why it does that. I have iTunes set to not sync anything.  Anyway, other than that small issue I'm quite happy with the whole iPod and iTunes system.

How often do you add new music to your iPod?  I find that I only add music a couple of times a month.

Also, with iOS5, iTunes now wirelessly syncs.  Can you do that?

[Chuck]

I use the USB port on my computer to charge the iPod, it wants to sync every time I charge it.
My iPod doesn't use iOS 5. I'm limited to 4.2.1

[fleish]

It wants to sync what exactly? I don't have a touch, but I've always had my iPods set to manage music/videos manually and don't think it's done a "sync" each time it's connected.