iPhone and Coverflow and iTunes Store

[dafinity]

Hello All,
New owner of 1.1.2 unlocked iPhone, and now forced to use iTunes to get my music on the phone.

Issue is, only a few covers were found for my full, tagged albums.

iTunes says I must create an account to 'get album artwork' from iStore.

Is this going to cost me to join or download my covers? it does ask for credit card details to join.

Is there any worry about iTunes or the Store messing with my hundreds of albums with their protection (i think its called DRM)

Finally - many of my full albums have been messed up by iTunes for example albums have been split up and each single track appears as its own album - is there any way to merge these single tracks back into their album?

Many thanks for help and advice,
Russ

[spl23]

Originally Posted by dafinity

Hello All,
New owner of 1.1.2 unlocked iPhone, and now forced to use iTunes to get my music on the phone.

Issue is, only a few covers were found for my full, tagged albums.

iTunes says I must create an account to 'get album artwork' from iStore.

Is this going to cost me to join or download my covers? it does ask for credit card details to join.

Is there any worry about iTunes or the Store messing with my hundreds of albums with their protection (i think its called DRM)

Finally - many of my full albums have been messed up by iTunes for example albums have been split up and each single track appears as its own album - is there any way to merge these single tracks back into their album?

Many thanks for help and advice,
Russ

You can delete the credit card details from an ITMS account once you have opened it, and it doesn't cost anything to download album art.

ITMS cannot apply DRM to your existing files - it won't touch them. It only applies DRM to tracks you purchase from the Store itsellf.

Make sure that all your ID3 tags are clean - that each file only has either a 1.1 or a 1.2 tag, not both, and make sure that the Album field is exactly the same for each track in an album. You can use iTunes own Get Info command to check this.

[ahin4114]

Hi Russ

The iTunes account won't cost you anything, you simply sign up and give some basic details. I think you have to give billing details, but they don't charge you for anything.

Don't worry about the DRM, it's only applied to purchased tracks (not iTunes plus tracks which are DRM free). Though I think that tracks that you rip via iTunes may be associated with your machine. I always rip using MP3@192kbps so that the tracks remain portable.

As for the tracks appearing in separate albums, if they're from different artists this can happen. When you look at the track info, there is a compilation option, this will ensure that the tracks are treated as one album. Also worth checking is the Album Artist field. If you have tracks from a solo artist album, where they are collaborating with another artist, then the artist name will have both names in it. Ensure that the album artist field for all the tracks on the album is consistent and iTunes will group them appropriately.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy your iPhone.

Tony

[dafinity]

Terrific replies from you both which answer my queries exactly..

Many thanks
Russ