Which syncing program?

[reverendbert]

Which would you use?

[aussie_017]

Media Monkey is awesome, my favourite parts are that you can add album art from amazon and that you can randomly generate one CD worth of music from your entire collection with one click

[eagle69]

I never really sync either use Iriverplus or just drag and drop songs

[reverendbert]

I like the album art so WMP11

[juliobossi]

Yes, i like album Art but nothing can beat UMS Power ^^
Also, WMP11 is not very good for Album art on my computer ... album arts are displayed randomly on my X20 (sometimes it's ok, sometimes not) so i use an extra software for album art

[reverendbert]

@Juliobossi
I agree but I really like Album Art...

[adamk]

Okay, techno-idiot, here. I've been using MediaMonkey and have been quite happy with it (although my attempts to use the album art function all ended in abject failure) but recently I've discovered a glitch that the MM forum, despite repeated postings on my part, seem unable to resolve: I use rockbox on my ihp140, and once created a playlist using WinAmp (not even sure how I managed that) with something like 200 songs on it. Problem is, whenever I synch my player with my hard drive, MM started creating duplicates of each song on the playlist, with the suffix "_2" (this, inexplicably, recently became "_1"). It didn't matter when I had plenty of room on the player -- I'd just go, search for all the files with that suffix and delete them. Now that my player's filling up, however, the duplicates often stop the synch from happening, claiming there's not enough room. It's becoming really irritating, and I'm thiinking of using another program, but have no idea which one or even how I'd use them. Could someone give me some suggestions? If I'm in the wrong part of the forum, I'm willing to go where I should. Thanks loads.

[BallaAce]

Iriver plus 3 FTW!

[Wogatronik]

I don't realy sync other than when I sync videos which i use iriver plus 3.

[ShyAnne]

Voted "Other" because I've tried 'em all and don't always use the same ones, sometimes use none at all. Each has its advantages/disadvantages.

WMP 10 isn't as bad as it's reputation, but not great either. Tried WMP 11 but rolled back to 10 because 11 was a bit slower and didn't really add anything even though it's bigger and more bloated. Both versions have a sometimes-problem of randomly refusing to transfer a song or two, insisting the file is "protected" and WMP "cannot verify the license". Well duh, maybe it can't "verify the license" because all my digital music is ripped from CDs with EAC and none of it is "protected". I don't use subscription services and don't buy low bit rate DRM-infected crap. WMP (both 10 and 11) do this randomly, one day a song will transfer just fine but next transfer the very same file will be refused, and it's never the same file. Doesn't happen very often though.

Tried Media Monkey and it's OK. But honestly it looks and behaves so very much like WMP that it seems people use it just to avoid WMP. It does not have the problem of sometimes refusing to transfer a file, but it does have the problem of sometimes mysteriously creating duplicates for no particular reason. Just like WMP, it doesn't do it all the time, just sometimes. Intermittent problems are the toughest to figure out.

WinAmp used to be good but the newest version is big and bloated, though not as much as WMP. Lots of really great skins but the novelty of that wears thin pretty quickly. Unlike WMP and Media Monkey it transfers fine, but sometimes WinAmp crashes for no particular reason and again it's nothing repeatable but it happens on two different computers with two different configurations.

I like iriver Plus3. Much smaller and simpler than the others, it never refuses to transfer and never crashes. Designed for UMS devices, so it won't work with any that are in MTP mode. I also like Windows Explorer, and with my UMS players usually just drag and drop folders, then open up iriver Plus3 to create a few playlists. It can be used that way, just to quickly create playlists on an almost-full player rather than to transfer files. Using Explorer alone is fine for those who either have small collections or very organized large collections.

[melodyh40]

I use a little program called Allway Sync. It really has nothing to do with music; it can be used to sync up your data files from your computer to memory stick, for example. Great for backing up data or taking student assignments home for marking (in my case). Works every time, and has an "Analyze" feature which tells you what it's going to change/delete/whatever before you do it. I think it's sweet.